Are Futurist Writers Always Wrong?

Okay, so Denscott was saying he was glad he stopped being in the merchant navy before container ports were the thing....

And I really, really understand how you feel, because although like most people in the world I've never actually been to a container port, I see them frequently on TV. The writer's of Korean crime thrillers apparently thinking that they are great places for hiding things, and as a setting for violence. (Do western shows like them too? I hardly ever watch western TV.)

I almost always see them in night scenes, with no people around (except, of course our heroes and a bunch of bad-guys),and stacks and stacks of these huge square containers all around, looking like some gigantic baby was building a maze out of his building blocks.

And I wondered, "Why do I never see scenes like this in the science fiction books I read?"

Denscott also said that the huge cargo ships used to transport these stacks of containers across oceans, can pretty much be sailed without any crew at all. They are really needed only for emergencies.

That image is a little more familiar. I can't remember off the top of my head any books about a lone spaceman being the one "in case of emergency" crew on a spaceship, but I can think of at least three filk songs that are based on that premise.

But what it looks like from here, isnthat the future of cargo traffic is drones.

So no lonely space truckers after all, because why the heck build all the necessities of keeping someone alive in space, when you can just let a computer do the driving?

(But frankly, as a writer, I find this image really... dull. Fortunately, travel as a form of entertainment is still on, and in my space pirate stories, the pirates deliberately target passenger ships.)

Another example, I've started pulling books off of my own shelves, (focusing on the ones that aren't in my LT catalog yet, and thus, presumably, haven't been read in the past thirteen or so years). I just finished reading Phule's Company (published in 1990) and was a bit amused that the gadgetry owned by the rich boy protagonist included two pocket computer that were no more capable than the average cellphone, but that nonetheless cost "as much a small corporation" and the really cool wrist communicators that he handed out to the entire company, which were considerably less capable than the average smartwatch. (Mind you, smart watches all around would be considerable outlay today, but I think cheap smartwatches will arrive looongg before interstellar travel.)

But there must be instances where authors guessed more or less right, mustn't there?

>1 LShelby: When I was younger the ultimate example given of a writer who foresaw the future with regard to technical innovation was Arthur C Clarke for his portrayal of satellites. There is a WIRED article which describes him as 'The Sci-Fi author who predicts the future by inventing it' (link below). However reading the article, he didn't really guess as he was predicting within his own field of expertise.

Your example of the gadgets in Phule's Company reminds me of when I used to tell student's that the communicators on the first Star Trek T.V. series were considered fantastic and yet today's smart phone leaves them standing, or when I used to teach people software systems on PCs and when they asked if I had always done that job, telling them that PCs didn't exist when I left school.

I agree that there must be some authors who have guessed correctly but I can't name any at the moment (not that I'm an expert)

https://www.wired.com/2011/05/0525arthur-c-clarke-proposes-geostationary-satelli...

Armageddon 2419 A.D. (the book that the Buck Rogers shows were based off of) was praised for predicting the invention of walkie-talkies, IIRC, but in 2400s? Oof!

I think one of the things that took us all by surprise was the speed of technical innovation.

The civilization that had walkie-talkies also had antigravity. I'm wondering now if we'll end up with anti-gravity long before 2400 too. As of yet we don't seem to have much of a clue how to go about it, but maybe we'll figure it out next year. Who knows?

In the Practice Effect, one of Brin's characters claimed that AI was declared a dead end field in the 2020s. We've nearly reached his date, and although nobody is taking AI's that are indistinguishable from humans too seriously, as far as I know, that's doesn't mean AI technology is about to be abandoned. Specialty AIs that can out do humans at one specific task are currently the focus. (My son the programmer is fascinated by this field.)

I've enjoyed Ian McDonald's futurist elements in his "New World Order" books like River of Gods and The Dervish House, especially the AI bits. He seems to have been able to formulate a pretty credible notion of today's killer robots ("military drones") a little before they were a historical reality, among other things. He extrapolated "machine learning" into animal-level AI, and then incorporated an evolution of that capability into android and superhuman AI, lining up with a technological singularity.

The singularity concept I find a bit unhelpful as a writer. At least, if I understand what is meant by that, which I don't guarantee. ::rueful::

I think I actually believe that things are going to change such a great deal that I can't grasp it -- but I can't write about stuff I don't understand, and in my experience readers tend not to want to read about stuff they don't understand either.

AiI's that mimic humans, on the other hand are pretty easy to write, because they mimic humans.

The less like a Human an AI is (and current AIs are absolutely nothing like a human) the harder I think it must be to write.

I think for everything a futurist gets wrong, there is another that they get right. Or, an idea that is so compelling, that someone makes it happen.

>1 LShelby:"Why do I never see scenes like this in the science fiction books I read?"

In I, Robot, all the obsolete models were stored in containers, and Will Smith needed to navigate around. In Ready Player One, "The Stacks" were mostly RV's but I think that some were containers as well.

Now, they are being converted into houses, which are very stylish and versatile.

I recently read a book about architecture, that told me that people were trying to figure out how to do prefab houses a hundred years ago, and mostly the experiments were a failure. I find it interesting that the trend of turning shipping containers into houses is making it finally happen.

There was a comment that shanty towns seem oddly similar-world-wide. They display the lowest denominator of currently available technology. Cinder-blocks, corrugated metal sheets...

>5 LShelby: As a race, we were anticipating how the quantity and quality of computer-generated works would progress. The reason we missed so terribly, (and by the by, the reason I believe we will grossly underestimate AI applications); is because the computers themselves began writing code at an exponential rate compared to humans. Those computer programs then began their Amway march to unintended destinations by humans who largely considered themselves in control. We are all a bit narcissistic, possibly. We think of ourselves as overmasters of the computers. Later we devolve to mere parasites. Eventually, we become well-fed victims of our own Frankenstein creation.

>6 LeonStevens: The containers are excellent above ground, when stacked as engineered. When cross-hatched, buried or cantilevered; exceptions occur. If they were left in stacks, as onboard a ship, and various portholes were cut for flow points; that works better. Burying them leads to oxidation, unless one buys an amount of Rhino Liner. The cost of that equals another container. I thought Ready, Player One could have tightened the high rise trailer park. The effect would have been more claustrophobic though.

>8 smirks4u:
As long as I'm well fed, do I mind the world being run by computers?

But if they can write better books than I can, I might find that a bit depressing. I would write books anyway, because that is who I am, but knowing that a computer does it better would make me both more fretful to find someone else who likes what I write, and at the same time, more reluctant to share.

But if the AIs turn out to not be so good at creative endeavors and just at making the trains run on time and the plumbing working, then I think I'm okay with the future you envision.

After all, I'm already a parasite.

>9 smirks4u:
I live in a small town in a single-family dwelling with a yard, because I'm allergic to neighbors. I wish I was living out in the country, but when we asked the realtor to find us inexpensive housing for a family of 8, nothing rural popped up in our price range.

So the vision of the stacked up trailers really gives me the shivers.

But, you know, a lot of this state is becoming gradually reforested. Agriculture is getting more centralized and more efficient and the world population isn't actually growing all that fast anymore.

I think severe overpopulation is going to be one of those things the futurists didn't get right after all. I think most people don't live in the country because they don't want to. Even living in a small town you hear people complaining that there is nowhere to go and nothing to do. (I have no idea what they are talking about. There's a library, what more do you need?)

>10 LShelby: Your comments reminded me vaguely of a SciFi novel or novella. The male had invented a writing machine, which wrote for him. One of his early attempts left him with both feet down on the 'accelerators' of the action/drama pedals. His product read like it was written by angry hummingbirds on meth.
We live in a world where we can almost make a virtual countryside. Agriculture is becoming a monopoly. The countryside is being sold and converted to what I term the united states of Generica. (Copyright available). After all, if Bill Gates is the biggest farmer, with his baby soft hands; why did his creation do away with the motto: "Don't Be Evil"?
Sometimes it is better with nowhere to go. As a small child, my father was often in the care of an aunt. She kept barrels of salt cod, turnips, crackers, beans, rice, etc. There was no TV, indoor plumbing, Starbucks, and the phones had cranks and humans plugging wires in to complete your connection. In 1900 there were almost 100 companies that manufactured farm tractors in the USA. In 2000, there was one half of one company, Deere-Hitachi. Economy drives fashion, culture, countryside, food availability, AI and frankly war. No country ever goes bankrupt when it can go to war. I am troubled that AI will have no empathy for those things like us that need to eat.

If we don't know what an AI would be like, how do we know it won't have empathy?

Are we even sure it needs empathy? I recently read a book titled Against Empathy in which the author suggests that empathy might be over-rated. Do you think an AI could achieve "Rational Compassion"?

Economy may drive fashion, cultre, countryside, food-availability and war, but consumers drive the economy, so maybe the AIs would want to keep us around for the sake of the economy?