Hello and welcome to the World Ahead on Economist Radio. I'm Tom Standidge, Deputy Editor

at the Economist. In this Future Gazing Podcast series, we consider provocative prophecies

and speculative scenarios to gain a different perspective on the present and help us better

prepare for what might come next. In this episode we'll be asking, Canon Novel set in

the near future, help policymakers understand artificial intelligence. You have a fast-paced,

hopefully entertaining story, but you also have over 300 explanations and predictions of

everything from how does AI work to what will be the effect of all of this on our politics.

And how do you make charging cables for electric vehicles disappear?

Nothing to get the two coils to resonate together, it is now possible to transmit that energy

over a longer distance.

On May 1st, North Korean State Media published images of Kim Jong-un at the opening ceremony

of a factory in Sun-chon, a city in the province of South Pyongyang. Nothing strange about

that, but the North Korean leaders' appearance came after an unexplained absence lasting

three weeks, during which he failed to attend the celebration of North Korea's most important

public holiday, the birthday commemoration for his grandfather, Kim Il-sung, the country's

founding despot. This had led to much speculation about Mr Kim's health. Some sources suggested

he was having an operation, there were even rumors that he died. Mr Kim's reappearance

put paid to that suggestion, but his three-week vanishing act has reignited speculation about

what would happen if his regime collapsed.

Before I go into the security aspects of North Korea, it's important to note that there

is huge humanitarian implications of a North Korean collapsed.

Ariana Skylar-Mastro is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, and she's

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