Go ahead, dream about the future

"You don't predict the future -- you imagine the future," says sci-fi writer Charlie Jane Anders. In a talk that's part dream, part research-based extrapolation, she takes us on a wild, speculative tour of the delights and challenges the future may hold -- and shows how dreaming up weird, futuristic possibilities empowers us to construct a better tomorrow.

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,

everybody 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 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 time line

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 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's
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 regrow itself
to repair any damage,

what if people start eating the walls?

(Laughter)

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 reinvent
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.

No, that's not a picture of it,
but it's a fun picture I took in a bar.

(Laughter)

And I got really carried away
imagining the bars, restaurants, cafés

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 by 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.

Like, it's just -- 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)