By Ian Dean
Publication Date: 2026-04-22 14:00:00
For Earth Day, I asked AI a simple question: What will the planet’s largest cities look like in 1,000 years? This is not based on science fiction conjectures, but on hard data that is already available today. I asked to avoid science fiction conjectures, predictions of specific events, or other fun ideas that we humans like to impose on our visions of the future, and to stick to real data about long-term environmental trends. And it came back with some not-so-surprising results.
ChatGPT covered established climate research, including the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report, NASA’s Sea Level Change Portal, the Met Office Climate Change Overview, World Meteorological Organization (WMO) climate reports, and so many more resources that I would never resort to. All of this outlined a general direction for the next centuries rather than specific outcomes for individual cities.
