twentyforty – Utopias for a Digital Society

What will tomorrow be made of? This very old question may have found a new kind of answer. Twentyforty – Utopias for a Digital Society is a collection of thirteen stories written by researchers working in a variety of fields ranging from artificial intelligence to law and geography. It is, first and foremost, an unlikely experiment in science communication: We invited scholars to discover a new interface with the world, namely that of their own imagination. This was not an obvious endeavor. The authors had to break free from the “peer prison” in which they normally speak and write. They had to take a leap of faith to look beyond the horizon, wrestle with the blank page, and bring back something new. Something born from the same inquisitive mind that had produced their own research but speaking to another kind of peer: you and me. Twentyforty is an experiment designed to explore new ways of translating scientific insights into storytelling. Only thus can we hope to make their societal implications available to debate and to make their insights available for the construction of tomorrow’s world.