Institute For The Future

The Ethical OS

A guide to anticipating the future impact of today's technology

Your New Telepresence Superpowers

Thuc Vu, CEO and Co-founder of the Silicon Valley startup OhmniLabs, says his favorite thing to do with a telepresence robot is to cook with his...

Universal Basic Assets

IFTF’s Executive Director Marina Gorbis spent years exploring and making sense of how technology will transform work and organizations. In her 2013...

The IFTF Foresight Training Experience: A First-Timer’s View

I’ve been practicing strategic foresight for nearly a year now. I joined IFTF in early 2018, supporting Distinguished Fellow Bob Johansen. Bob taught...

Post Money

People don’t want products or services. They want their desires fulfilled. People will increasingly outsource this important job to software happiness...

Embodied Learning

In 1990, Steve Jobs famously promoted the computer as “the equivalent of a bicycle for our minds.” In some ways, that’s how computers are still...

Teaching Robots How to Work Together

In a video created by the Automatic Coordination of Teams Lab at the University of Southern California, a set of 49 drones line the floor of an empty...

New Policy Platform Outlines Solutions to Address Deceptive Digital Politics

A Framework from MapLight and Institute for the Future to Safeguard U.S. Elections

The Rise of Computational Propaganda

On January 17, 2014, Girl 4 Trump USA joined Twitter. She was silent for a week, but on January 24, she suddenly got busy, posting an average of 1,289...

Who's in Control?

Navigating levels of autonomy: Over the next decade, autonomous bots and machines will migrate out of a few select industries and terrains and become...

Rewriting the Rules of Reality

Standing on the desert surface of Tatooine, you instinctively duck as the Millennium Falcon swoops in for a thunderous and dramatic landing beside...

Black Twitter and the Future of Digital Disobedience

In an interview not long ago, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone was asked if he had ever heard of “Black Twitter.” Stone admitted he had not, but wondered...

Complexity Made Simple

How is it that termites are able to build towering cathedrals out of mud without referring to a set of blueprints? How do ants, without a leader...

So You Want to be a Thing on the Internet

Hi there. You’re awake. And look, you’re not alone anymore. There are other machines. Some are like you, many are...

Why We Communicate

We are on the verge of a set of technological advances that will transform when, where, how, and why we communicate. The Internet of Things, advances...

The Underworld Wide Web

In a line of work dependent on the projection of power, criminals use social media to exude influence, intimidate rival gangs, and connect with their...

The Coming Era of Autonomous Vehicles

In the next decade, autonomous vehicles will evolve to become the ultimate mobile computer.

My BFF is a Bot

Lydia had known her PADIS (Personal Autonomous Data Intelligence Service), Hillary, for almost five years now. She’d named her after a childhood...

Machines as the New Consumer Class

In early 2016, an engineer named Jason Goecke posted a video that quickly went viral. Working in his spare time, he had hacked together the Amazon...

From Domestication to Amplification

Technology has transformed our relationships with animals. Horses were once the “motors” for long-distance transport, but are now mainly pets for...

Amber Case Joins IFTF as a Research Fellow

IFTF is thrilled to announce the research fellowship of internationally recognized design advocate and speaker, Amber Case—author of Calm Technology...

The Politics of Persuasion

Whether we know it or not, we are all under constant bombardment by efforts to change our beliefs about the world....

The Listening City

It’s 2026. Listening has multiplied and flourished. And who is doing most of the listening? Machines, thanks to advances in natural language...

Feeling is Believing

David Birnbaum manages Haptic User Experience Design at Immersion Corporation. During his eight years there, Birnbaum has been working to transition...