Arizona State University Foundation for A New American University

NEWSWELL seeks to leverage the resources and scale of the university to help sustain, transform, and build trust in local journalism. This grant will support NEWSWELL to produce a study of current efforts to map and address inaccuracy in local news media related to artificial intelligence.

The project titled, "Imaginarium: AI Using Science Fiction to Explore the Real-World Challenges and Opportunities of AI," on behalf of Arizona State University’s Center for Science and the Imagination and New America’s Open Technology Institute, aims to have science fiction serve as a tool for helping policymakers and the public understand and grapple with the unique challenges of the future. This one-year initiative will draw together leading writers, experts, scientists, and policymakers to: (a) conduct an initial review of science fiction and build a draft taxonomy of how AI and the ethical issues surrounding it have been treated in the past, (b) convene experts from both the AI and sci-fi fields for a closed-door workshop and a public Future Tense event at New America, and (c) commission an initial round of four to six science fiction stories to appear in Future Tense Fiction on Slate Magazine. This project will address the growing gap between technological change and law, policy, and ethics with one of humanity’s most powerful tools for dealing with complex problems: storytelling.