Poll: Most Americans Think Future Tech Will Make Life Better (Infographic)

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Results of a Pew poll of 1,001 U.S. adults.
59 percent of those polled were optimistic, while 30 percent thought the changes would make people worse off. (Image credit: By Karl Tate, Infographics Artist)

A Pew Research Center poll found that 59 percent of those surveyed are optimistic that coming technological and scientific changes will make life in the future better, and 30 percent think these changes will lead to a future in which people are worse off than they are today.

81 percent expect that within the next 50 years, people needing new organs will have them grown in a lab.

51 percent expect that computers will be able to create art that is indistinguishable from that made by humans.

19 percent expect that humans will be able to control the weather in the foreseeable future.

39 percent expect that scientists will have developed the technology to teleport objects.

33 percent expect that humans will have colonized planets other than Earth.

 

48 percent would be interested in getting a driverless car.

 

63 percent think it would be a change for the worse if personal and commercial drones were given permission to fly through most U.S. airspace.

 

20 percent would be interested in eating meat that was grown in a lab.

 

66 percent think it would be a change for the worse if prospective parents could alter the DNA of their children to produce smarter, healthier or stronger kids.

 

53 percent of Americans think it would be a change for the worse if most people were to wear implants or devices that constantly show them information.

 

9 percent chose time travel as the one sci-fi technology that, if invented, they would like to have.

 

Poll methodology: telephone interviews were conducted February 13-18, 2014, among a national sample of 1,001 adults, 18 years of age or older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia.

Karl Tate
Karl Tate
LiveScience Infographic Artist
Karl has been Purch's infographics specialist across all editorial properties since 2010.  Before joining Purch, Karl spent 11 years at the New York headquarters of The Associated Press, creating news graphics for use around the world in newspapers and on the web.  He has a degree in graphic design from Louisiana State University.