Ed Finn is the founding director of the Center for Science and the Imagination (CSI) at Arizona State University, where he is an associate professor in the School for the Future of Innovation in Society and the School of Games, Arts, Media, and Engineering. CSI is dedicated to inspiring collective imagination for better futures; and since 2012, the team has produced more than 20 collections of award-winning speculative fiction and nonfiction that explore hopeful visions of the future. Ed is also the academic director of Future Tense, where CSI publishes a series of original short stories and essays in partnership with Issues in Science and Technology and the National Academy of Sciences.

Ed’s research explores collaborative imagination, AI, and the intersection of the humanities, arts, and sciences. His book What Algorithms Want: Imagination in the Age of Computing examines how the stories we tell about AI and algorithms shape the real-world potential of these technologies. Ed is also the co-editor of several books, including Future Tense Fiction; Frankenstein: Annotated for Scientists, Engineers and Creators of All Kinds; and Hieroglyph: Stories and Visions for a Better Future. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Science, the MIT Technology Review, and many other venues. He completed his PhD in English and American Literature at Stanford University and his bachelor’s degree at Princeton University.