When SciFi Movies Become Reality
Movies show us a world that is possible so that we can decide whether or not to go down that path. It is said that there are only three types of stories: man versus man, man versus machine, and man versus nature and everything is just a variation on one of those themes. In science fiction we are just as much battling technology as we are human nature when things go wrong, and when things go right human nature and technology are equally factors. It’s the same thing when science fiction becomes reality; sometimes things have the best of intentions and go well, and other times the best of intentions may not be present and things go poorly. Either way, it’s never the technology’s fault alone, but rather it is largely the fault of human nature.
As Jeff Goldblum said in Jurassic Park, they were so obsessed with whether they could they didn’t stop to ask whether they should. This is the direction we are seeing facial recognition take as blunder after deadly blunder take place. In Person of Interest, artificial intelligence monitors surveillance cameras to determine who might commit a crime, and today there is artificial intelligence being used by police forces around the world for the same purpose. Unfortunately this technology has been shown to have racial bias and other issues, which has prompted many municipalities to ban the technology in policing and other forms of government outright.
But artificial intelligence tech is not always a bad thing, and it can even lead to a more open society. In Star Trek the Universal Translator figured heavily into the plotline, and the Babel Fish of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy worked in much the same way, allowing alien species to interact with each other effortlessly. Here on Earth, we now have Google Assistant’s Interpreter Mode, which can translate 27 different languages. It’s not a perfect solution, but it certainly helps people to travel more and interact with people who don’t speak the same language they do.
Artificial intelligence in science fiction isn’t always a bad thing, and it’s up to us to determine what we want to do with this technology as a species. Learn more about when artificial intelligence in science fiction becomes a reality below!
