Experts Fear Future Will be Like Sci-Fi Movies

segphault writes "In the year 2020, Luddite terrorists attack technology infrastructure and artificial intelligences dominate earth! Or at least that's what 700 experts predict in the latest poll conducted by the Pew Internet and American Life Project (pdf). Is the future really going to be like a science fiction movie? Ars Technica provides a humorous overview of the survey results. From the article: 'Are these scenarios really indicative of future trends? Given the prevalence of many of these concepts in science fiction content, it is obvious that the ideas themselves are at least relevant enough to warrant consideration. That said, the nature of the survey and the way that the scenarios are presented makes the entire thing seem less plausible. In looking at classic science fiction films of the past, from Blade Runner to Soylent Green, one realizes that few of them really predict with any accuracy the world we live in today. Culture and technology can change in radically unpredictable ways, and today's experts may lack the foresight to perceive the future with the clarity of Hari Seldon.'"

Comments

Re:Fallen empires....

[El Torico]

I once was a student of an outstanding (IMHO) History Professor who maintained that the current situation in the US was more like the fall of the Roman Republic than the fall of the Roman Empire, although I see parallels with both.

The Wikipedia Article on the Roman Republic has a few statements that I find both amusing and frightening,

"This kind of violent and sensationalist politics only sought to inflame tensions within Roman society, namely the poor and the disenfranchised."

"Starting with the Punic Wars, the Roman economy began to change, concentrating wealth in the hands of a few powerful clans and causing political tension within Rome."

"Formerly middle-class soldiers would return from years of campaigning to find themselves landless, unable to support their families, and ironically, unemployable because the successes of the Legions made slaves a much cheaper source of labor."

Regarding your comparisons to the late Roman Empire, I agree that there are striking similarities in both Europe and the US; just replace "barbarian invasion" with "massive illegal immigration".

Re:1984.

[elrous0]

You forgot Newspeak.

It's funny, but I recently worked with a prison system where they had introduced a new program called "TruThought" that was so Orwellian it was fucking creepy. The sad thing is that I was apparently the only one who noticed this. It was all I could do not to laugh (and, perhaps, cry) as the Truthought "trainers" rattled off points that could have been written by Orwell himself (it was literally "Newspeak" with a different name). Makes me wonder if the entire program didn't start off as a sick joke (some guy writing it as a riff on his boss, only to have it taken seriously).

-Eric