TRENDS Research & Advisory has published the 49th edition of its monthly bulletin, Monitoring Global Knowledge Production, titled Beyond Determinism: Knowledge Redefines the Relationship Between Humans, Machines, and Society. The TRENDS Virtual Office in Canada prepared the edition.
Through three interconnected themes, the edition reviews a selection of the most significant and recent intellectual and academic publications released in 2026. Together, the topics are united by a central thread that reexamines relationships often presented to humanity as inevitable, revealing instead that they are fundamentally open to transformation. The issue underscores that the future of machines, society, and the planet is not predetermined, but remains a choice yet to be made.
Humans and Technology
The first theme explores the relationship between humans, technology, and intelligence. It examines the book “The AI Inflection Point,” which calls for a responsible balance between innovation and safety. It also discusses the book “Augmented Taylorism,” which places artificial intelligence within the long history of labor organization and control, rejecting its portrayal as a technological inevitability. Meanwhile, the book “Embodied Intelligence” expands the very concept of intelligence beyond the confines of the brain and software.
The issue also reviews the books “Atlas of the Digital World,” which maps the material foundations of digital life, and “Digital Exiles,” which reveals how digital work has become both a lifeline for refugees and a source of new forms of vulnerability.
Power and Humanity
The second theme focuses on power and humanity. It highlights the book “Captured Minds,” which argues that manipulation is not merely deception but a hidden practice that threatens democracy. It also sheds light on the book “The Hidden History of Conspiracy Theory,” which traces the emergence of a mode of thinking that has become characteristic of the modern era. The issue further discusses the book “How Policy Happens,” which opens the black box of educational policymaking and shows that it is the product of conflict and pressure rather than tidy theories.
The Human-Earth Relationship
The third theme examines the relationship between humans and the Earth and its limits. The book Limitless begins with a striking reality to ask how we teach and learn in times of emergency. The issue also reviews the book “Pollution Is Colonialism,” which argues that plastic represents the active manifestation of a colonial relationship with the Earth rather than merely one of its byproducts. Meanwhile, the book “End of the World and Appetizers” reveals how economic elites reshape the climate debate to serve their own interests.
The issue also features a collection of intellectual works that build connections across these themes. Among them is the book States of Mind, which links educational reform with mental health through a partnership between adults and young people. The book, The Paradox of the Organism, shifts the question of unity and internal conflict from politics to biology itself. Meanwhile, the book “Seeing the World Differently” redefines the relationship between humans and perception, presenting the experience of blindness as a lesson in presence and attentiveness that blind people offer to the sighted.
Monitoring Developments
The Monitoring Global Knowledge Production bulletin is part of TRENDS’ ongoing efforts to track major global knowledge and academic developments and analyze emerging trends in academic and intellectual production. Published monthly as part of a series of periodic reports, the bulletin aims to monitor the latest and most significant trends in global knowledge production and provide researchers, decision-makers, and those interested in intellectual affairs with analytical insights that help anticipate future developments and understand their evolving dynamics.
