What We Get Wrong About Technology (timharford.com)

Tim Harford, a columnist for the Financial Times, uses the example of Rachael and Rick Deckard from Blade Runner to explain how we humans, when asked about how new inventions might shape the future, often tend to leap to technologies that are sophisticated beyond comprehension. Also spoiler of the Blade Runner plot is ahead. He writes: So sophisticated is Rachael that she is impossible to distinguish from a human without specialised equipment; she even believes herself to be human. Los Angeles police detective Rick Deckard knows otherwise; in Rachael, Deckard is faced with an artificial intelligence so beguiling, he finds himself falling in love. Yet when he wants to invite Rachael out for a drink, what does he do? He calls her up from a payphone. There is something revealing about the contrast between the two technologies -- the biotech miracle that is Rachael, and the graffiti-scrawled videophone that Deckard uses to talk to her. It's not simply that Blade Runner fumbled its futurism by failing to anticipate the smartphone. That's a forgivable slip, and Blade Runner is hardly the only film to make it. It's that, when asked to think about how new inventions might shape the future, our imaginations tend to leap to technologies that are sophisticated beyond comprehension. We readily imagine cracking the secrets of artificial life, and downloading and uploading a human mind. Yet when asked to picture how everyday life might look in a society sophisticated enough to build such biological androids, our imaginations falter. Blade Runner audiences found it perfectly plausible that LA would look much the same, beyond the acquisition of some hovercars and a touch of noir.

Comments

That's the point

[Macdude]

Much of Science Fiction takes one or a small number of technological advances and examines how it will impact society, humanity. In Blade Runner it's looking at how the addition of manufactured "humans" will impact people. We examine it through Deckard and how he comes to view them as fully human.

The payphone isn't important to the story and is simply part of the visual style of the film.

Blade Runner is a poor example to use for the topic of the article, we don't have replicants so we can't compare how they "got it wrong". If you want to look at how science fiction gets technology wrong, look at something from 50 years ago about how computers are going to change society, then compare it to how computers have actually changed society.

But even then you're wasting your time because science fiction is not about making accurate predictions, it's about examining current reality by contrasting it with a potential/imagined future.