The Skeptics’ Guide to the Future is a highly informed attempt at predicting our scientific & technological future. It is fully aware of the folly of futurism (hence the subtitle “What Yesterday’s Science and Science Fiction Tell Us About the World of Tomorrow”), regularly reminding readers that the only thing reliable about futurism is that it fails, that extrapolating from current technology has obvious weaknesses. The unexpected is unexpected! In that context, this is a fascinating and well–informed discussion of where current trends in science and technology might take us.
The authors, the three brothers from my favourite podcast, the American The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe, make it very clear that events will almost certainly skewer their predictions. They were right to say it, given, for example, the publication this year of Hertog’s “On the Origin of Time”, given the arrival of ChatGPT, etc., etc., etc..
They base their futurism on American Science Fiction. This is an understandable source of possible technologies; science fiction is the literary exploration of what might be, and some rather intelligent authors have come up with some rather intelligent observations. It isn’t so unusual for observations to prove predictive, so it’s a good, and indeed the best, source of predictions of what might be, although it is often wrong—it’s called fiction for a reason.
For me, the best science fiction isn’t written to explore future technology, it’s written to explore what it is, and isn’t, to be human. It may use technologies as plot devices to explore the question, but it is wrong to presume that those plot devices are predictions. Thus criticising science fiction for making bad predictions is to fail to understand the nature of the literature itself. Even so, what is described in science fiction often works out to be a prediction, partially because certain devices would actually be rather useful to have, so inspire people to create them. Other forms of science fiction is an exploration of the impact of science & technology on society, and how it may change people, amongst other things, so is also a useful place to find potential new technologies, along with their possible social consequences. One thing that’s worth mentioning is that science fiction has had an unjustified negative reputation in some places; I think this ultimately comes down to a certain kind of person being unable to accept that they’re not the pinnacle of human evolution.
I have two problems with the book’s analysis in this regard. First of all, a lot of based on television and movie science fiction, which I personally regard as the weakest form of the genre: it has even more filters against imagination and for conforming to money–making expectations than litarary science fiction, thus unavoidably conforms to social expectations at the expense of more interesting scientific and technological extrapolation, so is far more likely to be run over by a lorry hurtling down the middle of the road. In other words, it is a bad place to find a broad range of predictions.
Ironically, the afterword, at least of the audo book, reflects this opinion, although the authors don’t seem to realise their unhappiness with the mundaneness of science fiction characterisation is not so much a problem of science fiction, but of the innate and unavoidable artistic failure of the television and movie industries. I strongly believe they should consider switching to books, and ideally the more exotic and exciting books. There is no way that they could have criticised science fiction as being people of today with fancy technotoys, which they effectively did, had they read books such as, for example, Ursula K Le Guin’s “The Left Hand of Darkness”, much of the output of the Strugatsky brothers, Iain Banks’ science fiction, and many other wonderful contemporary authors who frighten the televisual communities.
A second, more serious problem, is their restriction to only American Science Fiction. This is regrettably parachorial. Don’t get me wrong, American Science Fiction can be excellent, and a great source of material, but it is not complete, and it is very much an extrapolation of the American experience, and so appears to a European like me to be ridiculously violent and hopelessly socially immature. For example, they discuss the long term impact of AI on humanity without even being aware of Iain M Banks’ exploration of the matter, which is rather like discussing the bible without considering the gospels. There are many places where holes in their knowledge weaken their exploration of potential impacts of technologies. Having said that, this weakness, though, does not impact their careful and thorough exploration of the scientific and technological development possibilities, it’s more that the speculative exploration of the consequences is weaker than it could be.
I spotted one big booboo in the book. In the section on gravity, and specifically anti–gravity, they state that anti–gravity is impossible. Now, I don’t know about you, but I find it slightly off–putting to hear the book disregard 68% of the known universe. We currently know very little about Dark Energy, beyond that 68%, and that it is repulsive. Given we don’t know what it is, beyond those observations, it follows we don’t know what it isn’t, subject to those observations. Thus we cannot state that it isn’t anti–gravity. The fact that it appears to correspond to the cosmological constant in the theory of general relativity, the theory that defines gravity, suggests that it actually might be just that, although it must be said it might be something quite different. One simply can’t presume, as the book does, that it isn’t anti–gravity. Now, obviously, we can say nothing about any far future technology based on Dark Energy, so it would have required nothing more than a brief sentence in this section, but that sentence is necessary.
There are a good number of interesting social extrapolations in the book, despite ignoring Iain M Banks. Powerful arguments are made in favour of particular interpretations of the impact of various technologies, most of which I agree with, and some of which changed my opinion. One that has been obvious to me for some time is that AI and robotic technologies are not a threat per se to the human race, because they are us and we are them. My take is, just as people are already being augumented by technologies (consider the Cochlear implant), that will continue, so it is part of the human condition to consider certain technologies to be part of our identity, part of ourselves.
What else are clothes, if not technology that is part of everyone’s identity, part of what it is to be us? We are what we wear! Clothes are an ancient technology that is so close to us that they are essentially part of us. I find that when I imagine early humans, I imagine them wearing clothes. For me, clothes are part of what it is to be human. Clothes are so essentially human that they are part of us. Now, this is clearly a cultural thing, given there are some hunter–gatherer communities where nudity is the norm, that clothing is part of what it is to be human doesn’t mean all humans have to wear clothing, more that we can & do if we so wish.
We merge with our technologies, so, just as our choice of clothes are part of us, so our choice of future technologies will be part of a future us. We are what we wear, we will be what we will wear. This isn’t an argument found in the book, but does, for me, synergise closely to the book’s message. The same is true of other technologies. Implants will be part of us, just as Cochlear implants today are part of certain people who suffer from a certain form of deafness. Technology is part of what it is to be human, so future technology will be what it will be to be a future human, and future technology will be different, thus future humans will be different. Future technologies will be part of the future us. We should not fear robots and artificial intelligence per se, for example, because they will be us. No, we should fear them because they will be us, and we rightly fear us.
Socially ill people such as bigots and racists will still be socially ill people such as bigots and racists whether or not they’re augmented by technology; the thing to fear is not the technology, but the socially ill. The thing to fix is not the technology, but the socially ill. This is why I believe it is essential that cures are researched and hopefully discovered and developed for social illnesses such as bigotry and racism. Such illnesses are currently addressed through the criminal system, but I personally believe that’s the wrong approach: you don’t punish people or suffering from other forms of illness, you cure them, or at least alleviate their symptoms. Why should the socially ill be treated differently? Cure them, don’t punish them! That requires both pure and applied research. This is not a topic covered in the book in any way or form, but it is indirectly mentioned in the aforementioned afterword, where the brothers discuss possible future books, one of which is a critical thinking analysis of deeply controversial topics, which I do hope would include bigotry and racism. Whether their analysis would go anywhere my opinion, let alone in any way or form support it, I would have no clue, indeed I would be surprised if it did, but, all the same, that would make a very interesting future book.
Overall, this is a fascinating book, and definitely worth the time to read for those interested in science, whether fiction or fact, and technology.