All this Heinlein stuff has me thinking about science fiction.\u00a0 And that\u2019s fine by me.\u00a0 The current political theater between the Trump administration and the various judges trying to block his orders isn\u2019t something I want to provide a blow-by-blow description of.\u00a0 Either Trump figures out a way around these obstacles or he fails.\u00a0 Either way I\u2019ll wait till I can see the outcome.<\/p>\n
But science fiction is interesting to me.\u00a0 From my way of looking at it, science fiction is the dominant form of storytelling in American society and has been for well over a century.\u00a0 Now this isn\u2019t what literary types believe.\u00a0 But genre fiction is the dominant form of fiction in this country and science fiction is what fueled the imaginations of young people for most of the twentieth century and still does even in these times of moral rot in the arts.<\/p>\n
So, this gives me a chance to talk about my ideas about where science fiction should and will go.\u00a0 And I think the current direction of technological progress will provide the impetus for where the stories will go.\u00a0 Currently I don\u2019t think space travel and advances in biology are the topics that garner our attention.\u00a0 Not to say those things won\u2019t continue to interest people.\u00a0 But currently the real impact of technology on our lives is artificial intelligence.\u00a0 But more than just how far AI will go in replacing humans in various aspects of commerce is what this will do to our society.\u00a0 And more specifically how will humans push back on the people running industry who don\u2019t see this as a problem or at least don\u2019t see it as a problem for them.<\/p>\n
Because let\u2019s be clear.\u00a0 Automation of all kinds has been changing our world for hundreds of years.\u00a0 An iron foundry displaces ten thousand village blacksmiths.\u00a0 An automobile factory and a gas station in every village eliminates the need for train stations across the country and all the people who worked on them.\u00a0 Every innovation in technology displaces the human beings who supported the previous version of \u201chow things are done.\u201d\u00a0 But this latest innovation wants to replace the most important attribute of a human being; his ability to think.\u00a0 His ability to create intellectual property.<\/p>\n
And that\u2019s a revolution.\u00a0 And I think, that\u2019s what science fiction will want to talk about.\u00a0 Of course it\u2019s been talking about that for decades.\u00a0 On the hackiest level, that\u2019s what the Terminator movies are all about.\u00a0 The machines are going to get rid of us.\u00a0 So are the Matrix movies.<\/p>\n
But I think more nuanced portrayals of how AI will affect humanity and how humanity can affect the roll out of AI are what is needed and what will be interesting to people.\u00a0 Now far be it from me to denigrate the fine work that Arnold Schwarzenegger and Keanu Reeves have done to enlighten the human population to their imminent danger at the hands of sentient machines.\u00a0 I know that I\u2019m always on the lookout for Austrian bodybuilders sporting gatling guns or d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu black cats crossing my path.<\/p>\n
But what seems to me to be needed is a way to make AI healthy.\u00a0 Currently, everything about our on-line existence is harmful to us.\u00a0 It\u2019s some combination of anti-social, irritating and stultifying.\u00a0 It\u2019s making our lives worse.\u00a0 And that doesn\u2019t seem to be accidental.\u00a0 It seems to be a feature of the algorithm.\u00a0 It almost seems like an anesthetic meant to keep us groggy and confused.<\/p>\n
I think science fiction should be focused on rethinking how this ultimate technology has to be forced to work for the benefit of humans instead of as a rat poison to finish us off.\u00a0 So that\u2019s what I think.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
All this Heinlein stuff has me thinking about science fiction.\u00a0 And that\u2019s fine by me.\u00a0 The current political theater between the Trump administration and the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[241,5,237,3545,4,242],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews","category-current-events","category-reviews","category-science","category-sff","category-sff-book-reviews"],"yoast_head":"\n