By Monica Byrne
A story about celebrity, imagined intimacy, and virtual doppelgangers.
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
The Editors: Wikipedia, Internet Communities, and the Battle for Truth in the Digital Age
Crowd-sourced internet encyclopedias—most famously, Wikipedia—have the power to shape the story we tell about the past and the information with which we move into the future. The people who edit those forums—an army of unpaid volunteers—take their roles seriously. But what happens when that power is manipulated? That’s the set-up for Stephen Harrison’s new novel, The Editors. Join Future Tense and Harrison, a leading journalist covering Wikipedia and digital information ecosystems, to discuss the novel and the future of truth and information online.
My Favorite Movie: Arrival, with Shane Harris and Katherine Mangu-Ward
When 12 mysterious spacecraft arrive to Earth in the 2016 film Arrival, they bring with them an eerie question: why are they here? To answer that question, the U.S. military enlists the help of a top linguist, who is tasked with deciphering the extraterrestrial’s language. Her mission is backdropped by escalating threats of war and a particularly fraught distinction: the difference between the translations of “weapon” and “tool.” Join Future Tense and ASU’s Center for Science and the Imagination for a screening of Arrival and a conversation about language, reality, (mis)communication, and how we understand worlds far beyond our own
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.
A story about geoengineering, billionaire hubris, and “altruistic” narcissism.
By Jeff Hewitt
A story about a copyright lawsuit against a prolific A.I. author.
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.
