enigm{ai}ntelligence
enigmAIntelligence is an attempt to capture a moment in time when humanity first gained awareness of artificial intelligence.
The core idea of the project is to tell the story of AI and document the expectations surrounding it. What do researchers think about AGI? When, in their opinion, will AI transition from being a tool to an independent agent? Will certain areas of human activities disappear? Will digital consciousness emerge? Will humans even be able to comprehend the intelligence they create? And will this intelligence be able to understand us?
The project is structured as a time capsule. We're collecting interviews with scientists, engineers, researchers, developers and then transforming this data into an interactive timeline.
Today, the conversation surrounding artificial intelligence is filled with buzzwords. News, memes, panic, endless predictions, "Top 10 Best Prompts," "This new model is 100 times better than anything you've ever seen," and so on. Everyone is talking about AI, but very few are capturing the key element: who predicted it, and why? In ten years, many of these ideas will seem obvious, even though very few are completely certain today.
Each point on the timeline leads to an interview with a researcher, providing a comprehensive understanding of the situation with full context. This format will be useful for those who are familiar with AI through news and buzz, as well as for the academic community.
This contribution is intended for a wide spectrum of readers. For someone just starting to explore AI, this is an easy introduction to the topic and a clear understanding that AI didn't appear out of nowhere. For students and high school students, it offers the chance to see and be inspired by researcher’s work.
For journalists and researchers, it's a rare archive where predictions are tied to specific people and time points. For colleges and tech companies, it's an opportunity to participate in the cultural understanding of the era.
For those seeking specialized knowledge, we will add a convenient categorization feature. Those who want to read specifically about "AI in medicine" or "multi-agent AI" can easily find this information on the timeline and read the interviews where it's mentioned.
For convenience, the timeline will also allow you to select time ranges: past, present (2025-2027), future, specific decades, and so on.
Each prediction comes with a date, the name of the person making it, and the context. Then, the "capsule" is sealed at the moment of publication, up to a certain year (e.g., 2036). At this point, the project comes to life: we check what came true, what turned out to be childish, and what no one could have predicted. In this sense, "enigmAIntelligence" is a long-term story with no clear end point.
We hope that the conversation about artificial intelligence will also be about humanity. About the fear of losing control. About the desire to create something beyond ourselves. About trying to understand our own consciousness through machines.
"enigmAIntelligence" is a document of time, in which people will feel that they are standing at the threshold of something as significant as the arrival of the internet or even computing technology itself.
Interactive Timeline
A reader can navigate the timeline from the early experiments of the 1950s to predictions about the future after 2070. Each point on the timeline represents a short thought, prediction, fact, discovery, or concern.
Book
A detailed interview between a journalist and an expert, reflecting the doubts, emotions, personal stories, and overall feeling of the era. The timeline provides a concise and convenient format, while the full-length interviews and book offer depth.
Scientists, engineers,
developers of AI
International experts
13 expertsRussian experts
35 expertsProject in numbers
..."Fears about new technologies harming human cognition are not new. Throughout history, writing, books, calculators, and the internet have all been accused of weakening memory and critical thinking. However, we believe the real danger today is not that AI will replace human cognition, but that excessive and uncritical reliance on it could gradually erode our ability to think independently, question information, and develop original ideas"...
…"In reality, the goal should be to replace this silly and pointless fear of machines that imitate us with the immense satisfaction of knowing that such complex and beautiful things can be created by a person who, only recently, found simple arithmetic to be something mysterious and wonderful"…
..."I believe that at the end of the century the use of words and general educated opinion will have altered so much that one will be able to speak of machines thinking without expecting to be contradicted"...
Project Team
Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Professor, Vice President for Science and Academic Relations, Skoltech
Doctor of Technical Sciences, Professor, Head of the Laboratory for Reliable, Adaptive and Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence, AI Center, Skoltech
Head of Image Projects, Communications Department, Skoltech
Manager of image projects, communications department, Skoltech
Our successful experience
in popular science media projects at Skoltech
Budget: how much we have
and how much we need
- Journalists' work — preparing and conducting interviews.
- Editorial work — editor-in-chief, managing editor, fact-checking.
- Transcription and processing of interviews.
- Translation of materials, English editing and proofreading.
- Photo shoots with the protagonists — organizing the sessions and retouching.
- Legal and administrative support — consents, rights, contracts.
- Building the website with the timeline and interviews.
- Preparing and uploading the content to the website.
- Hosting and technical support of the website.
- Logistics — packaging, storage and distribution of the books.
- PR support — project launch, offline events, competitions and exhibitions.
Contacts.
enigm{ai}nteligence
Project Skoltech · 2026 · Time capsule about machines and people