Institute for Futures Studies

We welcome back Lea Ypi, professor and award-winning author of the book Free: Coming of Age at the End of History. Now she returns to present her new book, Indignity: A Life Reimagined. In this work, she investigates the truth about her family's past by tracing the steps of her grandmother through the vanished world of Ottoman aristocracy, the making of modern Greece and Albania, a global financial crisis, the horrors of war and the dawn of communism in the Balkans. Indignity is both about Ypi's personal journey, and about survival in an age of extremes, about what we can truly know about those closest to us, and about the moral authority with which we can judge the acts of previous generations.

Moderator: Gustaf Arrhenius, professor of practical philosophy and director of the Institute for Futures Studies.

If you are curious about Lea's research for this new book, listen to the talk she gave in our research seminar series in 2023.

If you are interested in listening to the conversation Lea had with Gustaf on her book Free, click here.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is frequently promoted as a solution to a broad range of global healthcare challenges. However, behind this promise lies a more complex reality. The development and deployment of AI in healthcare is increasingly intertwined with geopolitical tensions, power asymmetries, and structural dependencies that carry real-world consequences. This seminar examines the most pressing areas where global politics is shaping the current and future role of AI in healthcare. It does so by drawing on the conceptual and empirical findings from Dr. Jason Tucker’s ongoing research project, The Politics of AI and Health: From Snake Oil to Social Good.

Research seminar with Jason Tucker, researcher at the Institute for Futures Studies and an Adjunct Associate Professor at the AI Policy Lab, the Department of Computing Science, Umeå University. He is also a Visting Research Fellow at AI & Society, the Department of Technology and Society, LTH, Lund University.

The race is on to produce artificial general intelligence (AGI)—machines that are at least as intelligent as humans—despite widespread concern that an AGI would pose an existential threat to humankind.

The fundamental problem is that much research on AGI is premised on the mistaken assumption that for a machine to be as intelligent as a human requires no more than that it produces intelligent behaviour. So, what is most likely to happen in the near future is that we will create an ersatz-AGI: a machine that is capable of mimicking intelligent behaviour, without having the capacities constitutive of human intelligence—most notably, without any capacity for moral action.

In order to develop a true AGI, we need to revisit philosophical questions about the nature and requirements of distinctively human intelligence. The trouble is that the existing philosophical models of human cognition have major shortcomings. I sketch a novel account of the nature of distinctively human intelligence, and a blueprint for the construction of a true and moral AGI: a machine with the cognitive capacities constitutive of human intelligence, including the capacity for moral action.

Research seminar with Anandi Hattiangadi, professor of philosophy at Stockholm University and a researcher at the Institute for Futures Studies. She is currently an affiliated researcher at the Institute of Philosophy, University of London, where she is a participant in the AI and Humanity Project.

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'Beautiful world! Where hast thou gone?" asks Friedrich Schiller in his famous poem The Gods of Greece. He laments the loss of harmony in a world divided by injustice both past and present. In this lecture, Lea Ypi reads from her forthcoming book on human dignity. In it, she reflects on the relationship between politics and art by focusing on historical injustice and its legacy in a divided world. Through the life of her grandmother, Leman Ypi, she travels from the utopia of classical Greek unity described by Schiller to the dystopia of her own past. A journey that begins in 1918 in Saloniki a few years before the fall of the Ottoman Empire, and ends in 2005 in Tirana, just over a decade after the fall of communism.Research seminar from 2024 with Lea Ypi, Professor in Political Theory at the London School of Economics and Political Science and an Honorary Professor in Philosophy at the Australian National University.

Watch also: Lea Ypi in conversation with Gustaf Arrhenius: On democracy and freedom with the author of "Free"

Healthcare systems can be categorised along the public/private axis into two main types: publicly administered systems and systems based on compulsory health insuranceprovided by the private sector. This study compares the efficiency of these two models across the 38 member countries of the OECD, utilising a broad spectrum of performance indicators developed by the OECD secretariat. On average, performance improves with an increase in healthcare budgets; however, further enhancements come at rising costs. There is no evidence supporting the hypothesis that transitioning from a publicly administered system to a privately dominated system will enhance efficiency. By contrast, there is strong evidence that overall efficiency increases with the public share of financing. These conclusions also hold true for the more restricted group of OECD countries in Europe.

Research seminar with Per Molander, PhD in control engineering and Bachelor's in mathematics, literature, etc. Throughout his career, he has worked on applying research in the political decision-making process within areas such as fiscal policy institutions, social insurance, environmental, and food policy. This has been done from various positions within and close to the Government Offices and as Director-General for Inspektionen för socialförsäkringen. He has also worked internationally as an advisor to, among others, the World Bank, IMF, and OECD.

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Upcoming seminars: https://www.iffs.se/en/calendar/

By facilitating access to information and educational materials for students, parents, and teachers alike, internet connectivity can help circumvent severe constraints on human capital accumulation in developing countries. At the same time, unequal access to this new technology risks reinforcing educational inequalities. This study investigates the effect of internet connectivity on educational outcomes and inequalities in Sub-Saharan Africa. To evaluate whether the expansion of mobile internet has contributed to improved literacy and numeracy among children in previously unconnected areas, we geographically match data on the spread of 3G/4G network coverage with literacy and numeracy assessments of over 300,000 children aged 6–16, surveyed in Tanzania and Uganda from 2013 to 2018. To identify the impact of the spread of internet coverage on child learning, we exploit the staggered 3G/4G expansion in the region, drawing on detailed spatial and temporal variation in both network coverage and survey roll-out. Preliminary results for Tanzania suggest, on average, 3–4 percentage points higher test scores among children following the introduction of mobile internet in the local area. For children aged 8–10, the estimated effect is larger – about 8–9 percentage points. The preliminary findings indicate stronger treatment effects in socio-economically disadvantaged groups, with encouraging implications for educational inequality. However, there is also evidence of weaker treatment effects for girls and for children living in female-headed households, highlighting persistent gender gaps in access to and uptake of the new technology.

Researchers involved with the project are Pelle Ahlerup, Dick Durevall and Ann-Sofie Isaksson.

Research seminar with Ann-Sofie Isaksson, researcher in development economics, based at the Institute for Futures Studies (IFFS) and at the University of Gothenburg. Her research interests and empirical work cover a broad range of issues, including aid effectiveness, institutional development, education, inequality, gender, and African economic development more broadly.

This recording is from a research seminar held at the Institute for Futures Studies, Stockholm, May 2025.

Moderator: Gustaf Arrhenius, professor of practical philosophy.

Research seminars are held at the institute most Wednesdays and are open to the public. Online participation possible. Sign up ⁠here to get invitations⁠. https://www.iffs.se/en/about-us/newsletter/

“Healthism” is the pervasive ideology according to which each of us is responsible for valuing and protecting our own health and prioritizing health over other values, while society has the right to enforce, surveil, and reward healthy living. Neurodiversity and other forms of cognitive difference are generally understood through the lens of health: they are taken as diagnosable pathological conditions that should be treated or mitigated via medical interventions. Putting these two ideas together, neurodivergent people are supposed to try to be “healthy,” through pharmaceuticals, behavioral therapy, and the like, and society has an investment in making them be “healthy.” But neurodivergence is not a morbidity in a typical sense, so it is unclear what “health” means in this context. In practice, our societal standards for health for neurodivergent people are defined in terms of what avoids disrupting neurotypical expectations and systems or making neurotypical people uncomfortable. “Health,” for neurodivergent people, is in effect respectability—it is not defined in terms of their own needs or flourishing but in relation to the norms and needs of others. This can be seen from a close reading of diagnostic definitions and official medical “treatment” methods and goals. Trying to “treat” neurodivergent people by making them respectable citizens who are palatable within neurotypical productivity culture is usually likely to backfire; typically bad for their own well-being, and a social loss.

Research seminar with Quill R. Kukla, Professor of Philosophy and Disability Studies at Georgetown University and fellow at the SOCRATES Institute at Leibniz Universität Hannover. Their work revolves around ethics (including bioethics, sexual ethics, health communication ethics, and science ethics), feminist and anti-oppression philosophy, philosophy of science (especially medicine and geography), philosophy of language, social epistemology, philosophy of place and urban theory, and aesthetics.

This recording is from a research seminar held at the Institute for Futures Studies, Stockholm, June 2025.

Moderator: Joe Roussos, philosopher.

Research seminars are held at the institute most Wednesdays and are open to the public. Online participation possible. Sign up ⁠here to get invitations⁠. https://www.iffs.se/en/about-us/newsletter/#neurodiversity

Balancing scholarly work with public debate is desirable but not always easy. How does one make a strong impact on the major issues of our time without losing weight and credibility as a researcher? One of Sweden's internationally most well-known researchers, and for many years the country's most frequent political scientist on DN Debatt, shares his experiences.

Recorded at the Institute for Futures Studies in November 2024.

Society’s everyday norms specify which behaviors are socially acceptable in which situations. How similar or different are everyday norms in societies around the world—and why? To answer these questions, we conducted the Global Study of Everyday Norms: a preregistered survey experiment with 25,000 participants in 90 countries.The study was designed to test the theory that everyday norms are determined by the concerns that a behavior elicits in a specific situation in interaction with society's sensitivity to that type of concern. Thus, it is a theory about how norms vary across societies and situated behaviors simultaneously. In this talk I will motivate the theory and present some of the rich results obtained in the Global Study of Everyday Norms.Global Social Norms website: https://www.globalsocialnorms.org/Kimmo Eriksson is a professor of mathematics/applied mathematics at Mälardalen University, and has a PhD in social psychology. He leads the global research network Global Social Norms (globalsocialnorms.org).

During Chesa Boudin's 2,5 years in office as San Francisco's elected district attorney, incarceration plummeted - the number of people in the county jail fell by approximately 40 percent. Meanwhile both violent and non violent crime rates fell by double digits. Some of these changes may have been accelerated by COVID and police behavior. Did San Francisco create a virtuous cycle where decreasing incarceration feeds into decreasing crime? More broadly, California has safely cut its prison population nearly in half as crime rates near modern lows. What lessons can we learn from San Francisco and California's successful decarceration?Welcome to a seminar with Chesa Boudin, the founding executive director of Berkeley’s Criminal Law & Justice Center, a policy and advocacy hub. He served as San Francisco’s elected district attorney from 2020 until 2022. During that time, Boudin implemented reforms to ensure that the criminal legal system delivered safety and justice for all. He significantly expanded the office’s victim services’ division; eliminated prosecutors’ use of moneybail; prosecuted police for excessive force; sued the manufacturers of ghostguns; expanded diversion to address root causes of crime, and reduced incarceration significantly. During his time in office both violent and non-violent crime fell by double digits. Prior to his election Boudin clerked for two federal judges and worked for years as a deputy public defender. He is a graduate of Yale college and Yale law school and attended Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship. His biological parents spent a combined 62 years in prison starting when he was a baby.Discussants Camila Salazar Atías, Senior specialist, destructive environments, FryshusetAmina Azhar, Federal Public Defender - Eastern District of CaliforniaCraig Haney, social psychologist, professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, a researcher on The Stanford Prison Experiment.Moderator: Jerzy Sarnecki, professor emeritus of general criminology at Stockholm University. His research area is mainly life cycle criminology and criminal networks.