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The Singularity Blinds Sci-Fi
foobsr writes "Popular Science has an article discussing the growing difficulties that Sci-Fi writers encounter when it comes to extrapolating current trends. Doctorow and
Stross , both former computer programmers, are rated to be prototypes of a new breed of guides to a future which due to
Vinge's Singularity might not happen for humanity once a proper super-intelligence - maybe as a Matrioshka Brain - has been created."
Sheer terror I tell you!
-- "I'm not a religious man, but if you're up there, save me Superman..."
When reading through the article's talk of the Singularity ushering in a posthuman era of genetic modifications, human implants, and computer brains that exceed people's own abilities, I remembered a hugely popular story from 1999 that dealt with all of these issues and more. What book did the story appear in? It didn't appear in any book. Was it at the multiplex? No, you didn't watch it in theatres (neither live nor screened) or on television.
You played it on your computer. That game was Deus Ex.
I think the article was narrowminded in that it was expecting modern science fiction to surface in the same medium as it had in its heyday. (Remember too that except in the U.S., most of the world had a serious paper shortage in the late 40s and early 50s following the war, so the print industry today isn't necessarily equipped to be the proper breeding ground). But Science Fiction comes in the form of computer games (single player or MMORG), little Flash animations, and the like. The "authors" of Deus Ex imagined a future world that had much of what the article was yearning for, and maybe the authors of the article just need to accept that storytelling can take differing forms.
duh ... you're the one who is lousy at extrapolating trends.
...
point 1: its not 2020 yet.
point 2: cell phones are rapidly becoming computing devices. by 2020, they may well be the only computing device you need.
i know i'm currently shopping for a new cell phone that can handle my e-mail needs
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
I've actually thought about that a lot. I mean, seriously, if your mind is running in a computer program, then it must have a way to start up or shut down, which means it saves to a file, not running in ram continuously (except maybe MRAM, but it still must be able to "boot" the first time).
Therefore, if you were chatting with a person in a computer and said something that ticked them off and they refused to talk to you anymore, simply shut it down, resore from backup, and restart. Murder? Not really, there's no death. I think it's worse.
And think of the first person who has this procedure done. How many times will his/her processes have to be shut down and restarted, or how many simultaneous instances would be run?
I wholeheartedly agree with you, this should be disallowed, but it's not murder.
But then again, if a human intelligence, even if copied, is to precious for us to research with, then who is to say a created (artificial) intelligence is any less precious.
One or the other is going to happen eventually. We need to be prepared for that day. Much like the first cloned human.
The speed of time is one second per second.
Sure, but at the same time Clarke predicted things like we'd be reaching for the far planets by now (2001, anyone?) and other things which have turned out wrong, and didn't predict the Internet, or the space shuttle disasters, etc.
The guy's complaint isn't that sci-fi writers don't sometimes get it right (an infinite number of monkeys pounding on an infinite number of keyboards...), but they can't be expected to be mystic seers, or else they'd be working for Wall Street. Complaining that Gibson didn't anticipate cell phones before 2020 is just lame, because (good) science fiction isn't really about the technology, but man's and society's interaction with the technology and the future. In which case, it doesn't really matter what the technology is; it could be mysterious gadget X, as long as what gadget X does is well-defined.
For example, in Asimov's robot stories, he defines a gadget X that follows the 3 laws of robotics. He never provides detailed technical drawings or any expectations that such robots will be created (certainly not in the near future), but the conceit nonetheless provides a rich basis for a large number of stories exploring the ramifications.
The technology in science fiction is a means to an end, not the end itself. The technology serves the purpose of the plot, not the other way around. Thus its existence is dictated by the plot, and whether or not it is truly predictive of future trends is largely immaterial. Good science fiction generally only tackles a few disruptive ideas at a time, and the rest of the backfiller is just to maintain a suitably futuristic atmosphere.
Besides, in the long run, all technologies are transient. By 2100, we may not be using communication satellites anymore, which are made obsolete by the technology Q, a high capacity computer network of digital packet radios communicating using Q particles travelling faster than light (yes, I just made that up, don't hold your breath waiting for my prediction to come true). OMG, why didn't Arthur C. Clarke anticipate technology Q by the year 2100? He sucks! All his science fiction now sucks, too!