Institute for Futures Studies

Institutet för framtidsstudier
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Independent research foundation. We conduct research on issues of great importance for our future.

  1. This is How We Halve Premature Deaths by 2050, with Ole F. Norheim

    FEB 10

    This is How We Halve Premature Deaths by 2050, with Ole F. Norheim

    This presentation asks whether halving premature death by 2050 is feasible – and explores ethical issues in defining and attempting to reach such a target. Premature death is defined here as death before age 70 years. In an earlier study we examined the large variation in premature death rates before age 70 and trends over the past 50 years, covering ten world regions and the 30 most-populous nations, and we concluded that nations that choose to do so can achieve this goal. We did not, however, justify the age cut-off, examine the implications for mortality in old age, or discuss the mortality impact of climate change and global warming. This presentation will explore these ethical issues in more detail.If you wish to receive our newsletters, and invitations to our seminars, subscribe here.Research seminar with Ole F. Norheim, Mary B. Saltonstall Professor of Ethics and Population Health at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, as well as Adjunct Professor of Medical Ethics at University of Bergen.

    1h 6m
  2. What it Will Take to Settle Mars, with Natuschka Lee

    FEB 6

    What it Will Take to Settle Mars, with Natuschka Lee

    What could be more futuristic on Earth than to discuss about mankind’s possibility to become a multiplanetary species in the universe? Tech visionaries like Elon Musk claim that it would become possible to send 1 million people to planet Mars within the next 2 decades. In response to this, 59 researchers, representing multidisciplinary fields from astronomy, biology, engineering, medicine, law, economy, AI, politics to humanities, have recently published a book that critically and constructively reviews the current visions on colonization of Mars. Dr. Natuschka Lee, one of the contributing researchers, will present a summary of this book and initiate discussions from various perspectives. Research seminar with Natuschka Lee, microbiologist and an astrobiologist, with a PhD degree in Biotechnology from Lund University, with many years of research experience in Germany and in Sweden. She is a former fellow of Swedish Collegium of Advanced Science and the Alexander von der Humboldt Foundation. Today, she is a researcher at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Uppsala. If you wish to receive our newsletters, and invitations to our seminars, subscribe here.

    1h 26m
  3. Will Democracy Withstand the Climate Crisis? with Daniel Lindvall, PhD

    JAN 28

    Will Democracy Withstand the Climate Crisis? with Daniel Lindvall, PhD

    In an era of climate change and geopolitical turbulence democracy faces many challenges. Drawing on his research and recent book, Climate Change and the Endurance of Democracy (Routledge, open access), Lindvall will examine how disasters and extreme weather events have historically affected human reasoning and political agency, and how the climate crisis may shape the future of democratic governance. He will show how such events can contribute to democratic backsliding, but also how they may create new opportunities for social mobilization and democratic revitalization.Research seminar with Daniel Lindvall, researcher in sociology at the Institute for Futures Studies and at the Climate Leadership Initiative at the Department of Earth Sciences, Uppsala University. His research areas are climate and energy transition. Author of the books Folkstyret i rädslans tid and Upphettning - demokratin i klimatkrisens tid. Daniel has been the main secretary for several government investigations such as the 2014 Democracy Investigation.If you wish to receive invitations to our seminars via email, subscribe here. https://www.iffs.se/en/about-us/newsl...

    1h 22m

  4. 12/08/2025

    AI and Climate Change – the Good, the Bad, the Ugly, with Victor Galaz

    In this episode Victor Galaz, Associate Professor in Political Science at the Stockholm Resilience Centre, dives deep into what artificial intelligence might mean for climate change. AI is often discussed as a potential “game changer” for climate change action. One key issue in this conversation focuses on the growing energy, water and carbon footprint of AI, and ways to mitigate these footprints. While important, this debate has failed to grasp the wider impacts of “AI” in the climate and sustainability domain, thus leading to a failure to fully grasp – and thus govern – these technologies impacts. In this talk, I will explore the complex and at times deep indirect impacts of AI on climate action and policy. These relate to 1) “AI” as a scientific method (e.g., driving new advances in the climate sciences); 2) “AI” as a consumer product (e.g., embedded in digital products used by people on a daily basis like chatbots and messenger apps); 3) “AI” as a growing and influential political actor (thus shaping climate policies, environmental legislation, and carbon markets). Victor Galaz is Associate Professor in Political Science at the Stockholm Resilience Centre at Stockholm University, and at the Beijer Institute for Ecological Economics, at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Sign up to our newsletter to get invitations to upcoming seminars, events and the latest news from the frontiers of Futures Studies.

    1h 23m

  5. 10/29/2025

    A conversation with Lea Ypi: Indignity - A Life Reimagined

    We welcome back Lea Ypi, professor and award-winning author of the book Free: Coming of Age at the End of History. Now she returns to present her new book, Indignity: A Life Reimagined. In this work, she investigates the truth about her family's past by tracing the steps of her grandmother through the vanished world of Ottoman aristocracy, the making of modern Greece and Albania, a global financial crisis, the horrors of war and the dawn of communism in the Balkans. Indignity is both about Ypi's personal journey, and about survival in an age of extremes, about what we can truly know about those closest to us, and about the moral authority with which we can judge the acts of previous generations. Moderator: Gustaf Arrhenius, professor of practical philosophy and director of the Institute for Futures Studies. If you are curious about Lea's research for this new book, listen to the talk she gave in our research seminar series in 2023. If you are interested in listening to the conversation Lea had with Gustaf on her book Free, click here.

    1h 1m

  6. 10/20/2025

    Jason Tucker: Why We Need to Talk About the Global Politics of AI and Healthcare

    Artificial Intelligence (AI) is frequently promoted as a solution to a broad range of global healthcare challenges. However, behind this promise lies a more complex reality. The development and deployment of AI in healthcare is increasingly intertwined with geopolitical tensions, power asymmetries, and structural dependencies that carry real-world consequences. This seminar examines the most pressing areas where global politics is shaping the current and future role of AI in healthcare. It does so by drawing on the conceptual and empirical findings from Dr. Jason Tucker’s ongoing research project, The Politics of AI and Health: From Snake Oil to Social Good. Research seminar with Jason Tucker, researcher at the Institute for Futures Studies and an Adjunct Associate Professor at the AI Policy Lab, the Department of Computing Science, Umeå University. He is also a Visting Research Fellow at AI & Society, the Department of Technology and Society, LTH, Lund University.

    1h 15m

  7. 10/13/2025

    Artificial General Intelligence: A Manifesto, with Anandi Hattiangadi

    The race is on to produce artificial general intelligence (AGI)—machines that are at least as intelligent as humans—despite widespread concern that an AGI would pose an existential threat to humankind. The fundamental problem is that much research on AGI is premised on the mistaken assumption that for a machine to be as intelligent as a human requires no more than that it produces intelligent behaviour. So, what is most likely to happen in the near future is that we will create an ersatz-AGI: a machine that is capable of mimicking intelligent behaviour, without having the capacities constitutive of human intelligence—most notably, without any capacity for moral action. In order to develop a true AGI, we need to revisit philosophical questions about the nature and requirements of distinctively human intelligence. The trouble is that the existing philosophical models of human cognition have major shortcomings. I sketch a novel account of the nature of distinctively human intelligence, and a blueprint for the construction of a true and moral AGI: a machine with the cognitive capacities constitutive of human intelligence, including the capacity for moral action. Research seminar with Anandi Hattiangadi, professor of philosophy at Stockholm University and a researcher at the Institute for Futures Studies. She is currently an affiliated researcher at the Institute of Philosophy, University of London, where she is a participant in the AI and Humanity Project. Sign up to our newsletter Upcoming seminars

    1h 35m

  8. 10/09/2025

    Lea Ypi on Indignity - Can Beauty Save the World? - Injustice, Reconciliation, Aesthetic Education

    'Beautiful world! Where hast thou gone?" asks Friedrich Schiller in his famous poem The Gods of Greece. He laments the loss of harmony in a world divided by injustice both past and present. In this lecture, Lea Ypi reads from her forthcoming book on human dignity. In it, she reflects on the relationship between politics and art by focusing on historical injustice and its legacy in a divided world. Through the life of her grandmother, Leman Ypi, she travels from the utopia of classical Greek unity described by Schiller to the dystopia of her own past. A journey that begins in 1918 in Saloniki a few years before the fall of the Ottoman Empire, and ends in 2005 in Tirana, just over a decade after the fall of communism.Research seminar from 2024 with Lea Ypi, Professor in Political Theory at the London School of Economics and Political Science and an Honorary Professor in Philosophy at the Australian National University. Watch also: Lea Ypi in conversation with Gustaf Arrhenius: On democracy and freedom with the author of "Free"

    1h 47m
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About

Independent research foundation. We conduct research on issues of great importance for our future.

Information

  • Creator
    Institutet för framtidsstudier
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    22
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Institutet för framtidsstudier
  • Show Website
    Institute for Futures Studies