Usually, lists of interesting pictures do little more than stoke the imagination. That's great, but it's so much better when you can see some interesting ideas that could actually solve real issues. An article on Discovery.com provides a dozen ideas for dealing with rising ocean levels and also creating energy (I assume because land-based energy sources will use too much important above-water property).

It's a good question and George Dvorsky at IO9 interviews Luke Muehlhauser, Executive Director of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute, discusses his influences and research. I think this quote sums up the importance of his work and why we should all be interested in the expectations for artificial intelligence:

I pretty quickly realized that the intelligence explosion would be the most important event in human history, and that the most important thing I could do would be to help ensure that the intelligence explosion has a positive rather than negative impact — that is, that we end up with a "Friendly" superintelligence rather than an unfriendly or indifferent superintelligence.

In 1964, Isaac Asimov made 10 predictions looking forward 50 years. In 2014, the year he was predicting, Eric Mack reviews the list on CNET. While the list is interesting, I find the view of the events influencing Asimov's prediction more engaging.

Wired offers an overview of photographer Vincent Fournier's Post Natural History artwork, in which he speeds up the evolution of living organisms to incorporate technological capabilities.

These creatures come from the future—an imagined future, based loosely on current research on synthetic biology and genetic engineering. The idea is that these are living species, reprogrammed by mankind to better fit our environment as well as to adapt to new human desires.