“I view this question as depending on what happens to current AI, meaning in practice, to current generative AI. For purposes of this exercise, let’s consider two possible outcomes for…
Imagining the Digital Future Center
A New Age of Enlightenment? A New Threat to Humanity?
Tech experts and the general public envision the future impact of AI
Latest Research
AI & Politics ’24 – National Public Opinion Survey
More than three-fourths of Americans fear abuses of artificial intelligence will affect the 2024 presidential election. Many say they are not confident they can detect fake photos, videos and audio.
The Impact of AI by 2040
In our latest “Future of Digital Life” canvassing, more than 300 global tech experts share insights on AI’s likely disruption and downsides, as well as extolling its expected benefits.
The Imagining the Digital Future Center is a research initiative of Elon University focused on the potential future impact of the digital revolution and what may lie ahead. The Center was established in 2000 and renamed with an expanded research agenda in 2024. Its mission is to discover and broadly share a diverse range of opinions, ideas and original research about the likely evolution of digital change, informing important conversations and policy formation. See links to all research reports
Media Monitor
News coverage of our work
- The Independent: Wide majority of Americans worry AI will be used to influence 2024 election outcome
- WUNC Radio: Elon poll shows broad fears of AI interference in 2024 presidential race
- Washington Times: Poll: 3 in 4 fear AI abuse in presidential election
- Straight Arrow News: DOJ cracks down on AI threats ahead of 2024 election
- The Center Square: Poll: 3 in 4 fear artificial intelligence abuse in presidential election
- Virginian-Pilot: In the age of AIs, what are humans good for?
- EdSurge: Putting People First as Higher Ed Grapples With AI
- The New Stack: IT Pioneers Assess the Future Impact of AI
- Education Week: “Most Teens Think AI Won’t Hurt Their Mental Health. Teachers Disagree.”
- PCMag: “Experts: AI Will Make Life More Convenient But Less Pleasurable”
- Politico: “What really worries people about AI” – a report on the release of ITDF’s AI 2040 report
Curation
What we’re reading
- Stanford HCAI: 2024 Artificial Intelligence Index – 500-page report reveals trends in AI, public perceptions and geopolitical dynamics
- Arxiv – Algorithmic Progress in LLMs: They are improving substantially faster than hardware gains per Moore’s Law, the engine of the digital age
- AI Impact: Survey of AI Authors on the Future of AI
- New York Times: How Nations Are Losing a Global Race to Tackle AI’s Harms
- Tim Berners-Lee Calls for Reform: Marking the Web’s 35th Anniversary with a warning
- The Guardian: “What it means to be human is elusive” (editorial)
- Quantum Insider: Comprehensive 2024 list of quantum companies
Predicting the new millennium
From 2000 to 2023 Elon University’s Imagining the Internet Center collected and analyzed experts’ insights about the potential digital future in real time, compiling a one-of-a-kind historical record of society’s evolving hopes and fears for the future during a crucially influential 24-year span of communications technology evolution.
- Earlier expert surveys – The 48 comprehensive research reports that formed the foundation of the Imagining the Digital Future Center: thousands of pages of qualitative research collecting and analyzing thousands of experts’ predictions made between 2004 and 2023 about the likely future of digital life in the decades to follow. Search those archives here.
- Event coverage – Documentary journalism reports recorded at 30 global tech gatherings, featuring 6,500 live-on-site video interviews and hundreds of news stories.
- Time capsule – A database of 4,000 expert predictions made between 1990 and 1995 in varied published interviews and official reports from early 1990s gatherings focused on the likely future of digital technology.
Collaboration Project: Artificial Intelligence in Higher Education
Imagining the Digital Future is coordinating a global effort to to help guide development of artificial intelligence policies and practices in higher education. More than 140 higher education organizations, administrators, researchers and faculty members from 47 countries have collaborated to create a position statement with six guiding principles. The statement was released at the 18th annual United Nations Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Kyoto, Japan. Learn more on the initiative’s website.