The future is back. Everywhere you look, progress is being held up as our new North Star. Governments chase it when shaping policy. Companies race toward it in their branding. Even in daily life, we’re told to automate small tasks, outsource our decisions, and keep moving faster. The compass needle points in only one direction: forward. And with this praise of progress for its own sake, futurism seems to have returned.

Futurism first appeared in the early 20th century, most famously in Italy. It was an artistic and cultural movement that celebrated speed, machines, youth, and war. The futurists wrote fiery manifestos demanding the destruction of the old and the glorification of the new. They treated the roar of engines, the clash of steel, and the chaos of the modern city as more beautiful than traditional art. Their vision of the future was exhilarating, but also violent: they openly glorified war, calling it “the world’s only hygiene.” To them, destruction was not a danger but a necessary course correction - a way of keeping the ship of society on track.

I can’t help but see echoes of that mood today. Rockets launched into orbit are celebrated almost like moral victories, proof that humanity is heading in the “right” direction. AI systems are embraced as tools for everything, from managing our inboxes to generating art. And once again, a fascination with war has slipped quietly back into cultural respectability, as AI fuels cutting edge military technologies. We are navigating by the same star, even if the sea looks different.

Even the language surrounding AI reflects this spirit. Many AI companies carry names that sound sharp, futuristic and frankly cacophonic. They remind me of the metallic, clashing poetry written by the original futurists - a machine-like music meant to overwhelm the senses. In a small way, I joined this wave myself, creating a futurist calligraph that draws a retro-futuristic robot repeating the word IA (Italian for artificial intelligence) – as a little nod to its overuse and the fact that these two concepts are often confused with one another:

This rhetoric, however, raises some important issues. *If progress is our North Star, where exactly are we headed? Did we mistake direction for destination? *It seems we are stuck running in circles: we want progress for the sake of having more progress. This needs a lot of fuel – metaphorically and literally. And it seems we had to leave social, economic and environmental concerns on the shore to embark on this trip.

Maybe it’s time to ask whether this North Star is worth following at all…