Complex Numbers

Prognostication

Make a prediction for how technology will advance in the next 18 years.

Science fiction is the most important genre.

I don't mean space opera, though those can be fun. I mean actual science fiction. It helps us come to terms with both technological advances and social change.

A while back, I came across this bit:

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-46736024

That wasn't the link I first found, though it describes it well enough, I think. To summarize, back in 1983, Asimov gazed into his crystal ball and came up with what 2019 might look like.

Being a science fiction writer and science communicator, his crystal ball was probably sharper than most. Hell, I distinctly remember thinking in 1983 that we'd have generation ships headed for Alpha Centauri or some other "nearby" system by now. And don't get me started again on flying cars. But Asimov got a surprising number of things right.

What's even more interesting than what they get right, in my opinion, was what prognosticators get wrong. For example, when I was a kid, a staple trope in science fiction was the video call. The way this was presented was invariably that it would be just like a land-line telephone, only with a video link included. As I recall, some folks actually tried to make that a reality, but the general public, who don't bother to read science fiction, could only think about how that would invade privacy, and it never went anywhere.

So instead, we developed video phone technology from the back end: through computers. By the time computers got powerful enough for things like skype, though, many of them didn't use phone lines. In fact, there wasn't the whole "dialing" thing at all - just a protocol that enabled voice/video transmission and receiving.

What's even more interesting now is that we all carry phones with us wherever we go, and we even call them phones (in the US anyway; the UK calls them "mobiles," which is a far better name), but we hardly ever make actual phone calls with them. It's all texting or email.

Incidentally, the video phone trope was far more prevalent in shows than in written fiction. This was mostly an easy way to view both actors' faces while they spoke remotely. Still happens, only there are a lot more holograms now. In the shows, I mean, not in reality.

Which leads to the question: how much does science fiction predict the future, and how much does it inspire it? But that's a whole 'nother blog post. Or series thereof. Not going there tonight.

So. To address the question. As most of you know, I follow science journalism sometimes, so I have some idea of the things they're working on: quantum computers, virtual reality, universal internet access, solar energy, stable controlled fusion power (which is about 20 years away, and has been 20 years away for the last half a century), gene editing, Mars colonies, nanotechnology, and more.

I'd like to think that some of these things will become reality 18 years from now. Proably not fusion - that will be 20 years away then. But maybe the others, along with autonomous vehicles and maybe even death rays.

But that's optimistic.

After all, we still have nukes. And it's entirely possible that, 18 years from now, those few of you who remain might rediscover how to carve a wheel out of stone.