Foresight Friday: Simar Deol, foresight analyst

Every Friday, The Future Laboratory team offer an end-of-week wrap-up of the topics, issues, ideas and virals we’re all talking about. This week, foresight analyst Simar Deol discusses a heart-warming AI innovation, a retro Chanel pop-up store and a nightmare fast fashion partnership.

: In the crowded marketplace of AI tools, very few feel deeply meaningful to me. That was until I came across Earth Species Project’s new work that will use AI to decode the language of whales. The non-profit organisation aims to eventually open human ears to how the entire animal kingdom communicates so we can take better care of it. One more reason to be AI-optimistic

: It has been a while since I’ve been lured into a pop-up shop for the sake of the experience, but Chanel’s Williamsburg pop-up diner has me in a chokehold. Pastel-coloured walls, vending machines, soft serves and takeaway gifts in a space reminiscent of Florence Pugh’s Don’t Worry Darling home? Sign me up.

: If you had to take two of fashion’s most problematic brands and partner them up in a dystopian our-Earth-is-burning sci-fi film, you’d probably pick Shein and Forever 21. Except, this isn’t a film; devastatingly, it is our reality.