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."

Comments

Real scifi isn't about predicting the future

[elrous0]

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.

Re:Real scifi isn't about predicting the future

[decipher_saint]

Real Sci-Fi is about asking "what if", period.

Re:Real scifi isn't about predicting the future

[Twinbee]

Okay, I'll give you a few predictions right now, and we'll see if I'm a nutter:

1: We'll colonize and even explore space (because if we don't get off this rock, we're as good as dead).

2: We'll have something much closer to true virtual reality devices and use them willingly (a bit obvious I suppose)

3: Not everyone will go the cyborg route. In fact, only a few may, because of the 'ick' format that many people will detest. Star Trek agrees here (and no, Geordi La Forge doesn't count).

4: At some point, we'll have sky cars. We'll need better batteries, and good AI for stability and non-crashability, but we'll get there (eventually, we'll even be able to drive them for fun (with the safety mechanisms kicking in if we make a wrong move).

5: (Hot) fusion will become viable at some stage too (we could really do with the energy to feed our sky cars etc. with.)

6: And the big one; fewer and fewer people will have traditional jobs, letting the robots/computers do the admin / manual work for them. Instead, we'll be exploring, learning, creating, having fun, or socializing (eventually mankind will realize that higher unemployment is a good thing, and not a bad)
.
7: There will be a universal currency, universal language, and universal OS (don't worry, not necessarily Windows, MacOS, or Linux) at some point which most (>99%) can and will use. It'll take a while, and will probably happen after most people stop working, but at some point, we will all agree to get along (traveling to outer space, and to the stars may add some confusion to this point however).

I can guarantee that at least six of those things will happen. Perhaps not all in our lifetime though.

Re:Real scifi isn't about predicting the future

[epine]

Rubbish, if you expand your horizons wider than oracles of ticker tape or Back to the Future parlour tricks.

There have been some pretty profound visionaries over the centuries. Jules Verne, da Vinci, Richard Feynman (There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom), Claude Shannon, Freeman Dyson (space chickens), Charles Babbage, Leibniz, William Gibson (cyberspace), Marshall McLuhan (global village), Archimedes if you could get him to talk. These are not men immortalized for aping Minority Report.

I shake my head at all these Margulis extropians, who think we're headed for post-sexual merger with mechanoid symbiotes, the under-skin super suit. Which would be cool if I had any clue what the 90% of world's population, the unemployed, will be doing with all that time.

The future is a moving target. Set your sights accordingly, and recognize transcendent wisdom bereft of gadgets.

Re:Real scifi isn't about predicting the future

[idontgno]

1: We'll colonize and even explore space (because if we don't get off this rock, we're as good as dead).

Tens of millions of dead smokers proves that the rationale is not valid, but tens of millions of dead natives in colonized areas proves your basic prediction is sound, if only for other reasons.

2: We'll have something much closer to true virtual reality devices and use them willingly (a bit obvious I suppose)

I'd debate this more extensively, but my guild just issued its mass invite for our weekly Firelands raid, so I have to go.

3: Not everyone will go the cyborg route. In fact, only a few may, because of the 'ick' format that many people will detest. Star Trek agrees here (and no, Geordi La Forge doesn't count).

Frankly, most people want to "look normal". Hence, even the most innocuous "prosthetics"--eyeglasses--have a zero-cosmetic-impact alternative (contact lenses). No bet there.

4: At some point, we'll have sky cars. We'll need better batteries, and good AI for stability and non-crashability, but we'll get there (eventually, we'll even be able to drive them for fun (with the safety mechanisms kicking in if we make a wrong move).

There are other implications, too. Does privacy extend to the airspace above your house? Otherwise your neighbors could just hover over your house to watch your comings and goings. And yeah, if the technology becomes cheap enough and sufficiently different than conventional aviation (i.e., not needing specialty training and licensing), then it'll have some ugly public safety impacts. But when cars were new a century ago, they'd have been surprised and horrified at the quarter million casualties a year car accidents cause.

5: (Hot) fusion will become viable at some stage too (we could really do with the energy to feed our sky cars etc. with.)

It's happening now. Too bad we're not so good at collecting and distributing that energy, considering it already travels 99.99993% of the way here by itself.

6: And the big one; fewer and fewer people will have traditional jobs, letting the robots/computers do the admin / manual work for them. Instead, we'll be exploring, learning, creating, having fun, or socializing (eventually mankind will realize that higher unemployment is a good thing, and not a bad)

Alas, having the machines do all the work liberates the working man to abject poverty and crime or starvation. Economies function on scarcity, and if you don't have natural scarcity, you invent artificial scarcity. The wealth of the "haves" tends to increase towards 100% of total value of the economy, and the wealth of the "have-nots" decreases towards 0. The costs of production are already a non-factor in a lot of the economy, but that hasn't made the important things zero-cost for the consumer.

7: There will be a universal currency, universal language, and universal OS (don't worry, not necessarily Windows, MacOS, or Linux) at some point which most (>99%) can and will use. It'll take a while, and will probably happen after most people stop working, but at some point, we will all agree to get along (traveling to outer space, and to the stars may add some confusion to this point however).

In many ways, we're almost already there. What percentage of the world's nations and economies has a working understanding of English and access to some basically-interoperable computer networking system? If you believe in the curse of the Tower of Babel, you might be inclined to argue that humanity is overcoming the confounding of languages and is again a viable candidate to ascend to the heavens.

Re:Real scifi isn't about predicting the future

[TClevenger]

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).

Or Asimov predicting that robots/androids would be nearly human-like in their behavior and complexity at the same time that computers still filled whole buildings and would need specially trained people to translate instructions into code and readouts from ticker tape.

The authors

[Dyinobal]

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?

Re:The authors

[B1oodAnge1]

Lord of the Rings is Historical Fiction.

Oblig.

[xstonedogx]

http://xkcd.com/548/

The hand held pocket calculator ...

[scharkalvin]

In the first of the Foundation series novels Isaac Asimov predicted the pocket calculator. It was used by Hari Seldon.