We're living in an age where new technology offers gigantic upsides - artificial intelligence has the potential to diagnose cancer, catch serial killers and reduce prison populations.

The future doesn't just happen. We are building it, and we are building it all the time.

Our long-range predictions - especially those which anticipate extreme-weather events - rely on an assumption that the future will be similar to the past. Lose that, and we lose the tools that have allowed us to prepare for such eventualities.

On average, the higher the novelty score a film had, the better it did at the box office. But only up to a point. Push past that novelty threshold, and there's a precipice; the revenue earned by a film fell off a cliff.