Strange Lab · 4,057 inventions · 3.3M BCE to 2025

Ask a world model what happens when history changes.

Choose a year, change the world state, and see what it expects over the next 25 years of technology.

Ask what if

Choose a year. Change what happened.

Ask your own question or start with one below. The lab matches it to one of 82 scenarios run through the trained model.

This shows how the forecast changes when the model sees a different version of events.

Build an alternate history

Compose your own counterfactual. Run the real model.

The model that learned the corpus runs right here in your browser — nothing you compose leaves the page.

4,057 inventions

Where inventions came from, over time.

The recorded center of invention moves from deep prehistory to the AI era. Click any band to inspect that period.

Choose your lens

Follow ideas, uses, mechanisms, and makers through time.

What surprised the model

Some inventions break the pattern.

Most inventions fit their period. These are the ones the model did not expect, plus the earlier moments it reads as most similar to 2025.

The biggest surprises in each era

Which past moments look most like 2025?

From 2025

Who does the model expect to build technology by 2050?