The Founder's Entry

1. As civilisation enters its next great technological evolution, what is your greatest hope?

My greatest hope is that humanity and our planet survive the convergence of artificial superintelligence, climate impacts, social instability, economic disruption, wars and deadly disease outbreaks long enough to benefit from what advanced AI could offer.

I hope we can use that intelligence to help resolve these pressures, improve living conditions and create a future where technological progress benefits ordinary people across the world.

2. What is your greatest concern?

My greatest concern is the speed at which all of this is happening. Technology may advance faster than our governments, institutions and communities can adapt.

We are placing considerable hope in artificial superintelligence helping us solve our other problems. But people could lose their livelihoods and security before those benefits reach them. My concern is whether we can manage that transition without widespread hardship and instability.

3. What would you tell future generations in 2050?

If you are reading this in 2050, I hope we made it through this period with our humanity intact.

I hope humans, AI and advanced robotics are working alongside one another, both on Earth and in space. I hope space travel has opened new opportunities, shortened journeys around our planet and allowed us to begin exploring and using resources beyond Earth.

Above all, I hope that progress has improved everyday life. That severe illnesses once considered untreatable can now be treated. That medicines are affordable or freely available. That older people can retire with dignity, supported by governments and by the corporations benefiting from greater automation.

I hope you live in a more united world, where ordinary citizens have a direct and meaningful say in the decisions leaders make on their behalf, including through accountable digital voting and proxy representation.

My message is simple: judge progress by how people live. A civilisation that can mine an asteroid should also be capable of feeding its people, caring for its sick and protecting its elderly. I hope poverty belongs to your history rather than your daily reality.

4. What specific developments do you predict will occur by 2050?

These are conditional predictions. They depend on humanity managing the technological transition without prolonged global conflict or severe institutional breakdown.

By 2050, I predict:

• Human spaceflight will extend beyond today's specialist crews, although access may remain expensive and unequal.
• AI and advanced robots will routinely work alongside humans across industry, healthcare, infrastructure and space operations.
• Missions will demonstrate the extraction or processing of resources from the Moon or asteroids, even if large-scale commercial operations remain under development.
• Space-based passenger transport will have been demonstrated or entered limited service, offering substantially shorter journeys on some long-distance routes.
• Some serious medical conditions considered difficult or impossible to treat in 2026 will have effective new treatments. Whether those treatments become affordable to everyone will depend on public policy as much as scientific progress.
• Some governments will introduce or substantially expand income support, retirement funding or ways to share the economic gains from automation.
• Some jurisdictions will give citizens a more direct role in public decisions through secure digital participation, voting or proxy representation.
• International cooperation will deepen in areas where countries cannot manage the risks alone, including AI, disease, climate and space activity.

My hope goes further than these predictions: the elimination of poverty and access to essential healthcare for everyone. I cannot honestly claim that either outcome is guaranteed by 2050.

5. What evidence or developments would make you reconsider your predictions?

I would become less optimistic if companies continued replacing people with AI and robotics without contributing meaningfully to their retraining, alternative income or retirement security—and governments proved unable to respond.

Sustained increases in unemployment, declining living standards and a growing concentration of wealth would challenge my expectation that technological progress will deliver broadly shared prosperity.

I would also reconsider my outlook if advances in medicine and food production stalled, or if improvements occurred but remained inaccessible to most people.

Government crackdowns on people protesting the loss of work or income would be a serious warning. So would the increasing use of AI and autonomous weapons to make warfare more frequent or destructive.

My space predictions would need revision if repeated technical failures, prohibitive costs or a lack of sustained investment prevented progress beyond demonstrations.

I would become more confident if the evidence showed the opposite: displaced workers gaining secure livelihoods, affordable treatments reaching more people, reliable food supplies improving, and governments protecting public participation while sharing the benefits of automation.

I want my predictions to remain open to evidence. Hope matters, but it must not prevent us from recognising when the world is moving in a different direction.