Never again will the future be like this It is a feeling of complete certainty. But in this time of rapid, intense transformation—political, technological, cultural, scientific—it’s as difficult as it ever has been to get a sense of what’s around the next corner.
WIRED is obsessed with the future. In order to find out what the future holds, we often use in-depth video, stories that are well reported, or interviews with people who help define it. We recently adopted a new slogan: For Future Reference. Stories that help us shape the future are what we’re looking for.
In that spirit, we recently interviewed a range of luminaries from the various worlds WIRED touches—and who participated in our recent Big Interview event in San Francisco—as well as students who have spent their whole lives inundated with technologies that seem increasingly likely to disrupt their lives and livelihoods. Unsurprisingly, the main focus of this report was on artificial intelligence. But it also spread to areas such as politics, technology and culture. Think of it as a benchmark of how people think about the future today—and maybe even a rough map of where we’re going.
All-Around AI
AI integration is as widespread as it has ever been in the world of search since Alta Vista. Similar to search, use cases for AI tend to be practical and mundane. “I use a lot of LLMs to answer any questions I have throughout the day,” Angel Tramontin, a Haas School of Business graduate from UC Berkeley says.
Many of our respondents said that they had used AI in the past few hours or even minutes. Daniela Amodei, cofounder of Anthropic and its president, has recently been using the chatbot created by her company to help with childcare. “Claude actually helped me and my husband potty-train our older son,” She says “And I’ve recently used Claude to do the equivalent of panic-Googling symptoms for my daughter.”
It’s not just her. Wicked LLMs are now the focus of director Jon M. Chu “just to get some advice on my children’s health, which is maybe not the best,” “He says” “But it’s a good starting reference point.”
Health is a growth opportunity for AI companies. OpenAI released ChatGPT earlier this month. “hundreds of millions of people” Each week, use the bot to provide answers to health-related questions. ChatGPT introduces privacy-enhancing measures due to the sensitive nature the questions. Anthropic’s Claude for Healthcare is aimed at hospitals and health care systems.
Some of the people we spoke to did not take such a comprehensive approach. “I try not to use it at all,” says UC Berkeley undergraduate student Sienna Villalobos. “When it comes down to doing your own work, it’s very easy to have an opinion. AI shouldn’t be able to give you an opinion. I think you should be able to make that for yourself.”
It may become less popular. According to Pew Research, nearly two thirds of US teenagers use chatbots. study. About three in ten report using AI daily. Google Gemini has become so integrated with Google search that it is likely many others are using AI unknowingly or without intending to.
Are you ready to launch?
The pace of AI deployment and development is relentless despite the concerns it has raised. potential impacts on mental healthThe environmentThen, society at large. Companies have to largely self-police in a regulatory landscape that is so open. In the absence of any legislation, what are some questions that AI companies should ask themselves prior to every launch?
“‘What might go wrong?’ is a really good and important question that I wish more companies would ask,” Mike Masnick is the founder and CEO of Tech Policy News. Techdirt.
