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I think that's exactly the author's point. All science-fiction radically overshoots where we are now. Nobody imagined the weird combination of capabilities an

I think that's exactly the author's point. All science-fiction radically overshoots where we are now. Nobody imagined the weird combination of capabilities and impossibilities that we find ourselves in.

esrauch 6y ago
I mean, it's possible that Assimov imagined it but decided that "automatic radio stations" wasn't a compelling enough basis for a story.
arcturus17 6y ago
The classics probably didn’t shoot for what’s happening now in the first place... Sure, many mention the 2000s as a milestone, probably for aesthetic reasons, but the point of most sci fi isn’t to make a prediction about a concrete timeframe. For our current problems and tech, I reckon some modern sci fi works (ex: Black Mirror, The Three Body Problem) do a good job of analyzing the current context and laying out some present and future implications.
wpietri 6y ago
Yup. It's not clear even we know what point we're at, so I think authors can be forgiven for a) not imagining this particular scenario, and b) not thinking "people get overly excited about one more small step in computer skills" was much of a realm for stories. Science fiction isn't about technology. It just uses technology as a way of telling stories about characters that provide entertainment and insight to the author's contemporaries. Given that the current generation of ML is in practice mainly allowing modest increases in automation, I don't think it's generating many interesting stories in the real world, and it's not clear it ever will. If I were to look at current stories that science fiction perhaps missed, top of my list would be how the rise of the computers and the internet, meant to create a utopia of understanding, instead enabled a) the creation of low-cost, low-standards "reality" TV, b) allowed previously distributed groups of white supremacists and other violent reactionaries to link up and propagandize in unprecedented ways, and c) let a former game show host from group A whip up people from group B into sacking the US Capitol, ending the US's 200+ year history of peaceful transfers of power. That's a story! But that would be asking too much of science fiction. Its job isn't to predict the future. Its job, if it has one beyond entertainment, is to get us to think about the present. Classics like Frankenstein and Brave New World and Fahrenheit 451 have been doing that for generations. That's not because they correctly predicted particular technological and social futures.
- wombatmobile 6y ago
  It’s not sci-fi but Neil Postman anticipates a world like 2020 in Technopoly.

esrauch 6y ago

I mean, it's possible that Assimov imagined it but decided that "automatic radio stations" wasn't a compelling enough basis for a story.

arcturus17 6y ago

The classics probably didn’t shoot for what’s happening now in the first place... Sure, many mention the 2000s as a milestone, probably for aesthetic reasons, but the point of most sci fi isn’t to make a prediction about a concrete timeframe. For our current problems and tech, I reckon some modern sci fi works (ex: Black Mirror, The Three Body Problem) do a good job of analyzing the current context and laying out some present and future implications.

wpietri 6y ago

Yup. It's not clear even we know what point we're at, so I think authors can be forgiven for a) not imagining this particular scenario, and b) not thinking "people get overly excited about one more small step in computer skills" was much of a realm for stories. Science fiction isn't about technology. It just uses technology as a way of telling stories about characters that provide entertainment and insight to the author's contemporaries. Given that the current generation of ML is in practice mainly allowing modest increases in automation, I don't think it's generating many interesting stories in the real world, and it's not clear it ever will. If I were to look at current stories that science fiction perhaps missed, top of my list would be how the rise of the computers and the internet, meant to create a utopia of understanding, instead enabled a) the creation of low-cost, low-standards "reality" TV, b) allowed previously distributed groups of white supremacists and other violent reactionaries to link up and propagandize in unprecedented ways, and c) let a former game show host from group A whip up people from group B into sacking the US Capitol, ending the US's 200+ year history of peaceful transfers of power. That's a story! But that would be asking too much of science fiction. Its job isn't to predict the future. Its job, if it has one beyond entertainment, is to get us to think about the present. Classics like Frankenstein and Brave New World and Fahrenheit 451 have been doing that for generations. That's not because they correctly predicted particular technological and social futures.

wombatmobile 6y ago
It’s not sci-fi but Neil Postman anticipates a world like 2020 in Technopoly.