-
Every science fiction writer has a story
about a time when the future arrived
-
too soon.
-
I have a lot of those stories.
-
Like, OK, for example,
-
years ago I was writing a story
where the government
-
starts using drones to kill people.
-
I thought that this was
a really intense, futuristic idea,
-
but by the time the story was published,
-
the government was already
using drones to kill people.
-
Our world is changing so fast,
-
and there's a kind
of accelerating feedback loop
-
where technological change
and social change feed on each other.
-
When I was a kid in the 1980s,
-
we knew what the future
was going to look like.
-
It was going to be some version
of Judge Dredd or Blade Runner.
-
It was going to be neon megacities
and flying vehicles.
-
But now, nobody knows
what the world is going to look like
-
even in just a couple years,
-
and there are so many scary apparitions
lurking on the horizon.
-
From climate catastrophe
to authoritarianism,
-
everyone is obsessed with apocalypses,
-
even though the world ends
all the time and we keep going.
-
Don't be afraid to think about the future,
to dream about the future,
-
to write about the future.
-
I've found it really liberating
and fun to do that.
-
It's a way of vaccinating yourself
-
against the worst possible case
of future shock.
-
It's also a source of empowerment,
-
because you cannot prepare for something
that you haven't already visualized.
-
But there's something
that you need to know.
-
You don't predict the future,
-
you imagine the future.
-
So as a science fiction writer
-
whose stories often take place
years or even centuries from now,
-
I've found that people are really hungry
for visions of the future
-
that are both colorful and lived in,
-
but I found that research on its own
is not enough to get me there.
-
Instead, I use a mixture
of active dreaming
-
and awareness of cutting-edge trends
in science and technology
-
and also an insight into human history.
-
I think a lot about what
I know of human nature,
-
and the way that people have responded
in the past to huge changes
-
and upheavals and transformations.
-
And I pair that with
an attention to detail,
-
because the details are where we live.
-
We tell the story of our world
through the tools we create
-
and the spaces that we live in.
-
And at this point, it's helpful
to know a couple of terms
-
that science fiction writers
use all of the time:
-
future history and second order effects.
-
Now, future history is basically
just what it sounds like.
-
It is a chronology of things
that haven't happened yet,
-
like Robert A. Heinlein's
famous story cycle,
-
which came with a detailed chart
of upcoming events
-
going up into the year 2100,
-
or, for my most recent novel,
-
I came up with a really
complicated timeline
-
that goes all the way to the 33rd century
-
and ends with people
living on another planet.
-
Meanwhile, a second order effect
is basically the kind of thing
-
that happens after the consequences
of a new technology or a huge change.
-
There's a saying often attributed
to writer and editor Frederik Pohl
-
that a good science fiction story
-
should predict not just the invention of
the automobile but also the traffic jam.
-
And speaking of traffic jams,
I spent a lot of time
-
trying to picture the city of the future.
-
What's it like? What's it made of?
-
Who's it for?
-
I try to picture a green city
with vertical farms and structures
-
that are partially grown
rather than built,
-
and walkways instead of streets,
-
because nobody gets around by car anymore,
a city that lives and breathes.
-
And, you know, I kind of start
by daydreaming the wildest stuff
-
that I can possibly come up with,
and then I go back into research mode,
-
and I try to make it as plausible
as I can by looking at a mixture
-
of urban futurism, design porn
and technological speculation,
-
and then I go back and I try to imagine
what it would actually be like
-
to actually be inside that city.
-
So my process kind of begins
and ends with imagination,
-
and it's like my imagination
is two pieces of bread
-
in a research sandwich.
-
So as a storyteller, first and foremost,
-
I try to live in the world
through the eyes of my characters
-
and try to see how they navigate
their own personal challenges
-
in the context of the space
that I've created.
-
What do they smell? What do they touch?
-
What's it like to fall in love
inside a smart city?
-
What do you see when you
look out your window,
-
and does it depend on how
-
the window software
interacts with your mood?
-
And finally, I ask myself
how a future brilliant city
-
would ensure that nobody is homeless
and nobody slips through the cracks.
-
And here's where
future history comes in handy,
-
because cities don't just spring up
overnight like weeds.
-
They arise and transform.
-
They bear the scars and ornaments
of wars, migrations, economic booms,
-
cultural awakenings.
-
A future city should have monuments, yeah,
-
but it should also have layers
of past architecture,
-
repurposed buildings,
-
and all of the signs of how
we got to this place.
-
And then there's second order effects,
like how do things go wrong,
-
or right in a way that nobody
ever anticipated?
-
Like, if the walls of your apartment
are made out of a kind of fungus
-
that can re-grow itself
to repair any damage,
-
what if people start eating the walls?
-
Speaking of eating,
what kind of sewer system
-
does the city of the future have?
-
It's a trick question.
There are no sewers.
-
There's something incredibly bizarre
about the current system we have
-
in the United States,
-
where your waste
gets flushed into a tunnel
-
to be mixed with rainwater
and often dumped into the ocean.
-
Not to mention toilet paper.
-
A bunch of techies, led by Bill Gates,
-
are trying to invent the toilet right now,
-
and it's possible that
the toilet of the future
-
could appear incredibly strange
to someone living today.
-
So how does the history of the future,
all of that trial and error,
-
lead to a better way
to go to the bathroom?
-
There are companies right now
who are experimenting
-
with a kind of cleaning wand
that can substitute for toilet paper
-
using compressed air
or sanitizing sprays to clean you off,
-
but what if those things looked
more like flowers than technology?
-
What if your toilet
could analyze your waste
-
and let you know if your microbiome
might need a little tune-up?
-
What if today's experiments
with turning human waste into fuel
-
leads to a smart battery
that could help power your home?
-
But back to the city of the future.
-
How do people navigate the space?
-
If there's no streets, how do people
even make sense of the geography?
-
I like to think of a place
where there are spaces
-
that are partially only in virtual reality
-
that maybe you need
special hardware to even discover.
-
Like, for one story I came up with a thing
called "the cloudscape interface,"
-
which I described as a chrome spider
that plugs into your head
-
using temporal nodes,
-
and no that's not a picture of it,
but it's a fun picture I took in a bar.
-
And I got really carried away
imagining the bars, restaurants, cafes
-
that you could only find your way inside
if you had the correct
-
augmented reality hardware.
-
But again, second order effects:
-
in a world shaped my augmented reality,
-
what kind of new communities will we have,
-
what kind of new crimes
that we haven't even thought of yet?
-
OK, like, let's say that you and I
are standing next to each other
-
and you think that we're
in a noisy sports bar
-
and I think we're in a highbrow salon
-
with a string quartet
talking about Baudrillard.
-
I can't possibly imagine
what might go wrong in that scenario.
-
I'm sure it'll be fine.
-
And then there's social media.
-
I can imagine some pretty
frickin' dystopian scenarios
-
where things like internet quizzes,
-
dating apps, horoscopes, bots, all combine
-
to drag you down deeper
and deeper rabbit holes
-
into bad relationships and worse politics.
-
But then I think about
the conversations that I've had
-
with people who work on AI,
-
and what I always hear from them
-
is that the smarter AI gets,
-
the better it is at making connections.
-
So maybe the social media
of the future will be better.
-
Maybe it'll help us to form healthier,
less destructive relationships.
-
Maybe we'll have devices that enable
togetherness and serendipity.
-
I really hope so.
-
And, you know, I like to think
that if strong AI ever really exists,
-
they'll probably enjoy
our weird relationship drama
-
the same way that you and I love to obsess
about the Real Housewives of Wherever.
-
And finally there's medicine.
-
I think a lot about how developments
in genetic medicine
-
could improve outcomes for people
with cancer or dementia
-
and maybe one day, your hundredth birthday
-
will be just another milestone
on the way to another two or three decades
-
of healthy, active life.
-
Maybe the toilet of the future
that I mentioned
-
will improve health outcomes
for a lot of people,
-
including people in parts of the world
where they don't have
-
these complicated sewer systems
that I mentioned.
-
But also, as a transgender person,
-
I like to think, what if we make advances
in understanding the endocrine system
-
that improve the options for trans people
-
the same way that hormones and surgeries
-
expanded the options
for the previous generation?
-
So finally, basically I'm here to tell you,
-
people talk about the future
-
as though it's either going to be
a technological wonderland
-
or some kind of apocalyptic poop barbecue.
-
(Laughter)
-
But the truth is, it's not going
to be either of those things.
-
It's going to be in the middle.
It's going to be both.
-
It's going to be everything.
-
The one thing we do know
is that the future is going to be
-
incredibly weird.
-
Just think about how weird
the early 21st century would appear
-
to someone from the early 20th.
-
And, you know, there's a kind
of logical fallacy that we all have
-
where we expect the future
to be an extension of the present.
-
Like, people in the 1980s
-
thought that the Soviet Union
would still be around today.
-
But the future is going to be much weirder
than we could possibly dream of,
-
but we can try.
-
And I know that there are going
to be scary, scary things,
-
but there's also going to be
wonders and saving graces,
-
and the first step
to finding your way forward
-
is to let your imagination run free.
-
Thank you.
-
(Applause)