This event was recorded live at Central Library on 9 October 2021

‘How did we get here? Where might we go?’ Is the future ‘a screen onto which we project our fantasies and terrors’? What can the past tell us about the future? Are we all doomed? And what’s gender got to do with it? Jeanette Winterson’s latest book 12 Bytes considers our relationship with AI, how it might develop and what we need to know. In Notes from an Apocalypse Mark O’Connell (To Be a Machine) spends time with preppers, rewilders and people who want to colonise Mars. Join us for what’s sure to be a fascinating discussion about what humanity might do next. Jeanette is the author of 10 novels for adults, as well as children’s books, screenplays and non-fiction, including the bestselling memoir Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? Mark’s first book To Be a Machine won the Wellcome Book Prize in 2018.

Presented in partnership with Centre for New Writing and Creative Manchester and hosted by writer Kate Feld.