About The Next Frontier

The Next Frontier is an independent publication launched in January 2025 by William Hackspeare. If you subscribe today, you'll get full access to the website as well as email newsletters about new content when it's available. Your subscription makes this site possible and allows The Next Frontier to continue to exist. Thank you!

Why The Next Frontier?

Frontiers are spaces of discovery, challenge, and growth. In the context of AI, they are also spaces of tension—where innovation collides with uncertainty, where progress tests our values, and where inclusion must overcome inequity.

At The Next Frontier, we aim to illuminate these edges:

• The technological frontier, where advancements in AI are redefining what’s possible but also raising new ethical dilemmas.
• The risk frontier, where underexplored scenarios and unintended consequences pose challenges to our safety and resilience.
• The geographic and human frontiers, where countries, communities, and individuals often excluded from global tech narratives are shaping their own paths.
• The intellectual frontier, where forgotten or ignored precedents from history, philosophy, and other disciplines offer essential insights into managing AI’s impact.

What You’ll Find Here

At The Next Frontier, we don’t just ask what’s next—we ask what matters as we stand at the edge of transformation. This is a space where questions take precedence over answers, and exploration thrives on nuance. Here’s what you can expect:

1. Frontier Dispatches:
   Regular commentary on the latest AI advancements, focusing on the edges of innovation—those developments that surprise, challenge, or redefine our understanding of the possible.
2. The Neglected Areas of Progress:
   Exploring opportunities and success stories from the periphery of the AI world—regions, communities, and individuals which go unnoticed in mainstream tech narratives.
3. Risk Mapping:
   Deep dives into the less obvious dangers of AI, such as corner cases, edge risks, and systemic vulnerabilities that might reshape our societies or ecosystems.
4. Lessons from the Past:
   Analysis of historical and interdisciplinary analogies—from nuclear policy to environmental science—that offer surprising parallels and insights for governing AI.
5. Conversations Across Borders:
   Spotlights on global perspectives, especially from the Global South, exploring how different nations navigate the promises and perils of artificial intelligence.
6. Reflections and Provocations:
   Essays that pause, provoke, and ask fundamental questions about what AI means for humanity, ethics, and the future.

The Frontier Mindset

The compass at the heart of The Next Frontier symbolizes exploration, guidance, and perspective—key themes of this blog. It represents our mission to navigate the cutting-edge of artificial intelligence while charting the less-traveled paths: the risks at the margins, the voices at the periphery, and the lessons from history and other fields.

The frontier is not a single place or moment. It’s a mindset—a commitment to pushing boundaries, to asking the difficult questions, and to navigating uncertainty with purpose and integrity. It’s about recognizing that what happens on the edges—of technology, society, and history—often shapes the center.

Join the Journey

The Next Frontier is for anyone curious about the paths less traveled. Whether you’re a policymaker grappling with AI’s implications, a technologist seeking broader perspectives, or simply someone passionate about understanding our rapidly changing world, there’s a place for you here. Subscribe to our newsletter now - articles come out weekly.

Let’s explore together—charting the edges of AI and beyond.