Can You Future-Proof The World? Yes, According To This Startup...
Alessandro Tommasi's Future Proof Society aims to use data and trends to build a strong community of thinkers and doers to discuss not the "why" but the "how."
💬 Quick CONVERSATION STARTERS:
How can we future-proof artificial intelligence and generative AI?
Will AI models continue to get better, more efficient, and more effective?
What does it really mean to “future-proof” our society?
“At a time when spaces for community and meaningful dialogue are increasingly scarce, FPS2025 was finally an opportunity for the new generations — often held back and stifled by older generations — to reflect on the present and to imagine, anticipate, and plan for the future.”
This is the idea behind FPS2025, the first-ever summit created by the Italian startup Future Proof Society and its founder
to “future-proof” the world. The 3-day summit took place in L’Aquila, a few hours from Rome, Italy in early June. And we were there! Grazie Alessandro for the invite!Future Proof Society was born out of the necessity “to grow alongside the people around us,” said Alessandro in his closing remarks at FPS2025.
“The goal is simple, Alessandro said. “In fact, it’s very simple — but also very complicated. And it ties the choice of being in L’Aquila with the decision to launch Future Proof Society — what FPS is really about.”
He listed a few points:
People between 25 and 45 — even though it seems like a wide range — are actually much more alike than previous generations. They’re a sort of generational “block.” Sure, not identical — Gen Z is different — but still similar in many ways.
We need to realize that we’ve grown up. Each of us is starting to — or already does — have responsibilities at work, leadership roles in companies.
We need to recognize that this generation holds a lot of power.
But if we keep seeing ourselves — and letting others see us — as “the young ones,” the kids with crayons, the ones who need to be humored… if we let older generations box us up in that, we won’t get anywhere.
We’re not kids anymore. The phase of just being aware of big issues is over. Now it’s time to move to real policies, to action.
Alessandro also pointed out to the need for his generation of 25-45 year-olds to refuse “to accept the usual cookie-cutter communication — the standard, mainstream narrative.”
He called his generation, a generation of “divergent souls.”
“If you feel like you want to do things differently — to go your own way — I hope these three days helped you feel like part of a community,” he said. “I hope you’re texting each other, staying connected, and breaking out of that sense of being alone. Because wherever you are, you can drive change.
For FPS, Alessandro and his team chose “to focus especially on companies, because that’s where we think we can help create real change.”
He said: “Each one of us has the power to do it. This whole event has been an invitation to realize exactly that: we have the power to make things different. Companies are the first place to start. Sure, media and politics matter too — but it all begins when this generation wakes up to its power. We have more and more potential to do things differently.”
As Alessandro would say: Avanti tutta! — Onward and upward.
How can we future-proof artificial intelligence and generative AI?
While the event in Italy was not necessarily on AI, AI did dominate the conversation. And two speakers caught our attention: Sandro Giannella, Head of European & Middle East Policy and Partnerships at OpenAI, and Meredith Whittaker, President of the Signal Foundation, the non-profit organization that runs the open-source, encrypted messaging service Signal.
Will AI models continue to get better, more efficient, and more effective?
Yes, according to Sandro.
“I think — and maybe this comes from a belief and understanding — that these models, whether it’s ours or others, are going to continue to get better,” he said in his conversation with FPS founder Alessandro Tommasi. “They’re going to continue to get more efficient and more effective. They’re going to continue to increase in their ability to reason.”
Sandro added: “And if you think through what that means, it’s not you’re just providing people with data or information that they already have access to. You’re providing them with a type of intelligence that has never been cheaper.”
Sandro, who was previously at Google and Stripes, also talked about policy and the role of society in shaping the current and future policy conversations around AI.
“I think now — which is why I’m so excited about what you guys are doing here and where we’re having this conversation — it’s not a conversation in the back room with one or two members of parliament and policymakers,” he said. “What we believe really strongly needs to happen is a more public conversation. And we feel a responsibility, as OpenAI, to do that.”
Sandro continued: “I think, almost more importantly this time, all of us — individually, as societies, as communities — need to understand what’s happening, need to act accordingly, need to think differently.”
He added: “And I’m having fun doing that… but it also sometimes keeps me up at night.”
Why do we need to be afraid?
One of the most inspiring conversation at FPS2025 was that between Italian serial entrepreneur
and Meredith Whittaker of Signal.The narrative around AI is that AI “is not only very good, […] it’s superhuman,” Meredith said. “In some tellings, it’s better than us. In some tellings — that topple over into the theological — it's a new godhead that we need to shut up and worship.”
Meredith highlighted how, when we focus on code, language models, and artificial intelligence, the fact is that “only a handful of companies in the world, publicly traded companies governed by shareholder incentives, have all of those resources” needed to deploy and control AI.
She added: “They are telling a story about effectively being these administrative godheads — about having so much intelligence that we need to step aside, whatever institution or government or state we're affiliated with — and allow them access to the nervous system of our institutions, our politics, our lives, our access to resources, our access to each other.”
“I think we do need to be afraid,” she said, calling for a deeper look at the asymmetry:
Who gets to write the code?
Who owns the infrastructure?
Who has enough lobbyists to bully the small town into giving them premier access to the energy grid?
Who can collect and create this data via platforms?
Who has access to cloud servers that span the world to generate more and more of that?
Who has a business model that can cross-subsidize all of this?
Meredith said: “The main thing we need to do is not ask for equal access to the code, just to be on equal footing — but to actually start dismantling and questioning the narrative.”
She pointed out to key questions:
Who is this narrative serving?
Whose incentives is it reinforcing?
Who is the user of AI — and who is AI being used on?
Is there really a booming AI ecosystem?
“One of the narratives out there is that there's a booming innovation ecosystem, with many people experimenting with AI, a startup ecosystem,” Meredith said in her conversation with Matteo on stage at FPS2025 in Italy. “But when you scratch beneath the surface — that’s really not accurate, not if we’re going to be responsible with these terms.”
According to the President of Signal, any AI business “tracks back — on the market access side — to the same handful of companies.”
She explained: “We can say five companies in the U.S. context, divided differently. Then there are companies in China, which — for historic reasons — has a self-contained market large enough to support an endemic tech ecosystem and was staunchly protective in blocking U.S. incumbents. No other region in the world accomplished that.”
What about the tech business model?
“The truth is that the business model of tech — then and now, with all the AI you want — is monetizing data,” Meredith said. “It’s surveillance. It’s a surveillance business model.”
She described the model in a few easy bullet pints:
You collect and create data about people — whether through engagement-driven social media platforms or other mechanisms.
You use that data to model types of people or demographics.
Then you sell access to those types of people — to advertisers, to whoever wants to reach them. That’s it.
Then, on top of that, you train AI models on that data.
You use those models for various purposes.
But ultimately, the money flows one of two ways:
You monetize the data.
Or you provide the hardware, goods, and services to those who do.
“That’s the way to make money in this industry,” she said. “And that’s the thing Signal is not doing.”
What’s Signal model?
Meredith explained: “That helps explain why we have to be a nonprofit — or another type of organization — that resists the incentives baked into the profit motive in tech. It also explains why there are so few truly private services, why tech looks the way it does, and why this industry has been able to claim so much epistemic control — a fancy academic phrase meaning: they’ve claimed the right to write our stories and map our world with more authority than we have.”
She pointed out again to how surveillance it’s a the centre of the tech business model: “Collect all the data. Sell access to the knowledge extracted from it — whether demographics or AI or whatever.”
She closed: “Signal exists to not do that. To preserve the right to truly private communication.”
Imagine you are in 2040. What do you see around you?
This was one of the question Meredith was asked.
“We're going to have a great world in 2040 — let’s manifest that,” she said. I see abundant green spaces to work and hang out. I see a world where people have access to the resources and care they need to thrive — and have fun with their people.”
She also added: “And I see a world in which we’ve redefined what we mean by tech. Not just shiny computational gadgets dictated by a handful of centralized companies. Instead, tech becomes something broader — simply how we do things and what we use to do them. That opens up our minds, creativity, and innovation in a big way, so we can do a lot of the new things we need to do.”
What would your answer be?