The man who predicted the rise of terrorism before 9/11 gives terrifying predictions for the world of 2066

A man who has spent three decades writing about ‘serious future prediction’ has shared some eye-opening insights into what the world may look like in 2066.

When it comes to guessing what our future may look like, there are plenty of psychics and mystics who claim to have the answers.

For example, before her death in 1996, Baba Vanga is credited with making all sorts of predictions that have since come to fruition and even has some for the end of this year.

However, journalist and author Jonathan Margolis has spent the last 30 years looking at ‘serious future predictions’ - meaning not those made by psychics - and has even written a book on the matter, titled A Brief History of Tomorrow, where he analysed what futurologists got right and what they got wrong.

He also claims to have made several predictions himself that have come true, including ‘the rise of Islamism and the probability of an unprecedentedly extreme terrorist incident’.

Writing in a new piece for The Independent, Margolis asked AI bot Cassi to come up with some predictions for 40 years’ time and then he came up with his own.

An AI bot shared its predictions for the future (Getty stock image)

The AI bot reckoned that we had 21 percent likelihood of being able to biologically de-age ourselves by 2066 (Bryan Johnson will be pleased), and that there was a more than 50 percent chance that news media will no longer be led by humans.

Meanwhile, Margolis’ predictions were pretty wide ranging.

He warned that the US will no longer be the ‘most significant nation’ and will be replaced by China by 2066 - giving it a prediction likelihood of 80 percent.

Margolis noted that while the US will remain the ‘wealthiest nation’, it won’t ‘recover its international prestige post-Trump’.

Alongside that, he also said there was a strong 70 percent chance we’ll be faced with a ‘global shortage of children’ due to people opting for smaller families.

Worldwide fertility rates have been falling and have dropped by around half since 1950, according to Our World in Data.

A falling birthrate can be problematic as it creates an ageing population and sends the the workforce-to-dependent ratio out of whack, which can lead to a shrinking workforce and lower economic output.

Margolis went on to joke that by 2066 there will be a 65 percent chance folks will be praying to AI deities ‘because, unlike gods, they may answer their prayers’ and that there’s a solid 99 percent chance we’ll still be battling with printer jams.

A falling birth rate could spell out trouble for humanity (Getty stock images)

Margolis further predicted that in 40 years time, car ownership in cities will be ‘almost unknown’ with people being shipped around by ‘24-hour free self-driven pods’ instead.

However, he did say that cars will still be used in rural areas.

Interestingly, those comments do have some data that backs them up.

An IPSO survey from May found that while car ownership isn’t dying off just yet ‘the cracks are real’.

The 2026 study found that almost half of people - 43 percent - said life without their car would be impossible, but there were two interesting ‘fault lines’ in the data.

Firstly, younger people tended to be less likely to say that having a car was essential.

And, city-dwellers were also much less likely to say it was impossible to live without a car, with only 37 percent in urban areas compared to 60 percent in rural areas.