Here is an image from the “Speculative Futures” workshop I gave at the IdeaSquare, on the future of the FCC – the Future Circular Collider, the proposed upgrade of the LHC, 100 km in diameter, which in part would be beneath Lake Geneva. In the exercise I used AI to combine images of the LHC and S-FEL accelerators with the Qagga Mussel infestation in Lake Geneva, a sudden local ecological disaster. This is already affecting the viability of the FCC, due to mussels blocking the cooling systems of the local nuclear power plant which would power this massive machine. And what happens if / when the lake floods into the FCC accelerator tunnel? Not a pleasant future visualisation. When I sent this to one of the FCC outreach people, they politely told me not to contact them again…

And, just for the alternate present record, one of the other participants thought they saw my name on one of the CERN street signs, so we got our AI collaborator to tweak photographic reality in our favour – that really is a dream come true!