FutureStack

what are you wearing to The Singularity?

Apr 21, 2024

Hello time-travellers,

It is I, Amy K, greeting you from the past, meeting you in the present, to talk to you about the future. I feel I'm quite equipped to dialogue with you on this topic, for several reasons.

One, you may know I grew up with a father who is a futurist, which means I know all of your fates. Being a futurist is not the same as being a psychic. So a futurist knows you will become a cyborg eventually, they just don't know exactly when and whether or not you will use your cyborg powers to solve climate change or turn everyone into paper clips.

Two, I am just now returning from a week at the TED conference in Vancouver, where the word "AI" was said 331 times on stage (someone counted). I said it five of those times. (I'm so sorry.) Other things I learned about this week were: Vertical Farming (it's happening, just give the scientists involved money), Fusion (it's happening, just give the scientists involved a lot of money), Extra-Terrestrial Life (it's probably out there, just give the scientists involved a lot, like A LOT, of money, and also time), Quantum Computing (it's both happening and not happening, I think... either way, give the scientists involved money), and Quadratic Funding (it's happening, just not for artists). The future is weird folks! And funny.

What I'm trying to say is... shh, don't look now, but, The Singularity is... standing right in front of you!

Bring in the future toons!

-Amy

Colin Tom

Whatever the future holds, fashion will thrive in the post-apocalyptic world, peaking in a very chic, steampunk meets leather bar, meets carnivale kind of way. That's when the ugly, plain Jane meteor will want to hit us--out of jealousy.

Navied Mahdavian

Of bees, Einstein famously said, "If the bee disappeared off the face of the Earth, man would only have four years left to live." Less well known is the fact that Einstein was in fact 10,000 bees in a trenchcoat.

Lynn Hsu

Give me a time machine, and I’ll venture to the past to prevent global catastrophes, eradicate diseases, and most importantly, settle an old score with some mean girl bullies in my sixth-grade class. I’ve spent decades crafting a comeback and now I’m finally ready. No one makes fun of my hand-me-down shirts and knickerbockers from Sears! No one!

Jason Chatfield

I always wish I could travel forward in time to ask my future self about all the mistakes I'm about to make (usually drawings I wasted time on) and then go back and say "Hey, don't draw that!" If my future self had a sit-down with my current self and gave me a set of job interview-style questions, would I get anything right? The best case scenario is Future me pressing a big button on my phone and saying "Cancel my afternoon". (I assume I finally get a job with a button phone in the future.)
All that is to say, I'm writing this in the past, but you're reading it now. Five minutes in the future, you'll forget this entire paragraph.

Hilary is hosting a Dance Party in Bushwick on May 9th!
Check out Navied Mahdavian’s critically acclaimed graphic memoir, This Country: Searching for Home in (Very) Rural America.
Check out Amy Kurzweil graphic memoir Artificial: A Love Story. Amy teaches cartoon classes on Patreon! Sign up now to get the recording of every past class!
Jason Chatfield has a new Substack about making art called Process Junkie! And Subscribe to Jason’s regular weekly Substack at NewYorkCartoons.com
Sofia Warren's got an advice column! Read it here.
See more cartoons by Lynn Hsu @loopyline

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