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Sci-fi Predictions, True and False (Video 2)
You might want to go back to Video 1 before watching this one (or reading the transcript). This video is the second part of our recording of a panel discussion at the recent science fiction convention in Detroit. Panelists include writer and forensic science expert Jen Haeger; professor and generally fascinating guy Brian Gray; and expert in Aeronautical Management and 20-year veteran of the Air Force Douglas Johnson. In this video, they continue running down a list of science fiction predictions, both successful and unsuccessful, and evaluating how realistic or far-fetched each now seems. (Alternate Video Link)
This time, with the transcript included. Thank you.
Holodeck: no
Brain jack: no
Spring-powered post-apocalypse: no
Ubik: no
Universal constructor robots named Trurl and Klapaucius: no
Three laws of robotics: no
Matrix: no
Hyperdrive: no
Warpdrive: no
Smuggling software on cranially implanted usb sticks: no
Lightsabers: no
Triffids: no
Ender's game: starcraft
They're pretty awesome at drawing parallels between last sci-fi technology and state-of-a-couple-of-years-old technology.
If I was going to be on a panel where I talked about universal translators, I'd at least mention near-realtime language translation in your own simulated voice over Skype/Kinect or at least translating ASL in near-realtime as well. Exoskeletons? Forget that we're actually having them let the paralyzed walk, we'll just talk about Boston Dymanics BigDog instead of ReWalk or other technologies. Heck, we covered package-loading exoskeletons here in the last few months.
What are there, like 5 topics, most of which spent meandering on about Bluetooth earsets?
Here you can find strange videos related to sci-fi and life from outer space :
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Holodeck: yes, but just in TV shows
Brain jack: yes, but only for limited uses
Spring-powered post-apocalypse: there was a spring awakening for democracy in middle east
Ubik: you mean uber?
Universal constructor robots named Trurl and Klapaucius: who?
Three laws of robotics: we have rules of thumb
Matrix: matrix multiplication
Hyperdrive: sorry
Warpdrive: yes
Smuggling software on cranially implanted usb sticks: ok
Lightsabers: yes, but only in toy form.
Triffids: no
Ender's game: starcraft
Sci-fi does not make predictions, it tell stories.
This video and it's immediate predecessor might have some cool stuff in it, but frankly, the format, run length, Etc. is 100% totally boring. This could be likely summarized in a viral video with some just animation and summaries - seeing 3 people talk in an overlong video is more boring that reading while on the can.
One thing Niven got wrong about superconductors: he wrote that they conduct heat as fast as light (or electricity) if I remember right.
"But finally tonight, finally tonight I just want to talk about the future. The future. Where will the future be? Science Fiction writers, they write it down, they write it down in books. And then it becomes films, and then it all comes to pass, like those doors in Star Trek (makes whooshing sound) we've got them now! That's about it! But that's happened."
One thing I found interesting right at the beginning was about whether information and knowledge should be free. It would seem logical that a core level of information and knowledge should be freely accessible on the internet and be provided by the state. The core of this information being all about the management system of the state (being local, state or federal), what they are doing, how they are doing and why they are doing it, something of vital importance to a democracy. Expanding upon this of course is a general public encyclopaedia of knowledge and instruction, so that the public can make use of the management information provided. So how close are we to a state funded and managed 'Wikipedia' as part of state information and education systems, basically to save the whole community access costs and to provide the necessary information to be a real democracy (no lying allowed if caught then prosecuted). No guaranteeing the people will bother to access it but if they start doing it from an early age as a part of their education then it is likely they will keep going back to it as they age.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
No, I'm pretty sure he means Ubik.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
I'm not sure I'd want a state-funded encyclopedia of information, especialy information about the government. Governments have a long history of "selectively editing" the information under their control to make themselves look less corrupt and incompetent than they actually are - I'd scarecly want such information disseminated as the de-facto "truth". State-released *data* is something else - they should provide the raw information so that third parties can analyze it directly and check for consistency with independent data sources, but any gpovernment-funded analysis will inevitably drift towards maintaining a good relationship with the funders.
SF stories are about pushing some main ideas instead of constructing a complex interdependent future world and explaining it. For example, even the very different setting of "Dune" deliberately had medieval and middle eastern elements to avoid losing the reader in the situation of "everything is just different". So if a story has a future where everything is exactly the same as today apart from one thing, that's not a flaw in prediction, it's an example of focus.
One good recent example is the film "Predestination" which is from a Heinlein story - but it's setting is about predicting a different past with two major changes instead of a future which is today with a couple of changes. Heinlein's "Space Corps" is included nicely in the story mostly as a way of saying "this is not quite the world you know" - it's background scenery with a point instead of having much to do with the plot.
Also while there's so many plots that can be defused with one single mobile phone call (as done nicely in the Japanese "A Certain Magical Index" that does exactly that on a few occasions), or WWII technology that writers were not aware of (so many stories where signals were jammed stopping communication - but Heddy Lamar solved that and it's implemented in every mobile phone in the planet let alone other places), but sometimes it's best to just ignore the prop and listen to the ideas.
In the 60's or 70's a spy novel had an aside about machine translation - "Hydraulic Ram" came out as "Water Sheep".
Sadly it's not about simple substitution but getting a machine apply rules for context and determining those rules is the bloody hard bit that Moore's Law can't help us with.
Which is pretty well what "Lost" should have been in hindsight. By the last season it just looked to me like "Ubik" done badly.
The state should fund wikipedia by making no-strings-attached transfer payments to individuals, who can then self-organize to produce whatever they want. The state should do this because it's in the General Welfare. The state can fund such payments at zero cost through the Fed, which expands its balance sheet to create a Treasury deposit. To hedge against inflation, index everything (bank accounts, transfer payments, everything) to inflation, as Israel has done successfully for decades. If income goes up in lock step with prices, even the quantity theory of money shows that purchasing power does not decrease.
From some of the awesome SF/thinly disguised political satire by the Polish author Lem. He inspired things like Douglas Adams's "Infinite Improbability Drive" and "Deep Thought" with the Trurl and Klapaucius stories. His automatic poet (first simulate a universe and then ...) shows the brilliance of both the writer and the person that translated the story into English. "Solaris" is probably his most unfilmable story yet was turned into two movies (probably as a bet) since most of the book is a listing of all the effort made over a century to try to understand an alien but with little progress.
The consumer level technology we, the public, get to know about and sometimes even use, is not very impressive. I think sci-fi has accurately predicted a lot of much more interesting advances which we simply aren't advised of.
It's quite reasonable to assume that human tech is a lot further along and less mundane than the cell phone.
Oooh. With the exception of the Internet.
The Internet is truly impressive; epic, even in its scope. The cell phone itself, however, is just a dirty radio with a small screen and a bit of computing power, a window into the thing which is truly amazing.
I strongly suspect the photon capacitor (or something akin to it), was a reality quite some time ago (if you had the right clearance). -And if we consider that some of the weird stuff associated with the Philadelphia Experiment might well have been real back in the 40's, then I'd say sci-fi authors ought to be given more credit for accuracy than they have been.
Why no mention of phasers? Even in the mundane public press, we have seen directed energy weapons mounted to vehicles and used for crowd control. Though, "Microwaving Protesters" sounds less sexy than "Blaster Battle in the Hanger Bay".
Also, laser scalpels are a thing. Heck, laser cutters in general as well as one-off robot assisted tool and die tech. That's all pretty gee-whiz AND practical. Much more so than powered exo-skeletons. I can't imagine much real use for iron man suits unless those previously mentioned photon capacitors are released from deep black.
And transcranial stimulation with EMR is real. Years ago now, there was a company selling medical hardware designed to turn off a subject's eyesight, among other uses. Did sci-fi even think about that one? I guess THX-1138 had elements of that. (I'd be very surprised, in fact, if your cell phone wasn't a node of an on-purpose world-wide population control network that functioned on those same principles. Dumb 'em down with EMR.) -Did you see how those speakers stuttered and farted around for words in that presentation? I bet they'd all have been a little more clear in their communication abilities if they weren't constantly surrounded by their silly wifi devices.
And speaking of those panelists; they struck me as being three plain old normals who were having the same conversation any three semi-intelligent people of limited insight could have around any given kitchen table. -Though, I did appreciate Jen Haeger's being prepared with a few historical notes about who wrote what first.
One thing I found interesting right at the beginning was about whether information and knowledge should be free.
Later on they talk about a (presumably LCARS) Tricorder-like app disappearing from "the" app store, stongarmed by CBS without any criticism (and also genuinely wonder why there are no bluetooth sets shaped like Uhura's earpiece). So they seem "on board" with a strong "intellectual property" regime or at least put it in the "things fall down", "a hot stove hurts when you touch it", everyday-thruths-that-just-are-and-not-given-a-second-thought category.
Which brings us to the information that really should be free. Like JSTOR. Remember Aaron Schwartz? The biggest thing standing in the way of the dream of freely accessible knowledge is the crazy long copyright term. Now THAT is something to hold a discussion about! How many times on the various Star Trek shows does an "entire civilisation's collection of knowledge and culture" get uploaded to the Enterprise's computer, or the Earth's/Federation's science and cultural works uploaded by the Enterprise to an adversary that suddenly decides humanity is worthy after all?
When the copyright term is "forever minus a day", live every day like it's the last.