Fifth of Americans Believe Humans Will Control the Weather in Future

A third of Americans think that futuristic technology will only bring misery, with advances such as teleportation and space colonisation making them worse off than they are today.

The national survey by the Pew Research Centre, asked people in the US about potential scientific developments, including space colonisation, teleportation and robots, and how they felt about them.

Eight out of 10 people said they believe custom grown human organs will be the norm within the next 50 years, while half say computers will be able to create artworks indistinguishable from those painted by man.

Four in ten people say they believe teleportation will have been invented by 2070, while a third expect to have colonised another planet. One in five also believe humans will be able to control the weather in the future.

In terms of what people would like to own, most people said they wanted flying cars or bikes, the ability to time travel or health improvements. One in ten Americans, however, said they are "not interested in futuristic inventions".

"But at the same time that many expect science to produce great breakthroughs in the coming decades, there are widespread concerns about some controversial technological developments that might occur on a shorter time horizon," Pew said.