The New America Foundation, Slate Magazine and ASU have entered into a partnership to research the effects that rapidly developing technology has on both society and public policy.
The three organizations will debut their partnership, named “Future Tense,” on May 24.
The project aims to examine more closely a variety of technologies, including genetic, robotic, informational, and nano-technologies and the effects they have on human life, as well as investigate how technology can be controlled and influence government.
Troy Schneider, spokesman for the non-profit New America Foundation, said the partnership with ASU is ideal because of the project’s focus on the future.
“Both organizations have similar interests in looking ahead, so instead of what the happenings are on Capitol Hill this week, looking at policy challenges brought on mostly by technology five to 10 years down the road,” Schneider said.
Slate Magazine played a key role in the project as the media partner and was chosen for its focus on the future in its reporting — or “what if” reporting, as Schneider called it.
“There are bigger media outlets, but there aren’t any that approach it in the kind a creative way as Slate does,” he said.
David Plotz, editor of Slate, said in an e-mail that Slate Magazine was eager to be a part of this project because of the issues surrounding technology it addresses and its shared focus on the future.
“Slate has long admired New America Foundation, and thought of it, in many ways, as the foundation counterpart to Slate — smart, non-ideological, irreverent, and fascinated with the future,” Plotz said. “So we were eager to work with NAF and we were thrilled that the partnership included ASU, which has assembled an incredible collection of thinkers and is doing dazzling and important policy work.”
Plotz said the partnership could be beneficial to all three organizations because they could bring the project into the public eye successfully.
“We’d like to start and lead a discussion about the critical policy issues Future Tense will be raising [issues about emerging technology and dramatic policy shifts],” Plotz said. “We’d like Slate to be the place leaders, thinkers and engaged citizens go to learn about these issues and participate in the discussion around them.”
Joel Garreau a Lincoln Professor of Law, Culture and Values at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law and a fellow at the New America Foundation, has been at the heart of the partnership.
Garreau said he wanted to be involved with the project because of his personal interest in the effects of technology on the human race.
“For the first time in history these technologies are not aimed outward, at altering our environment to create fire or something. Instead it’s increasingly being aimed inward at ourselves, to modify minds, our bodies, metabolism, our kids. … This gives us the possibility to be the first to engineer your own species,” Garreau said.
ASU seemed to align with the interests of the New America Foundation and provided an ideal partner because of its unique mix of people, he said.
“ASU is a genuinely unusual place in that it has lots of people who are literally making the future,” Garreau said. “What became clear to me was there was a Venn diagram of interests between the University and the New America Foundation. The New America Foundation needed help coming up with people to feed this project … and ASU was hungry to get recognition, especially in Washington.”
Schneider agreed that ASU is unique in its future- focused research and paired well with the New America Foundation.
“ASU is doing really impressive and cool things … The University seems to be approaching things in a proactive, hands-on way. And we’re always working on bringing the new ideas, out and getting that into public policy,” he said. “We’re a different sort of think tank, and we wanted to work with a different sort of University.”
Reach the reporter at michelle.parks@asu.edu
