Ah. There's the Future.

They wanted to make a splash at a San Francisco Ai convention. They also weren't kidding.

As a kid in the 1960s, we got sold a lot of future. In fairness, the future was moving incredibly fast back then and speculation was irresistible. If we could send men to the moon in less than 10 years, what else was going to happen in our lifetimes?

Then things slowed down pretty quick. The future didn't have the whimsy of the Jetsons or the dystopia of Soylent Green, and with the notable exception of cell phones, everyday life remained undramatic and recognizable.

Last year it felt like the future finally arrived, fully realized and packing all the sci-fi tropes. Ai looks ready to fulfill pretty much any promise and warning, and a new political class seems willing to promote dystopia as long as they get to rule it.

And just for fun, in a secret ballot of the world's top quantum physicists, 30% now believe that a multiverse — a potentially infinite number of parallel universes in which infinite versions of you are making every choice you didn't make — is the most logical explanation for everything.

May you live in interesting times, as they say.