As AI reshapes work, value, and belonging, JUST FUTURES challenges the myths of the current economy—spotlighting real-world solutions that are redefining prosperity, equity, and sustainability in a post-labor world.

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PROJECT SUMMARY

What if everything we’ve been told about how the economy works is wrong?

JUST FUTURES brings together leading voices on the ground — futurist thinkers, leaders in the field of tech & AI, workers & organizers, policy-makers, and public intellectuals — to unpack how our choices about AI, ownership, and power will determine whether automation becomes a new engine of shared prosperity, or a driver of deeper inequality.


Grounded in solutions, JUST FUTURES explores real-world models that are reshaping prosperity, equity, and sustainability — UBI, AI dividends, sovereign wealth funds, worker-owned cooperatives, participatory democracy, purpose-driven corporations, new commons governance, and climate resilience — placing them in the context of addressing an urgent, destabilizing force: AI.

PROJECT MISSION

Today we find ourselves at a new inflection point: an era of powerful automation and AI that could dramatically reshape work, wealth, governance, power, leisure, and civic life. JUST FUTURES is driven by the belief that all-important discussions around these emerging technologies simply aren’t happening quickly (or inclusively) enough - and aims to change that.

The project builds on the filmmakers’ work with George Monbiot and the #1 bestselling book and critically acclaimed film "The Invisible Doctrine: The Secret History of Neoliberalism". JUST FUTURES seeks to expand upon this work, by examining how control over technology, capital, and data might be distributed so that the benefits of automation are broadly shared.

AI and automation aren’t just speeding things up, they’re providing an opportunity for us to re-evaluate our basic assumptions about work, value, and fairness – a social contract that has gone largely unquestioned for generations. JUST FUTURES serves as a cogent reminder that our collective economic future is not pre-determined – and that a reimagining of our system is not only possible, it’s already happening.

OVERVIEW

We find ourselves at a critical inflection point. Artificial intelligence is rapidly reshaping how value is created – dramatically accelerating productivity while weakening the long-standing relationship between work and economic security. A post-labor economy is no longer theoretical; it is already beginning to take shape. The central question before us is no longer whether abundance is possible, but whether its benefits will be broadly shared – or captured by a narrowing few.

JUST FUTURES approaches this moment with genuine, agnostic curiosity.

Neither “boomer”nor “doomer” in orientation, the project’s aim is to open much-needed public conversations about our collective future. If work is no longer the primary source of income, identity, dignity, and belonging, what comes next? Why, at a moment of extraordinary technological capacity, does insecurity remain so widespread? And does this shift provide us with an opportunity to question long-held assumptions about what we value and reward?

Drawing from economics, history, and real-world initiatives, the film unpacks how we arrived at this moment, in order to better-inform the choices now before us – and the future we are actively co-creating.

Importantly, JUST FUTURES is grounded in possibility.

Across sectors and communities, people are already experimenting with new ways of owning, governing, and stewarding productive assets. The film highlights worker-owned enterprises, employee ownership, purpose-driven trusts, commons-based stewardship, participatory governance, and “pre-distribution” models that shape who benefits before wealth concentrates. It also explores efforts to move beyond narrow measures like GDP and wages, toward frameworks that account for care, ecological limits, and collective well-being.

Bringing together voices from technology, policy, economics, and frontline communities, JUST FUTURES situates these solution-oriented models within the accelerating advance of AI. Rather than prescribing a single blueprint, the film places multiple perspectives in dialogue – grounded in a shared premise: technology does not determine our future on its own. Human choices do.

At a moment when the rules of a post-labor economy are still being written, JUST FUTURES invites audiences into a timely and urgent conversation about how we might build an economy rooted in shared prosperity, dignity, and belonging. Our collective future is not fixed. A reimagining is not only possible – it is already underway.

PETER HUTCHISON

(Director/Producer)
Hutchison is an award-winning filmmaker, bestselling author, educator and activist.
His film work includes “Requiem for the American Dream” (featuring Noam Chomsky), “The Cure for Hate: Bearing Witness to Auschwitz”, “Devil Put the Coal in the Ground”, “Healing from Hate”, and "The Invisible Doctrine: The Secret History of Neoliberalism”.
His books include the bestsellers "The Invisible Doctrine: The Secret History of Neoliberalism”, with George Monbiot (Penguin Books), and “Requiem for the American Dream: 10 Principles of Concentration of Wealth & Power”, with Noam Chomsky (Seven Stories Press).
He holds an M.S. in Counseling Psychology

PROJECT TEAM

LUCAS SABEAN

(Director/Producer)
Sabean is an editor, producer & filmmaker, whose output includes independent narrative & documentary features, commercial video, and a large body of experimental work.
His doc film work includes, “Devil Put the Coal in the Ground”, “The Man Card: White Male Identity Politics”, “Healing from Hate”, “Angry White Men & American Masculinity”, “You Throw Like a Girl: The Blindspot of Masculinity”, and "The Invisible Doctrine: The Secret History of Neoliberalism”. 
Choreographer Paul Taylor has called his experimental films "superb - like poems made visible." 
He has an MFA from Boston University in Film Production.

ANDREW WANLISS-ORLEBAR

(Co-Producer)
Andrew is an accomplished sustainability leader – a multi-disciplinary systems thinker combining vision, strategy and a track record of delivering positive impact. Trusted, collaborative advisor to Fortune 500 C-suite across multiple sectors, he is an entrepreneurial change agent, devising and facilitating programs globally. Building and scaling partnerships to reimagine the impact of business, he works at the intersection of business model, product and culture, and is an advisor to social impact and low-carbon ventures.