Working Futures

14 Speculative Stories About The Future Of Work

"These thought-provoking visions of tomorrow offer compelling, fresh perspectives on how automation is shaping our economy and culture." — Eliot Peper, author of Bandwidth

Artificial intelligence. Virtual reality. Genetic engineering. These and other technologies are changing the way we live—and the way we work. What will our jobs be like in a future marked by such radical change?

In Working Futures, science fiction authors share possible answers to that question. From surveillance auditors to AI chaperones to high-tech trash collectors, the workers found in these speculative stories provide a glimpse of what our future might look like—perhaps sooner than we think.

With stories by Keyan Bowes, Katharine Dow, Timothy Geigner, Liam Hogan, Christopher Alex Hooton, Andrew Dana Hudson, Randy Lubin, Mike Masnick, Ross Pruden, N. R. M. Roshak, Holly Schofield, and James Yu

Learn More & Get The Game

The Working Futures project brings together people with a variety of backgrounds and outlooks, along with experts in critical fields, to map out potential scenarios for the future of work. Then we take those secenarios and pass them along to science fiction writers, who use them as springboards for short stories exploring various possible futures.

As part of this process, we developed a scenario-planning card game that helps design future scenarios based on technological, economic, political and cultural driving forces. You can order your own copy of the custom Working Futures card deck below, or contact us if you're interested in running a scenario-planning event.