A story about AI, emergencies, information overload, and parenting.
Future Tense is a partnership of New America and Arizona State University that examines emerging technologies, public policy and society.
Future Tense is the citizen’s guide to the future.
The partnership provides insightful, timely, and unexpected analysis at the intersection of technology and society through written commentary, original fiction, and live events in Washington, D.C. and beyond.
Recent Events
How Can Science Fiction Help Design Better Science and Tech Policies?
Good science fiction does not dream up just the automobile, but the traffic jam, as writers Isaac Asimov and Frederik Pohl have argued. Putting the future in context—in its own imagined world—forces us to grapple with questions and consequences that could otherwise easily be glossed over (and often are). How we use fiction to fix our current “traffic jams”? Join Future Tense, Issues in Science and Technology for a conversation with leading science fiction authors, policymakers, and journalists about how imagining fictional worlds can inspire us to make better realities.
Is Sport the Future of Media?
It’s hard to tell whether we are living through the “sportification” of all media or the “mediafication” of all sport. Or both. What does this mean for the role and value of sports properties in our society? And how will sport hasten the adoption of new forms of mass media (as it has in the past, from radio to satellite TV) and help shape their development going forward? Join New America’s Future Tense partnership with Arizona State University and ASU’s Great Game Lab to consider these questions with two leading sport and media thinkers and deal makers.
Future Tense Fiction
A series of original science fiction stories crafted by leading authors, exploring how science and technology will change our lives in the future. Each story is paired with a response essay by an expert in a related field.
By Gregory Mone
A story about standup comedy, AI, and the ethics of human enhancement.
A story about psychology, cloning, and violent catharsis.
A story about extraterrestrials, creative economies, and the politics of taste.
Best of Future Tense
Future Tense publishes commentary by researchers and scholars at Arizona State University, alongside many other writers and thinkers from the fields of journalism, public policy, science and technology, and more.
