Our attempts to see what the future holds can be grouped into two broad categories: prediction and foresight. Prediction is based on understanding of the factors that determine a system’s behaviour, and how they affect each other. We can then predict how the state of that system will evolve given changes in one or more of its underlying factors and thus forecast its state at some date in the future.

Those predictions may be precise or fuzzy, depending on the quality of the data and the tractability of the system in question: simple physical systems are generally more predictable than complex social systems. In the latter domain, brains may outperform computers, and so attempts are being made to better understand and improve human-made predictions, whether made by individual superforecasters or by many people aggregated through prediction markets. At the same time, the range of tractable systems is being expanded through increasingly sophisticated modelling and simulation.

Sometimes, we can be confident that our prediction is broadly correct and a single outcome is highly likely. However, one of the key principles in futures studies is that the future paradoxically cannot be predicted. Exact prediction of the future is always more about probabilities than sheer accuracy. There may be many distinct and plausible outcomes, and these may vary significantly. In such cases, we have to exercise foresight — a collective term for an approach and methods of gathering information relevant to these outcomes, exploring their ramifications and interconnections, as well as deliberating their preferability. In many cases, for example regarding climate change, geopolitical conflicts or lifestyle changes, the focus of foresight could be on exploring widely possible, even unexpected futures, not only probable futures. This activity can be carried out “top-down”, as in strategic foresight, or “bottom-up”, as in participatory futures.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Efforts to anticipate what the future holds are fraught with difficulty but can be successful, as the growth of Superforecasting and prediction markets has shown. These provide a synthesis of many types of information, resulting in useful outcomes. Computational efforts in anticipation rely on high-performance Modelling and simulation that attempt to discern how our interconnected physical, biological and socio-economic processes, cycles and networks play out, and will be vital to tackling the grand challenges faced by humanity in the 21^st century. Also important is the development of Scenarios and foresight methods, which use narratives and imagery to assist anticipation efforts. The impact of all of this research can be deepened through the development of Participatory futures and futures literacy that helps communities and organisations to understand how to think about the future and to engage with activities related to it.