Vox Releases 2024 Future Perfect 50 List Celebrating Inspiring Changemakers

Vox today released the 2024 Future Perfect 50 list, its third annual celebration of the thinkers, innovators, and changemakers who are working to make the future a better place. This year’s project is Vox’s most ambitious yet, including dedicated profiles of each honoree and interviews with a select few. The Future Perfect 50 includes both familiar names such as director Christopher Nolan, recording artist Billie Eilish, and Michelin-starred chef and founder of World Central Kitchen José Andrés, and up-and-coming changemakers such as climate educator Isaias Hernandez, neuroscientist Kaela Singleton, and AI justice advocate Sneha Revanur. The list honors individuals doing groundbreaking work across six categories:

  • Protecting animal rights
  • Aligning on AI
  • Fighting global poverty and health threats
  • Expanding the mind
  • Combating climate change
  • Imagining the future

“The Future Perfect 50 has always been more than just a list — it’s a snapshot of human potential and a roadmap to a better tomorrow,” writes Bryan Walsh, Vox editorial director, in an introductory essay. “As you read about this year’s honorees, we hope you’ll be inspired not just by their achievements, but also by their fundamental belief that progress is possible and that individual actions can catalyze systemic change.” 

In addition to the list, video interviews with author and philanthropist John Green and chef José Andrés will be shared across Vox’s social media channels. 

The full list of this year’s honorees is below:

  • Protecting animal rights 
    • Rune-Christoffer Drasgdahl
    • Katie Cantrell
    • Brenda Sanders
    • Elissa Lane and Jayasimha Nuggehalli
    • Billie Eilish
    • Monica Chen
    • Dulce Ramirez
  • Imagining the future 
    • Christopher Nolan
    • L.M. Sacasas
    • Niko McCarty
    • C. Thi Nguyen
    • Patrick Hsu and Silvana Konermann
    • Liu Cixin
    • Deb Chachra
  • Aligning on artificial intelligence 
    • Anton Korinek
    • Ellie Pavlick
    • Jaime Sevilla
    • Shannon Vallor
    • Daniel Kokotajlo
    • Nora Belrose
    • Scott Wiener
    • Dan Hendrycks
    • Sneha Revanur
  • Fighting global poverty and health threats 
    • John Green
    • Adar Poonawalla
    • Shruti Rajagopalan
    • Andrew Chan and Yin Cao
    • José Andrés
    • Christian Happi
    • Lillian Musila
  • Combating climate change 
    • Matthew Hayek
    • Daniel Swain
    • Ayana Elizabeth Johnson
    • Isaias Hernandez
    • David Keith
    • Vaclav Smil
    • Emma Hakansson
    • Robin Wall Kimmerer
  • Expanding the mind 
    • Rafael Yuste
    • Nita Farahay
    • Jonathan Birch
    • Kaela Singleton
    • Jeff Sebo
    • Sara Imari Walker
    • Michael Levin
    • Alison Gopnik
    • Iain Couzin

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An analyst Wednesday described how the ICE attacks in Minneapolis and deadly shooting of Renee Good were all prompted by a MAGA influencer "chasing clicks" — and showed the potentially grim future of MAGA journalism.

The Bulwark's Andrew Egger revealed how MAGA influencer Nick Shirley's "highly misleading gonzo video" led to the chaos in Minnesota. Shirley was confronting workers at Somali-run daycares and health care centers over claims of fraud in a now-viral video created unfounded allegations that spurred into a new campaign under the Trump administration to target the Somali community.

"Within days, the White House was surging immigration enforcement to Minneapolis; Vice President JD Vance said Shirley had 'done far more useful journalism than any of the winners of the 2024 [Pulitzer] prizes,'" Egger wrote.

"If this sort of person doing this sort of work can be so richly rewarded on the right right now, it’s safe to say both that Shirley will be a major fixture of the online right for a while, and that many others will try to follow in his footsteps," Egger added. "But if he’s the future of right-wing journalism, the future is very bleak indeed."

In the past, and in traditional media, Shirley would have had oversight or rules to abide by. But that's not the case now.

"Much of the old press model has collapsed entirely, especially on the right," Eggers wrote. "Guys like Nick Shirley aren’t trying to join a publication, they’re picking up a camera and trying to go viral on their own. They have no safety net, no sounding board, no mentorship, no way to grow beyond what they’re doing this minute. All they have is the zero-sum game of the algorithm: Get noticed or die. Of course they’re going to do what the algorithm demands—which, on today’s right, means snappy, confrontational, fact-agnostic propaganda for the regime. That’s what the ecosystem rewards, so we’re going to get more and more of it. If you think that’s grim today, wait till you see the future."