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SF Authors Predict Computing's Future
Esther Schindler writes "'Over the past century a lot of science fiction has been published, showcasing a lot of wild ideas, and if you sit enough authors at enough typewriters or word processors, somebody is bound to get a few things right. Science fiction's greater influence, though, goes beyond whether or not the authors can make a good guess,' writes Kevin J. Anderson in Science Fiction's Take on the Future of Computers: Visionaries and Imaginaries. 'Rather than predicting the future, the SF genre is much better at inspiring the future. Visionaries read or see cool ideas in their favorite SF books or films, then decide how to make it a reality.' So Anderson assembled a set of visionaries, and asked them where they thought computing is headed: Mike Resnick, Robert J. Sawyer, Greg Bear, Michael A. Stackpole, Dr. Gregory Benford, and Christopher Paolini gaze into their crystal balls. 'Forget artificial intelligence. The future of computing is artificial consciousness, and it will be here within 20 years, and maybe much sooner than that,' says Sawyer. 'Our future wired world will have smart, wireless robots — gofers in hospitals, security guards with IR vision at night, lawn mowers, etc. We ourselves will be wired, with devices and embedded sensors taking in data and giving it out — a two way street,' contributes Benford."
Quality science fiction authors (not the pulp hacks), aren't TRYING to predict the future. They know better than anyone that's a pointless pursuit. Real science fiction writers, are merely using a genre setting to comment on the PRESENT, and perhaps on the human condition in general. Anyone who seriously thinks they can predict the future is a fucking retard. In the past, every time someone has tried they were laughably off. Even when someone does occasionally luck onto to getting some small thing right, like a specific piece of technology, they usually screw up its context and use in some fundamental way, or they make some assumption that turns out to be untrue (Arthur Clarke assuming that NASA would continue on with Apollo-level funding for example). No serious writer is arrogant enough to think their predictions are actually going to come true. They're literary devices, not prognostications.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Ya I've never heard of most these authors but the article lost all credibility when they said 'Christopher Paolini' was on their list. He isn't a science fiction writer he writes fantasy and not even good fantasy at that. Why is he even there?
was I the only one who thought "SourceForge" before thinking "SciFi"?
I've learnt over the years to completely ignore any predictions made on a time based framework. They are just pulling that number out of their ass. They haven't performed intense and complicated calculations to determine when such and such is going to come out, and how. The fact of the matter is that no one knows.
20 years ago it was 1991.
Except for the web, which was not much more than a hypertext system at the time, computing really hasn't changed. X, Windows, and the Mac were old technology by then. But what's much newer than them now?
Computering has gotten faster, smaller, prettier, and an ungodly bankload cheaper.
But most of us (here) are still writing scripts in text to get useful things done.
Does Siri code in Python? That could be a game-changer.
http://xkcd.com/548/
"Hello... You're in a Johnny Cab. Destination please."
--- If the bible proves the existence of God, then Superman comics prove the existence of Superman.
I've been waiting for strong AI for decades. Progress has been very slow. (It was really slow during the "AI Winter", after expert systems turned out to be a dud.) But it's picking up, what with all the effort in statistical machine learning.
The big difference this time is commercial applications. Until about 10 years or so, the commercial value of AI was tiny. Now, serious money goes into it and profits result. This makes the technology self-supporting and growing, rather than dependent on research funding. A big chunk of what Google does now involves machine learning. Machine translation is getting to be reasonably good. A lot of industrial stuff that few people see has more self-adjusting capability than it used to. Machines that move around in the real world by themselves and get stuff done are starting to work, and they're getting better each year.
There's a lot of noise about "conciousness", but once we get AI into the low end of the mammal range, moving up may not be that tough. All the mammals have roughly the same DNA, brain components and structure, after all.
Once machines get anywhere near human intelligence, they'll go way past it, of course. Computers scale up and network far better than biology does.
In the first of the Foundation series novels Isaac Asimov predicted the pocket calculator. It was used by Hari Seldon.
Its about as useful as a swiss army chainsaw, or maybe a robotic remote controlled combination potato peeler / ice cream machine.
I have one of those, and it makes the best potato peel ice cream you'll find. Can't get that at Cold Stone (well, any more, that is, it was a limited time thing).
Everything you know is wrong, Just forget the words and sing along.
David Gerrold is the most forward looking SF author that I've ever met.
He started writing on the cutting edge technology of the day: the IBM Selectric typewriter.
He was looking for someone to build him a full word processor years before anyone else had even heard of the term and knew exactly what it needed to be.
His most far reaching idea that is almost in reach now was in a story he easily wrote 30 or so years ago where you carried a small object with you that would slot into any computer of its futuristic day and completely remap the keyboard and system to your own language.
Extrapolating that, my prediction (not that anybody cares) is that the future is a wearable computer that you have with yourself always, that is powerful enough for any normal task, and that can be plugged into more powerful systems with big screens and keyboards for specific tasks. The cell phone of today is within shouting distance of this, once we can get something like a wearable heads-up display and a better virtual or portable keyboard, or truly accurate voice recognition to at least the level of an 11-year-old human.
Of course, legally we have to make cell phones not searchable without a warrant. Or include such strong cryptography that they become unsearchable regardless of the warrant.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
More gimmicky consumer devices, less ownership, control, and privacy.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade