For millennia, it has been an article of faith and fact that humans ruled the Earth. The Bible decreed it. Aristotle proclaimed it. And there is a decent argument to…
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 impact of the digital revolution and the future of the ever-deepening relationship between humans and machines. 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
Experts’ insights
AI threatens to require society to redefine ‘what it means to be a person’ in the digital realm
“The outcome by 2040 depends a great deal, if not entirely, upon the regulatory framework created around AI. If we just consider the Internet, there have certainly been areas where…
We can create a great future, but it will require new infrastructure, policies and norms
“How our individual lives and society will change with the diffusion of AI depends less on technological innovations and more on policies and institutional arrangements in which they develop. It…
Media Monitor
News coverage of our work
- Huffington Post: How To Politely Tell Someone They Fell For An AI-Generated Image
- Inside Higher Ed: AAC&U, Elon University Launch AI Guide for Students
- Fox8: How will artificial intelligence impact elections?
- FoxBusiness: Most Americans expect AI abuses to impact 2024 election: survey
- WFAE Radio – NPR Charlotte: AI and the election
- WJLA-TV, Washington, D.C.: FCC joins growing chorus of officials concerned about AI use in political ads
- Spectrum News Capital Tonight: Poll: Majority of Americans concerned about AI’s impact on elections
- 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?
- 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 and viewing
- United Nations Expert Panel on AI: “Governing AI for Humanity: Seven Recommendations”
- AI to Add 19.9 Trillion to Global Economy by 2030: IDC report – AI to create better products and services, also eliminate many jobs
- The Worrisome Impact of AI on Cameras: No One’s Ready for This
- AI Interpretability: Scientists are Trying to Unravel the Mystery Behind AI
- Microsoft and LinkedIn: AI at Work Is Here. Now Comes the Hard Part
- Aspen Ideas Festival: Mustafa Suleyman, CEO of Microsoft AI predicts AI will create new scientific, cultural knowledge at almost zero marginal cost
- Stanford HCAI: 2024 Artificial Intelligence Index – 500-page report reveals trends in AI, public perceptions and geopolitical dynamics
- Next Big Idea Club: In an interview, Bill Gates shares his 2024 insights on AI’s Impact on Future Agendas and Humanity
- Arxiv – Algorithmic Progress in LLMs: They are improving substantially faster than hardware gains per Moore’s Law, the engine of the digital age
- TIME 100: Eric Schmidt and Yoshua Bengio Debate Dangers of AI in an interview at the Time 100 Summit
- AI Impact: Survey of AI Authors on the Future of AI
- The Economist: AI is transforming the character of warfare, making it faster, more opaque and destabilising
- 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)
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: Student Guide to Artificial Intelligence
In August 2024, Imagining the Digital Future released the first edition of the Student Guide to Artificial Intelligence in partnership with the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U). The guide, titled “AI-U/v1.0,” was developed with the collaboration and review of faculty, scholars, academic leaders and students at universities around the world. The guide is available free to all students and institutions, who may use, distribute and adapt its content under a Creative Commons license. “This guide was written from the student perspective and includes practical advice on using AI responsibly while in college and preparing for the AI future,” said Elon University President Connie Book.
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.