Halloween is coming up, and as a literal Halloween baby (born on October 31st), I decided to draw inspiration from the spooky date and share some weak signals and future trends from my own Horizon Scanning research that genuinely scare me!
Deepfake Revenge Porn
As a woman, I grew up surrounded by well-meaning, traumatized older women who taught me countless ways to avoid the forms of aggression I was most likely to face simply because of my gender.
Now I understand that it never really mattered what a woman wears, says, does, or how she behaves. The simple fact that we exist in a patriarchal society leads many men to believe they have some kind of right over us. Even women who leave no possible “excuse” for harassment or violence—like those wearing hijabs that cover their entire bodies while walking in their neighborhoods in broad daylight—are not spared.
AI has only worsened this power imbalance. A new wave of deepfake revenge porn is flooding online, turning women around the world—many of them underage—into unwilling spectacles in videos they not only didn’t agree to make but never participated in. And the obvious culprit, most of the time, isn’t even charged for their actions, setting a dangerous precedent for the future of our society.
Deep-Sea Creatures Rising
As ocean temperatures rise and water becomes increasingly polluted, deep-sea marine life is more frequently surfacing from the darkness it once inhabited, often ending up stranded and dying on shore.
From Oarfish sightings and Barreleye encounters to 13-foot-long squids washed up on beaches, these appearances are more than ecological anomalies — they’re warnings, signaling just how far our planet’s systems are collapsing.
AI Hallucinations
AI isn’t supposed to create anything new, as it is trained on existing content, learning from patterns of what already exist. However, somehow, it sometimes creates completely fake or misleading information and present it as a fact. This eerie fabrication are now known as “halluccinations”, and unfortunately, happens more often that you’d expect.
At first glance, this glitches can seem harmless, but when AI systems start to confidently rewrite history and reality, the line between what’s real and what’s fiction begins to blur.
This is particularly worrying as these tools are now being used to create everything from news articles to academic research, meaning they have the potential to distort collective knowledge in a world already flooded with misinformation.
Halloween is a time for ghosts, goblins, and ghouls — but the real horrors might already be here, lurking online, in our oceans, and inside the algorithms shaping our future. Are we ready to face them?
Want to spot the trends before they haunt us?
In my Purpose Scanning Workshop, you’ll learn practical horizon scanning techniques and how to turn weak signals into actionable insights. By the end, you’ll know how to create your own trend report — a skill to anticipate the future, not just fear it.
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