“It seems, just now,/ To be happening so very fast.” So wrote Philip Larkin in 1972 of the loss of the English countryside.

Fifty years later, we might say the same thing of the whole world – not only in terms of environmental crisis but of technological progress, with artificial intelligence, genetic engineering, and cybernetics promising to change our world – and ourselves – beyond recognition. It just seems to be happening so very fast.

Some are excited about the prospect, some see only doom, and most of us are simply confused.

In this episode of Reading our Times, Nick Spencer talks to cosmologist, BBC Reith lecturer, and Astronomer Royal Martin Rees about his book On the Future: Prospects for Humanity