Visualizing "The Future According to You"

The Uncertain Future is a future technology and world-modeling project by the Machine Intelligence Research Institute. Its goal is to allow those interested in future technology to form their own rigorous, mathematically consistent model of how the development of advanced technologies will affect the evolution of civilization over the next hundred years. To facilitate this, we have gathered data on what experts think is going to happen, in such fields as semiconductor development, biotechnology, global security, Artificial Intelligence and neuroscience. We invite you, the user, to read about the opinions of these experts, and then come to your own conclusion about the likely destiny of mankind.

How to use our system to draw your picture of the future:

We'll ask you a sequence of questions aimed at getting your answer to the question: "When will human-level AI be invented?" We'll model your beliefs in four parts:

Is human-level AI possible in principle? Assuming business as usual (no nuclear or other catastrophes, and no brain-boosting methods that seriously speed up research), how long until human-level AI? What if a nuclear or other catastrophe interrupts AI research? What if future brain-boosting methods speed AI research?

Ready to start?

The Uncertain Future requires Java 6 or later. Click here to get a Java runtime environment.

We recommend using the browser Firefox or Opera on Linux/Windows and Safari on OS X (Mac). Not all of the features are available in Internet Explorer for Windows or on Firefox for OS X.

If you'd like to learn more, check the frequently asked questions, or dive into the gory mathematical details.