A superintelligence is a hypothetical agent that possesses intelligence surpassing that of the most giftedhuman minds. Philosopher Nick Bostrom defines superintelligence as "any intellect that greatly exceeds the cognitive performance of humans in virtually all domains of interest".
Technological researchers disagree about how likely present-day human intelligence is to be surpassed. Some argue that advances in artificial intelligence
(AI) will probably result in general reasoning systems that lack human
cognitive limitations. Others believe that humans will evolve or
directly modify their biology to achieve radically greater intelligence.Several future study scenarios combine elements from both of these possibilities, suggesting that humans are likely to interface with computers, or upload their minds to computers, in a way that enables substantial intelligence amplification. The hypothetical creation of the first superintelligence may or may not result from an intelligence explosion or a technological singularity.
Some researchers believe that superintelligence will likely follow shortly after the development of artificial general intelligence.
The first generally intelligent machines are likely to immediately hold
an enormous advantage in at least some forms of mental capability,
including the capacity of perfect recall, a vastly superior knowledge base, and the ability to multitask in ways not possible to biological entities.
Several scientists and forecasters have been arguing for prioritizing early research into the possible benefits and risks of human and machine cognitive enhancement, because of the potential social impact of such technologies.
Artificial superintelligence
Artificial intelligence, especially foundation models, has made rapid progress, surpassing human capabilities in various benchmarks.
Philosopher David Chalmers argues that artificial general intelligence is a very likely path to artificial superintelligence (ASI). Chalmers breaks this claim down into an argument that AI can achieve equivalence to human intelligence, that it can be extended to surpass human intelligence, and that it can be further amplified to completely dominate humans across arbitrary tasks.
Concerning human-level equivalence, Chalmers argues that the
human brain is a mechanical system, and therefore ought to be emulatable
by synthetic materials. He also notes that human intelligence was able to biologically evolve,
making it more likely that human engineers will be able to recapitulate
this invention. Evolutionary algorithms, in particular, should be able to produce human-level AI. Concerning intelligence extension and amplification, Chalmers argues
that new AI technologies can generally be improved on, and that this is
particularly likely when the invention can assist in designing new
technologies.
An AI system capable of self-improvement could enhance its own
intelligence, thereby becoming more efficient at improving itself. This
cycle of "recursive self-improvement" might cause an intelligence explosion, resulting in the creation of a superintelligence.
Computer components already greatly surpass human performance in
speed. Bostrom writes, "Biological neurons operate at a peak speed of
about 200 Hz, a full seven orders of magnitude slower than a modern
microprocessor (~2 GHz)." Moreover, neurons transmit spike signals across axons
at no greater than 120 m/s, "whereas existing electronic processing
cores can communicate optically at the speed of light". Thus, the
simplest example of a superintelligence may be an emulated human mind
running on much faster hardware than the brain. A human-like reasoner
who could think millions of times faster than current humans would have a
dominant advantage in most reasoning tasks, particularly ones that
require haste or long strings of actions.
Another advantage of computers is modularity, that is, their size
or computational capacity can be increased. A non-human (or modified
human) brain could become much larger than a present-day human brain,
like many supercomputers. Bostrom also raises the possibility of collective superintelligence:
a large enough number of separate reasoning systems, if they
communicated and coordinated well enough, could act in aggregate with
far greater capabilities than any sub-agent.
Humans outperform non-human animals in large part because of new
or enhanced reasoning capacities, such as long-term planning and language use. (See evolution of human intelligence and primate cognition.)
If there are other possible improvements to reasoning that would have a
similarly large impact, this makes it more likely that an agent can be
built that outperforms humans in the same fashion humans outperform
chimpanzees.
The above advantages hold for artificial superintelligence, but
it is not clear how many hold for biological superintelligence.
Physiological constraints limit the speed and size of biological brains
in many ways that are inapplicable to machine intelligence. As such,
writers on superintelligence have devoted much more attention to
superintelligent AI scenarios.
Projects
In 2024, Ilya Sutskever left OpenAI to cofound the startup Safe Superintelligence, which focuses solely on creating a superintelligence that is safe by design, while avoiding "distraction by management overhead or product cycles". Despite still offering no product, the startup became valued at $30 billion in February 2025.
In 2025, Meta created Meta Superintelligence Labs, a new AI division led by Alexandr Wang.
Biological superintelligence
Carl Sagan suggested that the advent of Caesarean sections and in vitro fertilization may permit humans to evolve larger heads, resulting in improvements via natural selection in the heritable component of human intelligence. By contrast, Gerald Crabtree has argued that decreased selection pressure is resulting in a slow, centuries-long reduction in human intelligence
and that this process instead is likely to continue. There is no
scientific consensus concerning either possibility and in both cases,
the biological change would be slow, especially relative to rates of
cultural change.
Selective breeding, nootropics, epigenetic modulation, and genetic engineering
could improve human intelligence more rapidly. Bostrom writes that if
we come to understand the genetic component of intelligence,
pre-implantation genetic diagnosis could be used to select for embryos
with as much as 4 points of IQ gain (if one embryo is selected out of
two), or with larger gains (e.g., up to 24.3 IQ points gained if one
embryo is selected out of 1000). If this process is iterated over many
generations, the gains could be an order of magnitude improvement.
Bostrom suggests that deriving new gametes from embryonic stem cells
could be used to iterate the selection process rapidly. A well-organized society of high-intelligence humans of this sort could potentially achieve collective superintelligence.
Alternatively, collective intelligence might be constructed by
better organizing humans at present levels of individual intelligence.
Several writers have suggested that human civilization, or some aspect
of it (e.g., the Internet, or the economy), is coming to function like a
global brain with capacities far exceeding its component agents. A prediction market
is sometimes considered as an example of a working collective
intelligence system, consisting of humans only (assuming algorithms are
not used to inform decisions).
A final method of intelligence amplification would be to directly enhance individual humans, as opposed to enhancing their social or reproductive dynamics. This could be achieved using nootropics, somatic gene therapy, or brain−computer interfaces.
However, Bostrom expresses skepticism about the scalability of the
first two approaches and argues that designing a superintelligent cyborg interface is an AI-complete problem.
Forecasts
Most surveyed AI researchers expect machines to eventually be able to
rival humans in intelligence, though there is little consensus on when
this will likely happen.
In a 2022 survey, the median year by which respondents expected
"High-level machine intelligence" with 50% confidence is 2061. The
survey defined the achievement of high-level machine intelligence as
when unaided machines can accomplish every task better and more cheaply
than human workers.
In 2023, OpenAI leaders Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and Ilya Sutskever published recommendations for the governance of superintelligence, which they believe may happen in less than 10 years.
In 2025, the forecast scenario AI 2027 led by Daniel Kokotajlo predicted rapid progress in the automation of coding and AI research, followed by ASI. In September 2025, a review of surveys of scientists and industry
experts from the last 15 years reported that most agreed that artificial
general intelligence (AGI), a level well below technological
singularity, will occur before the year 2100. A more recent analysis by AIMultiple reported that, “Current surveys of AI researchers are predicting AGI around 2040”.
Design considerations
Exploring the potential motivations of an artificial superintelligence, Bostrom distinguishes final goals and instrumental goals.
From the point of view of an agent, final goals are intrinsically
valuable, whereas instrumental goals are only useful for attaining final
goals. He proposed the "orthogonality thesis", which postulates that in
principle, virtually any final goal can be combined with virtually any
level of intelligence. Bostrom also introduced the concept of instrumental convergence, which postulates that certain instrumental goals (such as self-preservation,
resource acquisition or cognitive enhancement) increase the probability
of achieving final goals in a wide range of situations, and would thus
likely be pursued by a broad spectrum of intelligent agents.
William MacAskill argued that aligning
superintelligence with current human values could be catastrophic if
those values are permanently locked in and humanity still has moral
blind spots like slavery in the past.
Several proposals for an ASI's final goals have been put forward:
Coherent extrapolated volition (CEV) – The AI should have the values upon which humans would converge if they were more knowledgeable and rational.
Moral rightness (MR) – The AI should be programmed to do what is
morally right, relying on its superior cognitive abilities to determine
ethical actions.
Moral permissibility (MP) – The AI should stay within the bounds of
moral permissibility while otherwise pursuing goals aligned with human
values (similar to CEV).
Bostrom elaborates on these concepts:
instead of implementing humanity's coherent extrapolated
volition, one could try to build an AI to do what is morally right,
relying on the AI's superior cognitive capacities to figure out just
which actions fit that description. We can call this proposal "moral
rightness" (MR)...
MR would also appear to have some disadvantages. It relies on the
notion of "morally right", a notoriously difficult concept, one with
which philosophers have grappled since antiquity without yet attaining
consensus as to its analysis. Picking an erroneous explication of "moral
rightness" could result in outcomes that would be morally very wrong...
One might try to preserve the basic idea of the MR model while reducing its demandingness by focusing on moral permissibility: the idea being that we could let the AI pursue humanity's CEV so long as it did not act in morally impermissible ways.
The development of artificial superintelligence (ASI) has raised
concerns about potential existential risks to humanity. Researchers have
proposed various scenarios in which an ASI could pose a significant
threat:
Intelligence explosion and control problem
Some researchers argue that through recursive self-improvement, an
ASI could rapidly become so powerful as to be beyond human control. This
concept, known as an "intelligence explosion", was first proposed by I.
J. Good in 1965:
Let an ultraintelligent machine be
defined as a machine that can far surpass all the intellectual
activities of any man however clever. Since the design of machines is
one of these intellectual activities, an ultraintelligent machine could
design even better machines; there would then unquestionably be an
'intelligence explosion,' and the intelligence of man would be left far
behind. Thus the first ultraintelligent machine is the last invention
that man need ever make, provided that the machine is docile enough to
tell us how to keep it under control.
This scenario presents the AI control problem: how to create an ASI
that will benefit humanity while avoiding unintended harmful
consequences. Eliezer Yudkowsky argues that solving this problem is crucial before
ASI is developed, as a superintelligent system might be able to thwart
any subsequent attempts at control.
Unintended consequences and goal misalignment
Even with benign intentions, an ASI could potentially cause harm due
to misaligned goals or unexpected interpretations of its objectives.
Nick Bostrom provides a stark example of this risk:
When we create the first
superintelligent entity, we might make a mistake and give it goals that
lead it to annihilate humankind, assuming its enormous intellectual
advantage gives it the power to do so. For example, we could mistakenly
elevate a subgoal to the status of a supergoal. We tell it to solve a
mathematical problem, and it complies by turning all the matter in the
solar system into a giant calculating device, in the process killing the
person who asked the question.
Stuart Russell offers another illustrative scenario:
A system given the objective of
maximizing human happiness might find it easier to rewire human
neurology so that humans are always happy regardless of their
circumstances, rather than to improve the external world.
These examples highlight the potential for catastrophic outcomes even
when an ASI is not explicitly designed to be harmful, underscoring the
critical importance of precise goal specification and alignment.
Potential mitigation strategies
Researchers have proposed various approaches to mitigate risks associated with ASI:
Capability control – Limiting an ASI's ability to influence the world, such as through physical isolation or restricted access to resources.
Motivational control – Designing ASIs with goals that are fundamentally aligned with human values.
Ethical AI – Incorporating ethical principles and decision-making frameworks into ASI systems.
Oversight and governance – Developing robust international frameworks for the development and deployment of ASI technologies.
Despite these proposed strategies, some experts, such as Roman
Yampolskiy, argue that the challenge of controlling a superintelligent
AI might be fundamentally unsolvable, emphasizing the need for extreme
caution in ASI development.
Debate and skepticism
Not all researchers agree on the likelihood or severity of ASI-related existential risks. Some, like Rodney Brooks,
argue that fears of superintelligent AI are overblown and based on
unrealistic assumptions about the nature of intelligence and
technological progress. Others, such as Joanna Bryson, contend that anthropomorphizing AI systems leads to misplaced concerns about their potential threats.
Recent developments and current perspectives
The rapid advancement of LLMs and other AI technologies has
intensified debates about the proximity and potential risks of ASI.
While there is no scientific consensus, some researchers and AI
practitioners argue that current AI systems may already be approaching
AGI or even ASI capabilities.
LLM capabilities – Recent LLMs like GPT-4 have demonstrated
unexpected abilities in areas such as reasoning, problem-solving, and
multi-modal understanding, leading some to speculate about their
potential path to ASI.
Emergent behaviors – Studies have shown that as AI models increase
in size and complexity, they can exhibit emergent capabilities not
present in smaller models, potentially indicating a trend towards more
general intelligence.
Rapid progress – The pace of AI advancement has led some to argue
that we may be closer to ASI than previously thought, with potential
implications for existential risk.
As of 2024, AI skeptics such as Gary Marcus
caution against premature claims of AGI or ASI, arguing that current AI
systems, despite their impressive capabilities, still lack true
understanding and general intelligence. They emphasize the significant challenges that remain in achieving human-level intelligence, let alone superintelligence.
The debate surrounding the current state and trajectory of AI
development underscores the importance of continued research into AI
safety and ethics, as well as the need for robust governance frameworks
to manage potential risks as AI capabilities continue to advance.
First issue of Astounding Stories of Super-Science, dated January 1930. The cover art is by Hans Waldemar Wessolowski.
Analog Science Fiction and Fact is an American science fiction magazine published under various titles since 1930. Originally titled Astounding Stories of Super-Science, the first issue was dated January 1930, published by William Clayton, and edited by Harry Bates. Clayton went bankrupt in 1933 and the magazine was sold to Street & Smith. The new editor was F. Orlin Tremaine, who soon made Astounding the leading magazine in the nascent pulp science fiction field, publishing well-regarded stories such as Jack Williamson's Legion of Space and John W. Campbell's "Twilight".
At the end of 1937, Campbell took over editorial duties under
Tremaine's supervision, and the following year Tremaine was let go,
giving Campbell more independence. Over the next few years Campbell
published many stories that became classics in the field, including Isaac Asimov's Foundation series, A. E. van Vogt's Slan, and the Future History tales of Robert A. Heinlein. The period beginning with Campbell's editorship is often referred to as the Golden Age of Science Fiction.
By 1950, new competition had appeared from Galaxy Science Fiction and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. Campbell's interest in some pseudo-science topics, such as Dianetics (an early non-religious version of Scientology), alienated some of his regular writers, and Astounding was no longer regarded as the leader of the field, though it did continue to publish popular and influential stories: Hal Clement's novel Mission of Gravity appeared in 1953, and Tom Godwin's "The Cold Equations" appeared the following year. In 1960, Campbell changed the title of the magazine to Analog Science Fact & Fiction;
he had long wanted to get rid of the word "Astounding" in the title,
which he felt was too sensational. At about the same time Street &
Smith sold the magazine to Condé Nast, and the name changed again to its current form by 1965. Campbell remained as editor until his death in 1971.
Ben Bova
took over from 1972 to 1978, and the character of the magazine changed
noticeably, since Bova was willing to publish fiction that included
sexual content and profanity. Bova published stories such as Frederik Pohl's "The Gold at the Starbow's End", which was nominated for both a Hugo and Nebula Award, and Joe Haldeman's "Hero", the first story in the Hugo and Nebula Award–winning "Forever War"
sequence; Pohl had been unable to sell to Campbell, and "Hero" had been
rejected by Campbell as unsuitable for the magazine. Bova won five
consecutive Hugo Awards for his editing of Analog.
Bova was followed by Stanley Schmidt,
who continued to publish many of the same authors who had been
contributing for years; the result was some criticism of the magazine as
stagnant and dull, though Schmidt was initially successful in
maintaining circulation. The title was sold to Davis Publications in 1980, then to Dell Magazines in 1992. Crosstown Publications acquired Dell in 1996 and remains the publisher. Schmidt continued to edit the magazine until 2012, when he was replaced by Trevor Quachri.
Publishing history
Clayton
In 1926, Hugo Gernsback launched Amazing Stories,
the first science fiction (sf) magazine. Gernsback had been printing
scientific fiction stories for some time in his hobbyist magazines, such
as Modern Electrics and Electrical Experimenter, but decided that interest in the genre was sufficient to justify a monthly magazine. Amazing was very successful, quickly reaching a circulation over 100,000. William Clayton,
a successful and well-respected publisher of several pulp magazines,
considered starting a competitive title in 1928; according to Harold Hersey, one of his editors at the time, Hersey had "discussed plans with Clayton to launch a pseudo-science fantasy sheet". Clayton was unconvinced, but the following year decided to launch a new
magazine, mainly because the sheet on which the color covers of his
magazines were printed had a space for one more cover. He suggested to Harry Bates,
a newly hired editor, that they start a magazine of historical
adventure stories. Bates proposed instead a science fiction pulp, to be
titled Astounding Stories of Super Science, and Clayton agreed.
Astounding was initially published by Publisher's Fiscal Corporation, a subsidiary of Clayton Magazines.The first issue appeared in January 1930, with Bates as editor. Bates
aimed for straightforward action-adventure stories, with scientific
elements only present to provide minimal plausibility. Clayton paid much better rates than Amazing and Wonder Stories—two cents a word on acceptance, rather than half a cent a word, on publication (or sometimes later)—and consequently Astounding attracted some of the better-known pulp writers, such as Murray Leinster, Victor Rousseau, and Jack Williamson. In February 1931, the original name Astounding Stories of Super-Science was shortened to Astounding Stories.
The magazine was profitable, but the Great Depression
caused Clayton problems. Normally a publisher would pay a printer
three months in arrears, but when a credit squeeze began in May 1931, it
led to pressure to reduce this delay. The financial difficulties led
Clayton to start alternating the publication of his magazines, and he
switched Astounding to a bimonthly schedule with the June 1932
issue. Some printers bought the magazines which were indebted to them:
Clayton decided to buy his printer to prevent this from happening. This
proved a disastrous move. Clayton did not have the money to complete
the transaction, and in October 1932, Clayton decided to cease
publication of Astounding, with the expectation that the January
1933 issue would be the last one. As it turned out, enough stories were
in inventory, and enough paper was available, to publish one further
issue, so the last Clayton Astounding was dated March 1933. In April, Clayton went bankrupt, and sold his magazine titles to T.R. Foley for $100; Foley resold them in August to Street & Smith, a well-established publisher.
Street and Smith
Science fiction was not entirely a departure for Street & Smith.
They already had two pulp titles that occasionally ventured into the
field: The Shadow, which had begun in 1931 and was tremendously successful, with a circulation over 300,000; and Doc Savage, which had been launched in March 1933. They gave the post of editor of Astounding to F. Orlin Tremaine, an experienced editor who had been working for Clayton as the editor of Clues,
and who had come to Street & Smith as part of the transfer of
titles after Clayton's bankruptcy. Desmond Hall, who had also come from
Clayton, was made assistant editor; because Tremaine was editor of Clues and Top-Notch, as well as Astounding, Hall did much of the editorial work, though Tremaine retained final control over the contents.
The first Street & Smith issue was dated October 1933; until
the third issue, in December 1933, the editorial team was not named on
the masthead. Street & Smith had an excellent distribution network, and they were able to get Astounding's circulation up to an estimated 50,000 by the middle of 1934. The two main rival science fiction magazines of the day, Wonder Stories and Amazing Stories, each had a circulation about half that. Astounding
was the leading science fiction magazine by the end of 1934, and it was
also the largest, at 160 pages, and the cheapest, at 20 cents. Street
& Smith's rates of one cent per word (sometimes more) on acceptance
were not as high as the rates paid by Bates for the Clayton Astounding, but they were still better than those of the other magazines.
Hall left Astounding in 1934 to become editor of Street & Smith's new slick magazine, Mademoiselle, and was replaced by R.V. Happel. Tremaine remained in control of story selection. Writer Frank Gruber described Tremaine's editorial selection process in his book, The Pulp Jungle:
As the stories came in Tremaine piled them up on a stack. All the stories intended for Clues in this pile, all those for Astounding
in that stack. Two days before press time of each magazine, Tremaine
would start reading. He would start at the top of the pile and read
stories until he had found enough to fill the issue. Now, to be
perfectly fair, Tremaine would take the stack of remaining stories and
turn it upside down, so next month he would start with the stories that
had been on the bottom this month.
Gruber pointed out that stories in the middle might go many months
before Tremaine read them; the result was erratic response times that
sometimes stretched to over 18 months.
In 1936 the magazine switched from untrimmed to trimmed edges;
Brian Stableford comments that this was "an important symbolic" step, as
the other sf pulps were still untrimmed, making Astounding smarter-looking than its competitors. Tremaine was promoted to assistant editorial director in 1937. His replacement as editor of Astounding was 27-year-old John W. Campbell, Jr. Campbell had made his name in the early 1930s as a writer, publishing space opera
under his own name, and more thoughtful stories under the pseudonym
"Don A. Stuart". He started working for Street & Smith in October
1937, so his initial editorial influence appeared in the issue dated
December 1937. The March 1938 issue was the first that was fully his
responsibility. In early 1938, Street & Smith abandoned its policy of having
editors-in-chief, with the result that Tremaine was made redundant. His
departure, on May 1, 1938, gave Campbell a freer rein with the
magazine.
One of Campbell's first acts was to change the title from Astounding Stories to Astounding Science-Fiction,
starting with the March 1938 issue. Campbell's editorial policy was
targeted at the more mature readers of science fiction, and he felt that
"Astounding Stories" did not convey the right image. He intended to subsequently drop the "Astounding" part of the title, as well, leaving the magazine titled Science Fiction,
but in 1939 a new magazine with that title appeared. Although
"Astounding" was retained in the title, thereafter it was often printed
in a color that made it much less visible than "Science-Fiction". At the start of 1942 the price was increased, for the first time, to 25
cents; the magazine simultaneously switched to the larger bedsheet format, but this did not last. Astounding returned to pulp-size in mid-1943 for six issues, and then became the first science fiction magazine to switch to digest size
in November 1943, increasing the number of pages to maintain the same
total word count. The price remained at 25 cents through these changes
in format. The hyphen was dropped from the title with the November 1946 issue.
The changes in layout during 1960, showing the January, February, September and October title layouts
The price increased again, to 35 cents, in August 1951. In the late 1950s, it became apparent to Street & Smith that they were going to have to raise prices again. During 1959, Astounding
was priced at 50 cents in some areas to find out what the impact would
be on circulation. The results were apparently satisfactory, and the
price was raised with the November 1959 issue. The following year, Campbell finally achieved his goal of getting rid
of the word "Astounding" in the magazine's title, changing it to Analog Science Fact/Science Fiction.
The "/" in the title was often replaced by a symbol of Campbell's
devising, resembling an inverted U pierced by a horizontal arrow and
meaning "analogous to". The change began with the February 1960 issue,
and was complete by October; for several issues both "Analog" and
"Astounding" could be seen on the cover, with "Analog" becoming bolder
and "Astounding" fading with each issue.
Condé Nast
Street & Smith was acquired by Samuel Newhouse, the owner of Condé Nast, in August 1959, though Street & Smith was not merged into Condé Nast until the end of 1961. Analog was the only digest-sized magazine in Condé Nast's inventory—all the others were slicks, such as Vogue. All the advertisers in these magazines had plates made up to take advantage of this size, and Condé Nast changed Analog to the larger size from the March 1963 issue to conform. The front and back signatures
were changed to glossy paper, to carry both advertisements and
scientific features. The change did not attract advertising support,
however, and from the April 1965 issue Analog reverted to digest
size once again. Circulation, which had been increasing before the
change, was not harmed, and continued to increase while Analog was in slick format. From the April 1965 issue the title switched the "fiction" and "fact" elements, so that it became Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact.
Campbell died suddenly in July 1971, but there was enough material in Analog's inventory to allow the remaining staff to put together issues for the rest of the year. Condé Nast had given the magazine very little attention, since it was
both profitable and cheap to produce, but they were proud that it was
the leading science fiction magazine. They asked Kay Tarrant,
who had been Campbell's assistant, to help them find a replacement: she
contacted regular contributors to ask for suggestions. Several
well-known writers turned down the job; Poul Anderson did not want to leave California, and neither did Jerry Pournelle, who also felt the salary was too small. Before he died, Campbell had talked to Harry Harrison about taking over as editor, but Harrison did not want to live in New York. Lester del Rey and Clifford D. Simak were also rumored to have been offered the job, though Simak denied it; Frederik Pohl was interested, but suspected his desire to change the direction of the magazine lessened his chances with Condé Nast. The Condé Nast vice president in charge of selecting the new editor
decided to read both fiction and nonfiction writing samples from the
applicants, since Analog's title included both "science fiction" and "science fact". He chose Ben Bova, afterwards telling Bova that his stories and articles "were the only ones I could understand". January 1972 was the first issue to credit Bova on the masthead.
Bova planned to stay for five years, to ensure a smooth
transition after Campbell's sudden death; the salary was too low for him
to consider remaining indefinitely. In 1975, he proposed a new
magazine to Condé Nast management, to be titled Tomorrow Magazine;
he wanted to publish articles about science and technology, leavened
with some science fiction stories. Condé Nast was not interested, and
refused to assist Analog with marketing or promotions. Bova
resigned in June 1978, having stayed for a little longer than he had
planned, and recommended Stanley Schmidt
to succeed him. Schmidt's first issue was December 1978, though
material purchased by Bova continued to appear for several months.
Davis Publications, Dell Magazines, and Penny Publications
In 1977, Davis Publications launched Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, and after Bova's departure, Joel Davis, the owner of Davis Publications, contacted Condé Nast with a view to acquiring Analog. Analog had always been something of a misfit in Condé Nast's line up, which included Mademoiselle and Vogue, and by February 1980 the deal was agreed. The first issue published by Davis was dated September 1980. Davis was willing to put some effort into marketing Analog, so Schmidt regarded the change as likely to be beneficial, and in fact circulation quickly grew, reversing a gradual decline over
the Bova years, from just over 92,000 in 1981 to almost 110,000 two
years later. Starting with the first 1981 issue, Davis switched Analog
to a four-weekly schedule, rather than monthly, to align the production
schedule with a weekly calendar. Instead of being dated "January
1981", the first issue under the new regime was dated "January 5, 1981",
but this approach led to newsstands removing the magazine much more
quickly, since the date gave the impression that it was a weekly
magazine. The cover date was changed back to the current month starting
with the April 1982 issue, but the new schedule remained in place, with
a "Mid-September" issue in 1982 and 1983, and "Mid-December" issues for
more than a decade thereafter. Circulation trended slowly down over the 1980s, to 83,000 for the year
ending in 1990; by this time the great majority of readers were
subscribers, as newsstand sales declined to only 15,000.
In 1992 Analog was sold to Dell Magazines, and Dell was in turn acquired by Crosstown Publications in 1996. That year the Mid-December issues stopped appearing, and the following
year the July and August issues were combined into a single bimonthly
issue. An ebook edition became available in 2000 and has become increasingly
popular, with the ebook numbers not reflected in the published annual
circulation numbers, which by 2011 were down to under 27,000. In 2004 the January and February issues were combined, so that only ten
issues a year appeared. Having just surpassed John W. Campbell's
tenure of 34 years, Schmidt retired in August 2012. His place was taken
by Trevor Quachri, who continues to edit Analog as of 2023. From January 2017, the publication frequency became bimonthly (six issues per year). In February 2025, the magazine was purchased by a group of investors led by Steven Salpeter, president of literary and IP development at Assemble Media.
Contents and reception
Bates
The cover of the March 1933 Astounding, by Wesso, originally painted to illustrate E.E. Smith's Triplanetary
The first incarnation of Astounding was an adventure-oriented
magazine: unlike Gernsback, Bates had no interest in educating his
readership through science. The covers were all painted by Wesso
and similarly action-filled; the first issue showed a giant beetle
attacking a man. Bates would not accept any experimental stories,
relying mostly on formulaic plots. In the eyes of Mike Ashley, a science fiction historian, Bates was "destroying the ideals of science fiction". One historically important story that almost appeared in Astounding was E.E. Smith's Triplanetary, which Bates would have published had Astounding
not folded in early 1933. The cover Wesso had painted for the story
appeared on the March 1933 issue, the last to be published by Clayton.
Tremaine
When Street & Smith acquired Astounding, they also planned to relaunch another Clayton pulp, Strange Tales, and acquired material for it before deciding not to proceed. These stories appeared in the first Street & Smith Astounding, dated October 1933. This issue and the next were unremarkable in quality, but with the
December issue, Tremaine published a statement of editorial policy,
calling for "thought variant" stories containing original ideas and not
simply reproducing adventure themes in a science fiction context. The
policy was probably worked out between Tremaine and Desmond Hall, his
assistant editor, in an attempt to give Astounding a clear
identity in the market that would distinguish it from both the existing
science fiction magazines and the hero pulps, such as The Shadow, that frequently used sf ideas.
The "thought variant" policy may have been introduced for
publicity, rather than as a real attempt to define the sort of fiction
Tremaine was looking for; the early "thought variant" stories were not always very original or well executed. Ashley describes the first, Nat Schachner's "Ancestral Voices", as "not amongst Schachner's best"; the second, "Colossus", by Donald Wandrei,
was not a new idea, but was energetically written. Over the succeeding
issues, it became apparent that Tremaine was genuinely willing to
publish material that would have fallen foul of editorial taboos
elsewhere. He serialized Charles Fort's Lo!,
a nonfiction work about strange and inexplicable phenomena, in eight
parts between April and November 1934, in an attempt to stimulate new
ideas for stories. The best-remembered story of 1934 is probably Jack Williamson's "The
Legion of Space", which began serialization in April, but other notable
stories include Murray Leinster's "Sidewise in Time", which was the
first genre science fiction story to use the idea of alternate history; "The Bright Illusion", by C.L. Moore, and "Twilight",
by John W. Campbell, writing as Don A. Stuart. "Twilight", which was
written in a more literary and poetic style than Campbell's earlier
space opera stories, was particularly influential, and Tremaine
encouraged other writers to produce similar stories. One such was Raymond Z. Gallun's
"Old Faithful", which appeared in the December 1934 issue and was
sufficiently popular that Gallun wrote a sequel, "Son of Old Faithful",
published the following July. Space opera continued to be popular, though, and two overlapping space opera novels were running in Astounding late in the year: The Skylark of Valeron by E.E. Smith, and The Mightiest Machine, by Campbell. By the end of the year, Astounding was the clear leader of the small field of sf magazines.
Astounding's
readership was more knowledgeable and more mature than the readers of
the other magazines, and this was reflected in the cover artwork, almost
entirely by Howard V. Brown, which was less garish than at Wonder Stories or Amazing Stories.
Ashley describes the interior artwork as "entrancing, giving hints of
higher technology without ignoring the human element", and singles out
the work of Elliot Dold as particularly impressive.
Tremaine's policy of printing material that he liked without
staying too strictly within the bounds of the genre led him to serialize
H.P. Lovecraft's novel At the Mountains of Madness in early 1936. He followed this with Lovecraft's "The Shadow Out of Time"
in June 1936, though protests from science fiction purists occurred.
Generally, however, Tremaine was unable to maintain the high standard he
had set in the first few years, perhaps because his workload was high.
Tremaine's slow responses to submissions discouraged new authors,
although he could rely on regular contributors such as Jack Williamson,
Murray Leinster, Raymond Gallun, Nat Schachner, and Frank Belknap Long. New writers who did appear during the latter half of Tremaine's tenure included Ross Rocklynne, Nelson S. Bond, and L. Sprague de Camp, whose first appearance was in September 1937 with "The Isolinguals". Tremaine printed some nonfiction articles during his tenure, with Campbell providing an 18-part series on the Solar System between June 1936 and December 1937.
Campbell
A sketch of John W. Campbell from 1932
Street & Smith hired Campbell in October 1937. Although he did not gain full editorial control of Astounding
until the March 1938 issue, Campbell was able to introduce some new
features before then. In January 1938, he began to include a short
description of stories in the next issue, titled "In Times To Come"; and
in March, he began "The Analytical Laboratory", which compiled votes
from readers and ranked the stories in order. The payment rate at the
time was one cent a word, and Street & Smith agreed to let Campbell
pay a bonus of an extra quarter-cent a word to the writer whose story
was voted top of the list. Unlike other editors Campbell paid authors when he accepted—not
published—their work; publication usually occurred several months after
acceptance.
Campbell wanted his writers to provide action and excitement, but
he also wanted the stories to appeal to a readership that had matured
over the first decade of the science fiction genre. He asked his
writers to write stories that felt as though they could have been
published as non-science fiction stories in a magazine of the future; a
reader of the future would not need long explanations for the gadgets in
their lives, so Campbell asked his writers to find ways of naturally
introducing technology to their stories. He also instituted regular nonfiction pieces, with the goal of stimulating story ideas. The main contributors of these were R.S. Richardson, L. Sprague de Camp, and Willy Ley.
Campbell changed the approach to the magazine's cover art, hoping
that more mature artwork would attract more adult readers and enable
them to carry the magazine without embarrassment. Howard V. Brown had
done almost every cover for the Street & Smith version of Astounding,
and Campbell asked him to do an astronomically accurate picture of the
Sun as seen from Mercury for the February 1938 issue. He also
introduced Charles Schneeman as a cover artist, starting with the May 1938 issue, and Hubert Rogers in February 1939; Rogers quickly became a regular, painting all but four of the covers between September 1939 and August 1942. They differentiated the magazine from rivals. Algis Budrys recalled that "Astounding
was the last magazine I picked up" as a child because, without covers
showing men with ray guns and women with large breasts, "it didn't look
like an SF magazine".
The April 1938 issue included the first story by del Rey, "The Faithful", and de Camp's second sale, "Hyperpilosity". Jack Williamson's "Legion of Time", described by author and editor Lin Carter as "possibly the greatest single adventure story in science fiction history", began serialization in the following issue. De Camp contributed a
nonfiction article, "Language for Time Travelers", in the July issue,
which also contained Hubbard's first science fiction sale, "The
Dangerous Dimension". Hubbard had been selling genre fiction
to the pulps for several years by that time. The same issue contained
Clifford Simak's "Rule 18"; Simak had more-or-less abandoned science
fiction within a year after breaking into the field in 1931, but he was
drawn back by Campbell's editorial approach. The next issue featured
one of Campbell's best-known stories, "Who Goes There?",
and included Kuttner's "The Disinherited"; Kuttner had been selling
successfully to the other pulps for a few years, but this was his first
story in Astounding. In October, de Camp began a popular series about an intelligent bear named Johnny Black with "The Command."
The market for science fiction expanded dramatically the following year; several new magazines were launched, including Startling Stories in January 1939, Unknown in March (a fantasy companion to Astounding, also edited by Campbell), Fantastic Adventures in May, and Planet Stories in December. All of the competing magazines, including the two main extant titles, Wonder Stories and Amazing Stories,
were publishing space opera, stories of interplanetary adventure, or
other well-worn ideas from the early days of the genre. Campbell's
attempts to make science fiction more mature led to a natural division
of the writers: those who were unable to write to his standards
continued to sell to other magazines; and those who could sell to
Campbell quickly focused their attention on Astounding and sold
relatively little to the other magazines. The expansion of the market
also benefited Campbell because writers knew that if he rejected their
submissions, they could resubmit those stories elsewhere; this freed
them to try to write to his standards.
In July 1939, the lead story was "Black Destroyer", the first sale by van Vogt; the issue also included "Trends",
Asimov's first sale to Campbell and his second story to see print.
Later fans identified the issue as the start of the Golden Age. Other first sales that year included Heinlein's "Lifeline" in August and Sturgeon's "Ether Breather" the following month. One of the most popular authors of space opera, E.E. Smith, reappeared in October, with the first installment of Gray Lensman. This was a sequel to Galactic Patrol, which had appeared in Astounding two years before.
Heinlein rapidly became one of the most prolific contributors to Astounding, publishing three novels in the next two years: If This Goes On—, Sixth Column, and Methuselah's Children; and half a dozen short stories. In September 1940, van Vogt's first novel, Slan,
began serialization; the book was partly inspired by a challenge
Campbell laid down to van Vogt that it was impossible to tell a superman
story from the point of view of the superman. It proved to be one of
the most popular stories Campbell published, and is an example of the
way Campbell worked with his writers to feed them ideas and generate the
material he wanted to buy. Isaac Asimov's "Robot" series
began to take shape in 1941, with "Reason" and "Liar!" appearing in the
April and May issues; as with "Slan", these stories were partly
inspired by conversations with Campbell. Van Vogt's "The Seesaw", in the July 1941 issue, was the first story in his "Weapon Shop" series, described by critic John Clute as the most compelling of all van Vogt's work. The September 1941 issue included Asimov's short story "Nightfall" and in November, Second Stage Lensman, the next novel in Smith's Lensman series, began serialization.
The following year brought the first installment of Asimov's "Foundation" stories; "Foundation" appeared in May and "Bridle and Saddle" in June. The March 1942 issue included Van Vogt's novella "Recruiting Station", an early version of a Changewar. Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore began to appear regularly in Astounding, often under the pseudonym "Lewis Padgett", and more new writers appeared: Hal Clement, Raymond F. Jones, and George O. Smith,
all of whom became regular contributors. The September 1942 issue
contained del Rey's "Nerves", which was one of the few stories to be
ranked top by every single reader who voted in the monthly Analytical
Laboratory poll; it dealt with the aftermath of an explosion at a
nuclear plant.
Campbell emphasized scientific accuracy over literary style.
Asimov, Heinlein, and de Camp were trained scientists and engineers. After 1942, several of the regular contributors such as Heinlein,
Asimov, and Hubbard, who had joined the war effort, appeared less
frequently. Among those who remained, the key figures were van Vogt,
Simak, Kuttner, Moore, and Fritz Leiber,
all of whom were less oriented towards technology in their fiction than
writers like Asimov or Heinlein. This led to the appearance of more
psychologically oriented fiction, such as van Vogt's World of Null-A,
which was serialized in 1945. Kuttner and Moore contributed a humorous
series about an inventor, Galloway Gallegher, who could only invent
while drunk, but they were also capable of serious fiction. Campbell had asked them to write science fiction with the same freedom
from constraints that he had allowed them in the fantasy works they were
writing for Unknown, Street & Smith's fantasy title; the result was "Mimsy Were the Borogoves", which appeared in February 1943 and is now regarded as a classic. Leiber's Gather, Darkness!,
serialized in 1943, was set in a world where scientific knowledge is
hidden from the masses and presented as magic; as with Kuttner and
Moore, he was simultaneously publishing fantasies in Unknown.
Campbell continued to publish technological sf alongside the soft science fiction. One example was Cleve Cartmill's "Deadline", a story about the development of the atomic bomb. It appeared in 1944, when the Manhattan Project
was still not known to the public; Cartmill used his background in
atomic physics to assemble a plausible story that had strong
similarities to the real-world secret research program. Military
Intelligence agents called on Campbell to investigate, and were
satisfied when he explained how Cartmill had been able to make so many
accurate guesses. In the words of science fiction critic John Clute, "Cartmill's
prediction made sf fans enormously proud", as some considered the story
proof that science fiction could be predictive of the future.
Post-war years
In the late 1940s, both Thrilling Wonder and Startling Stories began to publish much more mature fiction than they had during the war, and although Astounding
was still the leading magazine in the field, it was no longer the only
market for the writers who had been regularly selling to Campbell. Many
of the best new writers still broke into print in Astounding rather than elsewhere. Arthur C. Clarke's first story, "Loophole", appeared in the April 1946 Astounding, and another British writer, Christopher Youd,
began his career with "Christmas Tree" in February 1949. Youd would
become much better known under his pseudonym "John Christopher". William Tenn's
first sale, "Alexander the Bait", appeared in May 1946, and H. Beam
Piper's "Time and Time Again" in the April 1947 issue was his first
story. Along with these newer writers, Campbell was still publishing
strong material by authors who had become established during the war.
Among the better-known stories of this era are "Vintage Season", by C.L. Moore (under the pseudonym Lawrence O'Donnell); Jack Williamson's story "With Folded Hands"; The Players of Null-A, van Vogt's sequel to The World of Null-A; and the final book in E.E. Smith's Lensman series, Children of the Lens.
In the November 1948 issue, Campbell published a letter to the
editor by a reader named Richard A. Hoen that contained a detailed
ranking of the contents of an issue "one year in the future". Campbell
went along with the joke and contracted stories from most of the authors
mentioned in the letter that would follow the Hoen's imaginary story
titles. One of the best-known stories from that issue is "Gulf",
by Heinlein. Other stories and articles were written by some of the
most famous authors of the time: Asimov, Sturgeon, del Rey, van Vogt, de
Camp, and the astronomer R. S. Richardson.
1950s and 1960s
By 1950, Campbell's strong personality had led him into conflict with some of his leading writers, some of whom abandoned Astounding as a result. The launch of both The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and Galaxy Science Fiction in 1949 and 1950, respectively, marked the end of Astounding's dominance of science fiction, with many now regarding Galaxy as the leading magazine. Campbell's growing interest in pseudoscience also damaged his reputation in the field. Campbell was deeply involved with the launch of Dianetics, publishing Hubbard's first article on it in Astounding in May 1950, and promoting it heavily in the months beforehand; later in the decade he championed psionics and antigravity devices.
Although these enthusiasms diminished Campbell's reputation, Astounding continued to publish some popular and influential science fiction. In 1953, Campbell serialized Hal Clement's Mission of Gravity, described by John Clute and David Langford as "one of the best-loved novels in sf", and in 1954 Tom Godwin's "The Cold Equations"
appeared. The story, about a girl who stows away on a spaceship,
generated much reader debate, and has been described as capturing the
ethos of Campbell's Astounding. The spaceship is carrying urgently needed medical supplies to a planet
in distress, and has a single pilot; the ship does not have enough fuel
to reach the planet if the girl stays on the ship, so the "cold
equations" of physics force the pilot to jettison the girl, killing her.
Later in the 1950s and early 1960s writers like Gordon R. Dickson, Poul Anderson, and Harry Harrison appeared regularly in the magazine. Frank Herbert's Dune was serialized in Analog in two separate sequences, in 1963 and 1965, and soon became "one of the most famous of all sf novels", according to Malcolm Edwards and John Clute. 1965 marked the year Campbell received his eighth Hugo Award for Best Professional Magazine; this was the last one he would win.
Bova
Bova, like Campbell, was a technophile with a scientific background, and he declared early in his tenure that he wanted Analog to continue to focus on stories with a scientific foundation, though he also made it clear that change was inevitable. Over his first few months some long-time readers sent in letters of
complaint when they judged that Bova was not living up to Campbell's
standards, particularly when sex scenes began to appear. On one
occasion—Jack Wodhams' story "Foundling Fathers", and its accompanying illustration by Kelly Freas—it
turned out that Campbell had bought the story in question. As the
1970s went on, Bova continued to publish authors such as Anderson,
Dickson, and Christopher Anvil,
who had appeared regularly during Campbell's tenure, but he also
attracted authors who had not been able to sell to Campbell, such as Gene Wolfe, Roger Zelazny, and Harlan Ellison. Frederik Pohl, who later commented in his autobiography about his
difficulties in selling to Campbell, appeared in the March 1972 issue
with "The Gold at the Starbow's End", which was nominated for both the Hugo and Nebula Awards, and that summer Joe Haldeman's "Hero" appeared. This was the first story in Haldeman's "Forever War"
sequence; Campbell had rejected it, listing multiple reasons including
the frequent use of profanity and the implausibility of men and women
serving in combat together. Bova asked to see it again and ran it
without asking for changes. Other new writers included Spider Robinson, whose first sale was "The Guy With the Eyes" in the February 1973 issue; George R.R. Martin, with "A Song for Lya", in June 1974; and Orson Scott Card, with "Ender's Game", in the August 1977 issue.
Two of the cover artists who had been regular contributors under Campbell, Kelly Freas and John Schoenherr, continued to appear after Bova took over, and Bova also began to regularly feature covers by Rick Sternbach and Vincent Di Fate. Jack Gaughan, who had had a poor relationship with Campbell, sold several covers to Bova. Bova won the Hugo Award for Best Professional Editor for five consecutive years, 1973 through 1977.
Schmidt
Stanley Schmidt was an assistant professor of physics when he became editor of Analog,
and his scientific background was well-suited to the magazine's
readership. He avoided making drastic changes, and continued the
long-standing tradition of writing provocative editorials, though he
rarely discussed science fiction. In 1979 he resurrected "Probability Zero", a feature that Campbell had
run in the early 1940s that published tall tales—humorous stories with
ludicrous or impossible scientific premises. Also in 1979 Schmidt began
a series of columns titled "The Alternate View", an opinion column that
was written in alternate issues by G. Harry Stine and Jerry Pournelle, and which is still a feature of the magazine as of 2016, though now with different contributors. The stable of fiction contributors remained largely unchanged from
Bova's day, and included many names, such as Poul Anderson, Gordon R.
Dickson, and George O. Smith, familiar to readers from the Campbell era.
This continuity led to criticisms within the field, Bruce Sterling writing in 1984 that the magazine "has become old, dull, and drivelling... It is a situation screaming for reform. Analog
no longer permits itself to be read." The magazine thrived
nevertheless, and though part of the increase in circulation during the
early 1980s may have been due to Davis Publications' energetic efforts
to increase subscriptions, Schmidt knew what his readership wanted and
made sure they got it, commenting in 1985: "I reserve Analog for
the kind of science fiction I've described here: good stories about
people with problems in which some piece of plausible (or at least not
demonstrably implausible) speculative science plays an indispensable
role".
Schmidt retired in August 2012, and his place was taken by Trevor Quachri, who mostly continued the editorial policies of Schmidt. Starting in January 2017, the publication became bimonthly. In 2025, the magazine introduced "Unknowns," a puzzle column edited by Alec Nevala-Lee, that featured "science-fictional puzzles from notable constructors."
Bibliographic details
Editorial history at Astounding and Analog:
Harry Bates, January 1930 – March 1933
F. Orlin Tremaine, October 1933 – October 1937
John W. Campbell, Jr., October 1937 – December 1971
Ben Bova, January 1972 – November 1978
Stanley Schmidt, December 1978 – August 2012
Trevor Quachri, September 2012 – present
Astounding was published in pulp format until the January 1942
issue, when it switched to bedsheet. It reverted to pulp for six
issues, starting in May 1943, and then became the first of the genre sf
magazines to be published in digest format, beginning with the November
1943 issue. The format remained unchanged until Condé Nast produced 25
bedsheet issues of Analog between March 1963 and March 1965, after which it returned to digest format. In May 1998, and again in December 2008, the format was changed to be
slightly larger than the usual digest size: first to 8.25 x 5.25 in (210
x 135 mm), and then to 8.5 x 5.75 in (217 x 148 mm).
The magazine was originally titled Astounding Stories of Super-Science; this was shortened to Astounding Stories
from February 1931 to November 1932, and the longer title returned for
the three Clayton issues at the start of 1933. The Street & Smith
issues began as Astounding Stories, and changed to Astounding Science-Fiction in March 1938. The hyphen disappeared in November 1946, and the title then remained unchanged until 1960, when the title Analog Science Fact & Fiction
was phased in between February and October (i.e., the words
"Astounding" and "Analog" both appeared on the cover, with "Analog"
gradually increasing in prominence over the months, culminating in the
name "Astounding" being completely dropped.) In April 1965 the subtitle
was reversed, so that the magazine became Analog Science Fiction & Fact, and it has remained unchanged since then, though it has undergone several stylistic and orthographic variations.
As of 2016, the sequence of prices over the magazine's history is as follows:
Circulation figures
Year
Number of Copies
1926
100,000
1934
50,000
1981
92,000
1983
110,000
1990
83,000
2011
27,000
Overseas editions
A British edition published by Atlas Publishing and Distributing
Company ran from August 1939 until August 1963, initially in pulp
format, switching to digest from November 1953. The pulp issues began
at 96 pages, then dropped to 80 pages with the March 1940 issue, and to
64 pages in December that year. All the digest issues were 128 pages
long. The price was 9d
until October 1953; thereafter it was 1/6 until February 1961, and 2/6
until the end of the run. The material in the British editions was
selected from the U.S. issues, most stories coming from a single U.S.
number, and other stories picked from earlier or later issues to fill
the magazine. The covers were usually repainted from the American originals.
An Italian magazine, Scienza Fantastica [it], published seven issues from April 1952 to March 1953, the contents drawn mostly from Astounding, along with some original stories. The editor was Lionello Torossi [it], and the publisher was Editrice Krator. Another Italian edition, called Analog Fantascienza, was published by Phoenix Enterprise in 1994/1995, for a total of five issues. Danish publisher Skrifola produced six issues of Planetmagazinet in 1958; it carried reprints, mostly from Astounding, and was edited by Knud Erik Andersen.
A German anthology series of recent 1980s stories from Analog was published in eight volumes by Pabel-Moewig Verlag [de] from October 1981 up to June 1984.
Anthologies
Anthologies of stories from Astounding or Analog include:
Year
Editor
Title
Notes
1952
John W. Campbell
The Astounding Science Fiction Anthology
1962
John W. Campbell
Prologue to Analog
1963–1971
John W. Campbell, Ben Bova
Analog 1 through Analog 9
Issued yearly, 1963–1968, then 1970 and 1971. The first eight volumes were edited by Campbell; the ninth by Bova.
