A scientific approach to what is (probably) coming, stripped of ideological lenses and moral judgments.
Based on the interview with Sven Gábor Jánszky and Philip Hopf (HKCM), YouTube, November 9, 2025
Original German interview: YouTube – HKCM / Philip Hopf
More on Sven Gábor Jánszky: janszky.de
In this conversation, Germany’s best-known futurist, Sven Gábor Jánszky, talks with Philip Hopf about some of the most charged questions of our time:
- Who really shapes the future?
- Which technologies will transform everything?
- Why he says: “The first immortal human is already alive.”
Futurist Sven Gábor Jánszky outlines a technological roadmap for the next 50 years, emphasizing that corporate strategists, rather than politicians, primarily dictate our global trajectory. He predicts a society dominated by artificial intelligence and humanoid robots, suggesting that autonomous agents will soon outnumber the human population. The discussion highlights breakthroughs in longevity, where genetic engineering and organ printing could extend human lifespans to 150 years or even lead to digital immortality. Jánszky also explores transhumanism, envisioning a future where brain-computer interfaces and synthetic food production become standard. Despite concerns regarding surveillance and privacy, he maintains an optimistic outlook, viewing these disruptions as opportunities for increased human freedom and health. Overall, the source serves as an analytical forecast intended to help investors and leaders navigate a rapidly accelerating era of innovation.
The interview ranges across AI, robotics, longevity, transhumanism, the future of work, and the question of whether we are heading towards a dystopian control regime or towards a world with more freedom, health, and time.
Below is an edited, English version of the conversation, prepared for reading rather than listening. The content follows the original closely but has been lightly smoothed for clarity.
Opening
Philip Hopf:
Dear viewers, a few days ago I recorded a fantastic interview with Europe’s number-one futurist, Sven Gábor Jánszky. I came out of it – I still am – completely blown away by what he lays out and how he assesses the transformation of our societies over the next 3 to 8 years. Some of it is incredible, and some of it is – in my view – quite frightening.
Unfortunately, we had some technical issues during the recording, so the sound quality is not what I would have liked. I apologise for that. We’ll record another interview in future. But I still want to publish the content now so that you can all benefit from it. Enjoy.
Right now, artificial intelligence is taking over jobs while entire industries – especially the German automotive sector – are worrying about their future. China and the United States are fighting for technological dominance while Europe mostly watches from the sidelines. Between recession fears, the AI revolution, and geopolitical uncertainty, we are facing a central question:
What does our future really look like – and who will benefit from it?
To discuss this, I’m speaking with someone who, more than almost any other, spends his life looking ahead: Sven Gábor Jánszky, Germany’s most famous futurist and the author of several books about the world of tomorrow. He advises large corporates and politicians and, in his future studies, draws a clear – and sometimes uncomfortable – picture of where our societies and economies are headed.
Let’s dive in.
Who actually shapes the future?
Philip Hopf:
Welcome. My name is Philip Hopf. This is another HKCM interview – today with a very exciting guest: Sven Gábor Jánszky.
Mr. Jánszky, let me briefly introduce you to our viewers: You grew up in Budapest and East Germany and were already successful in GDR-era chess as a teenager. After the fall of the Wall you became a journalist and, at 23, the youngest news editor-in-chief of the ARD. Later, you left the public broadcasting system to connect with leading innovators around the world.
Today you are chairman of the largest German-language futures research institute and one of the most in-demand futurist speakers in Europe.
So here’s my first question to you:
In your view, who really determines our future – and who profits most from it?
Sven Gábor Jánszky:
The people who truly shape the long-term future – when we futurists say “future”, we usually mean the next 10 years – are mainly the strategists of the major market- and technology-driving companies in the world.
That means:
- Chief strategy officers
- Chief technology officers
- Sometimes chief innovation officers
In short, the people whose decisions today have more impact on the future than the decisions of most other people – or, put differently: the people whom others follow.
And this can be analysed surprisingly well with scientific methods. You can study what they are doing, where they invest, and which directions they push.
Why? Because these are people you can actually talk to. You can interview them. If you pick a given industry – A, B, or C – and you speak with the right 20 people, you will learn from them what that industry will likely look like in 5–10 years.
So: first, it’s about technology leaders. Second, it’s about those working in large, resource-strong, financially powerful companies.
Science fiction vs. scientific futures research
Philip Hopf:
We all know those cult sci-fi films that look 20, 30, even 40 years into the future – and they very often miss the mark.
Take Back to the Future: I watched it several times as a kid. The film shows the year 2015 – with flying cars and hovering skateboards. When we look around today, we don’t see that in our streets. There are individual prototypes, sure, but nothing like a social norm.
As a futurist, how do you distinguish between developments that are genuinely likely and those that are pure wishful thinking – at least along a timeline?
Sven Gábor Jánszky:
That’s an important question. To be honest: I’m not a science-fiction fan. I don’t write future novels, I don’t see myself as a visionary artist. A futurist is, above all, an analyst.
We analyse what those strategy leaders I mentioned are doing today – and where this is likely to lead in the coming years.
There is a big difference between scientific futures research and science fiction:
- Sci-fi authors also look at what will be technologically possible in 10–20 years.
- Then they build a story around it – with drama, heroes, villains, and so on.
What we futurists do differently is:
We don’t just look at what could be technologically possible – we look at what parts of that technology will actually be implemented and commercialised.
That’s why we talk to strategy leaders in large companies. It is largely up to them whether something is pushed into markets and into everyday life or not.
Take flying cars and hoverboards. Of course they exist as prototypes. But large, global key players have, for now, decided not to push them into the mass market.
Why? Because they don’t currently see them as big mass markets – or at least not as the most profitable ones. It’s simply easier to make a lot more money with other technologies.
So futurism is not about fantasy. It is about:
“From all the things that will be technically feasible, what is actually going to be brought into the world?”
For this there are scientific methods. In my institute we employ PhDs in futures research. You can study this – in Singapore, the US, Europe, Copenhagen, Berlin, and other places. And if you’ve done that, there’s a good chance you might end up with us, because we are currently the largest scientific futures research institute in Europe.
Our methods are based on in-depth interviews:
- We speak for about two hours with strategy, innovation, and technology executives.
- We ask: What are you doing? Why? What do you think will result from this – for your company, for society?
If we do this with 20 people in an industry, we end up with 20 detailed “mini-prognoses”. Then we compare them, synthesise them – and finally send them back to all 20 participants. They then rate the other 19 predictions: “Likely / unlikely”.
The result is:
Nothing a serious futurist claims is “made up in their own head”. It all comes from the heads of those strategy, technology, and innovation leaders.
This is – in most cases – the best and most probable way to forecast the next 5–10 years.
Of course, we are not fortune tellers. Nobody is. But we are also not talking about our personal opinions, desires, or moral views. We talk about what the most powerful actors – those who can push their visions into the world – are currently doing and planning.
Are AI and robotics
the
dominant themes?
Philip Hopf:
If you ask the average person – or even most media outlets – about “future technologies”, two words come up immediately: AI and robotics. These two themes seem to overshadow everything else.
If we look at data centres, capital flows, and the US stock market: a handful of AI-driven companies – the “Magnificent 7” – are still pulling the indices up, while many other stocks are already deep in the red.
Would you agree that AI and robotics are the two dominant themes for the next 10–15 years?
Sven Gábor Jánszky:
I’d say: AI and robotics will be the dominant themes in the next 2–3 years, maybe five. You’re right: they currently overshadow many other important developments – which also have huge dynamics, but are getting less attention because everyone is in an AI hype.
That hype is understandable: AI is a big technology shift. Investors and companies can make a lot of money if they position themselves well.
Let me first talk about AI – and then about other key technologies.
What shapes the world of investors and growth-oriented companies right now is that AI is getting “hands” – meaning robotics.
- AI is getting wheels: self-driving cars that already drive in normal city traffic in around 30 cities worldwide. The first European project is starting in Luxembourg.
- AI is getting wings or rotors: drones, notably in military contexts.
We scientists have been talking about AI since the 1950s. The first computers appeared in the 1940s. Since the 1950s, “artificial intelligence” has been a research field. None of this is truly new.
The key phenomenon is the speed of progress.
From about 1950 to 2012, we had Moore’s Law:
Every 24 months, computing power doubles at the same price.
That’s why mobile contracts often last two years – after that, your old phone is roughly half as powerful as the current one.
What many people missed: since around 2012, this has changed.
Computing performance now doubles roughly every 3.4 months, not every 24.
The reason is the rise of self-learning AI. Before 2012, everything had to be explicitly programmed. In 2012, at a conference in Toronto, so-called AlexNet models were presented – the first truly self-learning deep-learning systems. Since then, progress has accelerated dramatically.
In our forecasts we assume that around 2028, when quantum computers become truly usable for companies (today’s machines are still more like prototypes), the next step begins:
The doubling of computing power moves from every 3.4 months to about every 1.5 months – roughly every 6 weeks.
That is insane – and it drives everything:
- The AI we just discussed
- AI with wheels (self-driving cars)
- AI with hands (humanoid robots)
Humanoid robots are scheduled to hit the market around 2025/26:
- The first US models are announced at around $30,000 per unit.
- Others target $15,000–$20,000 as “household robots”.
- Chinese companies talk about $10,000, later even $5,000 or $2,000.
That means: this will become a mass market.
My prognosis – without nailing down an exact year – is that in 3–5 years there will be more humanoid robots than humans on this planet. And more AI agents than humans as well.
Most communication and transactions on this planet will then be between AI agents and robots, not between humans and humans, or humans and AIs.
That is why so much capital is currently being allocated into AI: because an entirely new economic space is being created – one that, in many areas, barely involves humans anymore but is dominated by autonomous AI agents.
And wherever a new, enormous economic space emerges, those who move early and decisively can earn very large sums of money.
“The first immortal human is already alive”
Philip Hopf:
Adaptation – just like in nature. Whoever adapts survives. And this adaptation is now happening at something like light-speed, in quantum leaps. That’s why so much capital is being poured into this space.
Now, looking at the next step: once quantum computing and AI mature, human intelligence as a driver will be pushed more and more into the background.
You’ve also said: “The first immortal human is already alive.” I assume you mean life expectancy will increase massively. Could you explain that?
In combination with robots taking over human jobs and people becoming much older, aren’t we heading towards what in finance we might call a “death cross” – a very dangerous, maybe even catastrophic, development for humanity?
Sven Gábor Jánszky:
Let me unpack this step by step.
When we talk about human life expectancy, we are talking about health, medicine, and biotechnology. This is only partially about robotics. It is mainly about genetics – the fact that we can now read and increasingly modify our genome.
There are five key medical technologies here:
- Genetic analysis
Sequencing an individual genome now costs around $100 – essentially nothing.
- Medical food
Nutrition that is tailored to an individual’s microbiome and metabolic gaps. Food as personalised medicine. We estimate a time-to-mass-market of around 5 years.
- Epigenetic therapies
Treatments that can reverse aspects of the ageing process in humans. Time-to-mass-market: around 10–15 years.
- Replacement organs
Organs printed on 3D printers from your own cells. They are not rejected, and when an organ fails – which is a major cause of death today – it can be replaced. Time-to-mass-market: roughly 15 years.
- Gene therapies
Direct modification of your genome. Time-to-mass-market: about 25–30 years.
When I say “mass market”, I mean the point at which health insurers pay – when, say, a big public insurer like the German AOK reimburses it. That is when it truly enters society.
Now, if the first four of these technologies become widely available in the next 10–15 years, average human life expectancy will climb toward 100 years.
In plain language:
If someone listening today manages to stay alive for the next 10–15 years, they have a very high probability of reaching 100.
If they manage 25–30 years more, the probability is very high that they will reach 120–150.
Now you’re right: That is not yet “immortal”. So why do I say “the first immortal human is already alive”?
Let’s look at my own children. I have three, currently aged 8, 10, and 13. Take the middle one, Bennet, who is 10.
If he manages, at some point in his life – say when he is 50, like I am now – to make use of all five technologies, he will likely live to somewhere between 120 and 150.
He is 10 now, so we have at least 110 years until his body dies.
The question then is:
Will humanity, within the next 110 years, manage to build a technology that does not yet exist today – but into which billions of dollars are already being invested?
A technology that:
- First builds a full digital copy of a human brain in a computer.
- Then copies what is in a specific human brain into that digital model.
If that succeeds, then the body of my son will one day die – but not necessarily his mind.
That is why I say: with high probability, the first “immortal” generation is already alive – namely our children, the kids currently growing up.
Their bodies may die, but their conscious self – their sense of “I” – may continue in another substrate.
Digital afterlives and “grandparents on the phone”
Philip Hopf:
If I summarise: If the technology works, the body will age and be replaced or die, but the data patterns in the brain – the memories, personality traits, what makes me “me” – could be transferred to a new “brain”. And that person would live on in another form?
Sven Gábor Jánszky:
We don’t yet know whether we can transfer that into a new biological brain. That’s completely open. But transferring into a digital substrate – that’s very likely.
In 2019 I wrote a book about the year 2030, so about 10 years into the future. In the opening chapter, a grandfather dies of natural causes. His body is gone.
But then his granddaughter gets a present from her father: she may continue to talk to her grandfather on the phone.
What happened? Before his death, the grandfather trained a personal AI. That is already possible today:
- I am currently training an AI that speaks with my voice.
- It doesn’t fully look like me yet, but that will come.
- It has my sense of humour, my sense of what is appropriate to say or not.
- It has my knowledge level and even my typical mistakes and nonsense.
So speaking with this AI is like calling your grandfather.
The reason I placed this scenario in 2030 is:
The first such systems will likely be available around 2030.
Already today, in 2025, you can train such models. Companies exist for this. It’s not mass market yet, but we have five years.
However, at this stage, that AI is not me. It does not feel like me, it has no consciousness. It only has my stories and patterns.
That’s why it will take a few more decades before we can transfer what we call consciousness or perhaps even soul into a computer.
So I am not saying that I will live on digitally. A digital clone of me may live on after my death.
But for my children’s generation, the probability is relatively high that it will be their actual self that continues.
Transhumanism: future or dead end?
Philip Hopf:
Let’s move to another loaded topic that was hot even before AI and robotics took over the headlines: transhumanism.
There are all kinds of conspiracy stories floating around – chips in people’s bodies, total control, all that. Often from people who don’t necessarily understand the technologies.
Let me ask you directly:
Will transhumanism be the future of our species – or a temporary aberration?
Sven Gábor Jánszky:
Let’s consider two time horizons:
- The one directly ahead of us
- The longer-term future
In the nearer term, we will with high probability live in a world where we are surrounded by AI plus robotics:
- AI with hands, wheels, wings
- AI systems that take over many of our current tasks
An anecdote: I recently met one of the candidates for governor of California. There are five of them, all Democrat – California usually elects Democrats. One of these five is a transhumanist: Zoltan Istvan. I’ve known him for a while.
I asked him: “If you actually win – what’s your first political goal?”
He said:
“My first goal will be to classify biological ageing as a disease.”
At first I thought: ageing is just biology, isn’t it?
He said:
“Two hundred years ago, 90% of people died from infectious diseases.
What that generation did – for us – was: they eradicated most of those diseases so that their children could live longer.
Today, 90% of people die from biological ageing – from wear-and-tear processes in the body.
If I classify ageing as a disease, the entire healthcare system and pharma industry will have to work on it – and not just for the top 10,000 but for the mass market.”
If you then ask him: “How do you imagine society?” he says:
“People will no longer need to work 8 hours a day.
AI and robots will do most of the work.
Humans can finally focus on what they’re actually here for – themselves and each other.”
That is the positive transhumanist vision for the next 20–30 years.
Beyond that, another question arises:
Will humans at some point be degraded from the most intelligent species to the second-most intelligent?
Most likely, yes. AI systems will be more strategic, faster, more capable.
Some argue that this inevitably leads to conflict – that super-intelligent AIs will conclude that humans are useless and that we will disappear. That’s the apocalyptic scenario.
My view – and the view of many futurists – is different:
Historically, humans have always tried to optimise their bodies and minds:
medicine, education, fitness, all of it is body and mind optimisation.
In that logic, it is almost inevitable that we will want to connect our brains to external intelligence – to AI systems outside our skulls.
I was in China for a week about six weeks ago. There I met a leading brain researcher, a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He showed me their current project:
- They can place a 5 cm patch with 200 connectors on the cerebral cortex (yes, that involves drilling a hole in the skull).
- The patch is connected to a cable and a battery.
- Animal tests are done; they’re now in clinical trials with humans.
He told me:
“I’m currently looking for a clinic in Europe to do the same.
Then we’ll have someone in China and someone in Europe with this implant.
They will hold the first intercontinental telepathy session – brain-to-brain, with a computer in between.”
To be clear: I am not saying that we will all become cyborgs in five years.
But technologically, this will become possible. And there will always be some people who say:
“That gives me an advantage – I’ll do it.”
I’ve told this story several times. Already five people have contacted me saying, “I’d volunteer.”
There are always early adopters – the “crazy ones” in quotes. If they gain an advantage, others will follow. And so on.
So, in the 30–50 year horizon, we will likely be dealing seriously with what we call BCI – Brain-Computer Interfaces: direct links between brain and computer. There will be markets for this. How big they will be is impossible to say today, but the probability that they exist is high.
Thought surveillance and Orwellian fears
Philip Hopf:
Let’s bring in another dimension: politics and control.
We know that intelligence services and states often try to push deeper into private life: reading letters, listening to phone calls, scanning e-mails and messenger services.
The last refuge we have is: “As long as no one can read my thoughts, I can at least think what I want.”
If that barrier falls – if computer systems can read our thoughts – then George Orwell’s vision in 1984 looks eerily prophetic.
Isn’t it deeply worrying if, at some point, our thoughts – which many of us consider the last private space – can also be accessed, analysed, maybe even manipulated?
Sven Gábor Jánszky:
I fully understand that concern. If I had to assume that there would be global, universal thought surveillance, I would have very serious reservations.
However, I consider it unlikely that this will happen in a uniform, worldwide manner.
What is likely is:
- In some regions of the world, such technologies will be used intensively.
- In other regions, much less or not at all.
And here’s the paradox: there will always be people who want this – because they get advantages in exchange. Maybe cheaper services, more convenience, more power.
So yes, there will always be people who willingly trade privacy for benefits – and people who refuse.
That’s normal in human history.
If there are still regions in the world where you can live without such implants or surveillance, then – from my personal perspective – that becomes an individual decision:
Do I move to a place with these systems, or to a place without?
It becomes problematic when people are forced into such systems, with no way to opt out or move away. And there we have to be realistic: there are many people who simply cannot move freely, for economic or political reasons. That has always been so.
As a futurist, my job is not to describe the world I personally want. I’m not paid to present a wishful utopia.
My job is to describe the most probable future:
“What is, from today’s perspective, the most likely development?”
And then make that available to people, companies, and investors so they can make their decisions – depending on how free they are.
So I have to talk about these developments without saying, “This is what I want.” If something is the most likely path, we have to face it – value-free, analytically.
Where does the futurist invest his own money?
Philip Hopf:
A practical question from our side. At HKCM, one of our most requested analysis products is our AI package – 20 stocks heavily involved in AI, from Palantir to Alibaba and others.
How do you invest as a futurist? Which technologies have the greatest growth potential in your view?
Sven Gábor Jánszky:
Happy to answer. My approach differs from classic stock investing.
I personally stay away from the stock market. As soon as a technology reaches the stage where it’s listed, my expertise is no better than that of many others.
We manage three investment funds at my institute. We invest in technologies that, according to our research, will become foundational technologies for at least one – usually several – industries within the next 5–10 years.
Example: Quantum computing.
In 2016 we did our first major quantum computing study. We spoke with the big players – IBM, Google, etc. We also discovered a team at the University of Sussex.
They said:
“We can build quantum computers too – but differently.
Others need near-absolute zero temperatures (around 0.014 Kelvin).
We can operate at room temperature.”
I’m not a quantum physicist, but if one team can do it at room temperature while others need -273°C, the room-temperature approach seems to have a massive practical advantage.
So I stayed in touch. Three years later, in 2019, they spun out of the university into a startup. They weren’t yet deeply connected to the investor world – but we knew each other. That allowed our funds to become early investors.
Five years later, their valuation has gone up more than a hundredfold. Many quantum computing firms have entered the billions and may go higher.
The logic is:
If you manage to spot the technologies that will become the base layer of future industries and you get in very early, you have a chance – no guarantee, but a chance – to 10x your investment twice within the first 5 years.
We do this not only for quantum computing but also for:
- Fusion energy – we invested four years ago in a startup led by a German professor who had to move to Australia because he couldn’t get funding in Germany.
- Genetics – both for improving plants and for making humans more long-lived, i.e., reversing biological age.
- Medical technologies – like cryopreservation: freezing organs and tissue and thawing them later in working condition. We expect a market for replacement organs within 5–10 years – think cryo-storage chambers under major hospitals.
- Food production – not new supermarket brands, but technologies that allow us to produce around 60% of global food demand synthetically (e.g., cultured meat from bioreactors). With a world population heading towards 9–11 billion, natural production will not suffice. This is a huge future market.
These companies are generally 5 years before IPO. That’s our sweet spot.
Overpopulation vs. demographic collapse
Philip Hopf:
I’d like to challenge one point: You mentioned 10–11 billion people on Earth. Elon Musk, for example, says the opposite: our societies will collapse because falling birth rates will shrink populations dramatically.
We need about 2.2 children per woman to maintain the population. Many Western countries are at 1.4, 1.3, 1.2. If that continues over two generations, you end up with a fraction of today’s numbers.
Only a few regions – sub-Saharan Africa and Israel, for example – are well above that. Elsewhere, fertility is collapsing.
So how do you arrive at 10–11 billion? Doesn’t that require a population explosion?
Sven Gábor Jánszky:
Those 11 billion are not from futurists – they are UN-type demographic projections. I tend to agree with Musk here: populations will eventually plateau and then decline.
What is not yet fully included in many projections is the extension of life expectancy that we discussed earlier.
If we move average life expectancy from ~80 to ~120 within one generation, that’s a 50% extension.
I’m not a population statistician – there I rely on others’ models.
But whether we end up at 10, 11, or “only” 9 billion is secondary for my work.
For me, the key takeaway is:
Humanity needs technologies that can produce food, water, and energy synthetically – at large scale.
That’s where bioreactors and related tech come in. Whether the gap is between 3.5 and 8, 9, or 10 billion people doesn’t change the basic logic.
Are you personally optimistic or pessimistic?
Philip Hopf:
Final question – ending on a personal note:
How do you look into the future – more optimistically or pessimistically?
And is there any future trend that personally scares you?
Sven Gábor Jánszky:
Among scientific futurists, you will find that most of us are broadly optimistic. That may be personality – but I think it’s mainly methodological.
From a data-driven perspective, the probability that the world develops in a positive direction – in the sense that people:
- live longer
- live healthier
- have more money
- can realise themselves more
- maybe no longer need to work 8 hours a day
…is actually quite high.
Personally, I am very optimistic. I believe that the possibilities of the future are much greater than our experiences from the past.
And that’s where I differ from many others – scientists, politicians, business leaders.
If you base your decisions about the future only on past experience, I would be very cautious.
Because the truly fundamental, disruptive changes have almost always come from new possibilities – very often technological ones.
In my view, “the present” lasts about 10 seconds.
- Everything before that is past.
- Everything after that is future.
If you adopt this worldview, there’s only one truly relevant question:
“Do the decisions I’m making now rest primarily on my past experiences –
or on my best available forecasts of the future?”
I choose the second. For personal development and for financial decisions, I think the past has relatively little to say. The decisive factor is what is coming next.
Philip Hopf:
Thank you very much, Mr. Jánszky.
I do many interviews, but this one was, for me personally, absolutely fascinating.
Synthesis
This conversation paints a future in which:
- AI and robotics become ubiquitous and numerically outnumber humans.
- Quantum computing, genetics, and medical innovation extend life expectancy dramatically – perhaps to 120–150 years.
- Transhumanism moves from fringe idea to concrete politics and business models (ageing as a disease, body-tech integration, BCIs).
- Entirely new economic spaces arise between AI agents and robots, while humans shift toward self-development and relational life – if we steer things wisely.
Jánszky is analytically optimistic: he doesn’t predict paradise, but he sees the data pointing more toward expanded possibilities than towards collapse – provided we understand who actually shapes the future and how.
For a critical reading of this interview 👇
https://rftjon.substack.com/p/janszkys-future-picture-a-critical?r=35vtu2
