The Tomorrow Project: science fiction commissioned by Intel | Hacker News Reader

The Tomorrow Project: science fiction commissioned by Intel

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7 pointsvilya3 comments

I would like to see some good science fiction that actually attempts to imagine what our real future might be like. For some reason it seems like writers (or maybe it's the fault of people funding TV/movies) can only imagine a future having to do with space and/or aliens. What about the future of internet, computers, and/or mobile devices?

I don't think it's a coincidence that Star Trek and so on emerged during the Space Race period. The public consciousness was very much focused on space travel. The fiction was well-timed then, but now?

I would gladly read a story or watch a show about the following:

- What happens when we have automated every last low-skilled job? Utopia? Chaos?

- What happens when every single action is recorded about your daily life? Crime-free paradise? Totalitarian nightmare?

- What impact would a computer super-intelligence have?

I'm just going off the top of my head here. I'm sure some writers can come up with better stuff than this.

TL;DR: Space was a hot subject during the Space Race. Now, though, it's time to see some science fiction address the future of other technologies that we are now approaching. If the tomorrow project does that, I'm all for it.

Update: I followed the link to Cory Doctorow's story Epoch in arethuza's comment. This in turn brought me to the full book With a Little Help. Its introduction reads:

"It turns out the future doesn't really care about space travel. [...] Luckily, we have Cory Doctorow; he thinks about the Internet, a lot."

I'm sold.

The "sci fi" distributions channels that you're describing were taken over by the "horror/moneymaking" people. I wouldn't even call most of that science fiction.

For more recent works, you might like:

  Vernor Vinge
    "Rainbow's End"  -- more near term and what you describe
    "A Fire Upon the Deep" & "A Deepness in the Sky"

  David Brin
    "Earth"  -- again, more near term, although with a fantastic ending
    The Uplift Trilogy (a bit more fantastic, but very well done, particularly the 2nd and 3rd novels)

There are many "classic" authors and novels. One novel that receives somewhat less attention/accolades, but which I think speaks to some of what you ask, is:

  Arthur C. Clarke
    "The City and the Stars"

Neal Stephenson' The Diamond Age might also resonate. And while both more "near term" and historical, his Cryptonomicon has some very worthy reflections and speculations.

And I guess I really can't pass up suggesting Carl Sagan's Contact. Superb.

As for films, I'm not the most versed, but the following, more "real" science fiction films come to mind:

  GATTACA
  Blade Runner (yeah, yeah, but I just re-watched it)
  And I'll mention that Star Trek (particularly, for me, The Next Generation), is now on or coming to Netflix

P.S. And of course, William Gibson's Neuromancer and, was it the next one or the next two novels? His short story collection, "Burning Chrome", fits well into these two or three.

And as for a certain pragmatic perspective on human psychology, behavior, and possible near term societal/political developments, the classic Heinlein ouvre, while perhaps sexist or interpretable as such, and also in other ways somewhat "archaic", is nonetheless insightful.

Probably not what you're looking for, but now that I've rambled on, there it is.

P.P.S. I found Asimov's original "Robot" trilogy a very insightful allegory for the competing demands of public knowledge and privacy in the modern world. Set aside the robotic aspect, per se, and look at how the different societies lead there lives and social conduct.

The story "Epoch" by Cory Doctorow was commissioned by Mark Shuttleworth (the Ubuntu chap) and really is rather good - it is the story of the first "real" AI and the system administrator who gets the job of turning it off:

http://craphound.com/?p=2337

As with all of Cory's work - strongly recommended!

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