By Pedro Couto
Throughout history, humanity has been fascinated by the question of what the future might hold. Some have thought the problems of their time would be resolved, solutions ushered in by the arrival of new technologies. Others, in light of said technologies, have not seen the future in such a hopeful light. As we look back on history, we see that this worry and foresight into the problems of the future, as well as its solutions, was such a concern that humanity has even attempted to predict its end countless times in many apocalyptic myths or prophecies.
Dystopian literature, as a result, has become increasingly popular, as the idyllic hopes for the age of information and its promises have continually been crushed by wars, mass surveillance, and the manipulation of the populace with what the Roman poet Juvenal coined, ‘bread and circuses’. From the classic dystopian novels of the 20th century: Brave New World, 1984, and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep to newer titles in the 21st century like The Hunger Games and Ready Player One, and even in shows and movies such as Black Mirror. Dystopian literature is incredibly useful for our reflection on the trajectory and likely problems our society will face as a consequence of developments in technology, cultural attitudes, and politics (to name the three biggest), and during a year that has felt as turbulent as 2026 has, it seems all the more pressing to consider what the trajectory and likely problems our societies will run into. It is also notable that in the late 1950s there was a comic strip of an American Newspaper titled Closer than We Think, which was designed to illustrate ideas of how technology would change in the future (for the better in their eyes), and it is from such panels we get predictions of flying cars and the like.
Here, I wish to do something similar to that old comic strip, though not quite as cheery, and present what dystopian omens the future seems to hold both technologically and culturally. I look out into what I perceive to be problems already in 2026, with the aim to present these to you, dear reader, in order that you may reflect on my fantastical notions and consider whether these are real possibilities or not; and most importantly whether the problems that suggest them are problems at all, and if they are, how we may go about doing things differently.
Law by AI — The first thing on anyone’s mind when I bring up the future and its dark road is likely the use of Artificial Intelligence and especially Generative AI, which is exponentially developing and becoming more and more prevalent. There are many things AI will likely be used for in the future and already is. One I have seen people discuss the least, and I think is one of the most important, is that generative AI will have the potential to effortlessly produce forgeries of legal documents, anything from contracts to witness statements, etc. This risk has already been acknowledged by the International Bar Association (https://www.ibanet.org/authenticity-of-disclosed-documents-and-AI), yet the recommended way forward seems to me likely to be ineffective in stopping the use of AI in forging documents or in detecting its use preventatively. As such, we may expect a future in which the courts are run by attorneys and prosecutors alike, wielding AI to fabricate evidence for their own case so as to better compete with their opposition and in which increasingly the truth becomes irrelevant in court, but guilt is instead weighed on the attractiveness of the stories told by lawyer and machine together. Further, we may expect for innocent people to be accused with such evidence used against them, and for the guilty to defend themselves by claiming that real evidence is a fabrication of AI — which of course would lead to massive delays in justice to try to authenticate the legality of these documents (if AI will even be capable of being detected then). Even if AI becomes further regulated or less accessible to the common public, which seems to be the direction in which legislators are prepared to take, who does this benefit? Will not the state or companies be the ones with access to this technology? So the monster we call AI looms its ugly shadow over our destinies all the more, and we would be wise to beware of its coming.
Plurality in fragments. With regard to our wider culture in the future, there have been many worries about eugenics as gene editing technologies advance and the worries of the banality and meaninglessness of sex as society becomes ever increasingly more licentious. Personally, I do not feel threatened by these things; if anything, these worries have been so at the forefront of legislators’ minds and the general public that these aspects of culture and applications of technology have, in large part, been restrained. Instead, a much more threatening and looming danger can be foreseen and, in a dystopian world, is likely to be taken to its extreme; this threat being the fragmentation of society leading to, in its extreme, civil war(s). What I mean by fragmentation is that people in the 21st century, especially, but not limited to, the West, are differing more and more on their opinions, beliefs, and traditions, and so the cohesive shared vision of a healthy society — at least one that is well-ordered — is becoming a distant memory (before it is forgotten completely). If it were just disagreement, this could be tolerated — after all, humans have always disagreed and will continue to do so; I am not trying to suggest that every society ought to be a monolith. Rather, the danger emerges from precisely the intolerance of disagreement, whether on political, religious, or even ethno-cultural lines.
This intolerance first begins as hostile conversation, which quickly censors any kind of conversation that dares disagree with the status-quo in a particular context (this may be a small group of friends or a superpowered nation). The status quo then becomes moral law, incapable of being questioned lest one suffer the pain of complete character death. And after character death comes real physical death, since aggression and hostile opposition to disagreements do not persuade anyone of their oppressor’s cause but strengthen the conviction of their persecuted beliefs. The final stage is violence reproducing violence and, as such, the breaking out of a civil war. With the rise of social media, cancel culture, and a time of general political unrest, it seems evidently clear that no matter your politics, your religion, or anything else you believe, there are people online and perhaps even in person who not only disagree with you but would call for your death because of what you believe. If we as a species cannot learn to communicate without the threat of violence or censure, then we will be led into the dark; into a future in which countries break out in schismatic wars over political ideology, religious beliefs and even traditions of culture, thus creating a world in which plurality — which would be the ideal of tolerance despite disagreement — is itself fragmented into many tiny tribes all perpetually at war with their moral enemies.
Extinction of Cultural Diversity. We can further imagine a future in which the rise of globalisation, supercharged by social media, civil wars and unrest, creates a monoculture or the death of many different cultures worldwide as those that are militarily or economically weaker fail to have enough power to exert themselves into the global zeitgeist. We are seeing this already today as American media is unquestionably dominant with no real competition — whether it be Hollywood, TikTok influencers, or news stations — the whole world seems to revolve around American communication. What’s more, communication (especially repeated communication) inspires thought, beliefs, and values, and as American communication is globally widespread, so are American thoughts, beliefs, and values, such as the necessity of individuality, of liberal freedom, and also of consumerism en masse. Therefore, it follows that if this trend continues, the world itself will be American eventually, and with that, no longer a diverse ecosystem of variable history, ideals, and traditions. I leave it to you, the reader, to decide whether this is a good or bad thing and whether diversity is itself a cause worth fighting for. Nonetheless, I do consider this lack of diversity dystopian in so far as it is removed from what has been the natural order of human history up to this point.
Hopeful Note. If you are someone who gets anxious or overwhelmed with bad news, then this article probably hasn’t done you much good. So here’s a final note to help ease you out of the depression of worrying about the future. In the same way that many things become worse with the rise of technology and developments in culture, many things will also become better. The purpose of dystopias is to help reflect on the challenges we are currently facing so they do not lead to problems in the future, yet it is important to note that dystopias never come to fruition as we think they will. Orwell’s totalitarian state as in 1984 never came true (though many problems involving mass surveillance have become reality), nor did Huxley’s Brave New World or the Hunger Games. This is because while the human condition is doomed by many misfortunes to worsen the lives of many, it is also filled with the hopeful striving towards the betterment of those very same lives. We may foresee a future in which cures to cancers are found, climate technology advances and the air we breathe is cleaner, in which education and medicine is more readily available, and many more such developments. All these things are just as possible as the omens discussed in this article, so hold onto this hope and consider the possible evils only insofar as we think about how to make a difference now, so as with the dystopias of these great writers, they may never come to reality.
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