As 2022 draws to a close, we ask NIST’s senior researchers to look ahead to the new year and beyond. They research topics that affect all of us, from indoor air quality to cybersecurity. So we ask our fellows, “How will the technology you are working on today affect society in the years to come?”

Here are their thoughts and predictions. 

AI will become even more common, but risks remain—Ellen Voorhees 

Ellen Voorhees. Credit: Kelley Roger

Artificial intelligence (AI) tools that can write and talk like people are getting a lot of attention right now. You can ask one of these tools for something, and it gives you a response in perfectly fluent English. 

There are many challenges with this technology. One is that the AI itself has no idea what it wrote or if the material it wrote is accurate. The answers could be true, or they could be completely ridiculous. 

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