Dr. Hanson has a doctorate in social science from California Institute of Technology, master's degrees in physics and philosophy from the University of Chicago, and nine years experience as a research programmer, at Lockheed and NASA.

Oxford University Press published his book The Age of Em: Work, Love and Life When Robots Rule the Earth in June 2016, and his book The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life, co-authored with Kevin Simler, in January, 2018.

Professor Hanson has pioneered prediction markets, also known as information markets and idea futures, since 1988. He was a principal architect of the first internal corporate markets, at Xanadu in 1990, of the first web markets, the Foresight Exchange since 1994, of DARPA's Policy Analysis Market, from 2001 to 2003, and of IARPA's combinatorial markets DAGGRE and SCICAST from 2010 to 2015. He has written and spoken widely on the application of idea futures to business and policy, and has advised many ventures. He suggests "futarchy", a form of governance based on prediction markets.