The future isn't what it used to be

How did the artists and writers of the past imagine the 21st Century?

And how does it compare to our own vision of the future?

We have always been fascinated by what the future holds, and science fiction in particular has been the canvas on which we have speculated about the shape of things to come. But how accurate have we been so far?

Futuristic artists in the Fifties and Sixties envisioned flying cars and colonies on other planets, shiny metallic worlds where human beings floated around in silver spacesuits and goldfish bowl helmets. It’s safe to say, we’re not quite there yet. However, some depictions of the future came close; in 1957, illustrator Frank Tinsley imagined mail being delivered by rockets; now we have same-day shipping via flying drone. Classic sci-fi embraced the trope of entire meals being served in the form of a pill; nowadays the nutritionally complete powder Huel, short for “human fuel,” is being touted as the food of the future. (Although personally, it doesn’t look half as good on Instagram as a stack of pancakes.)

In fact, a number of “what if?” scenarios from the 20th Century are eerily relevant to the present day. Driverless cars are on their way to becoming a norm, just as Total Recall promised. We converse via video-chat and make delicious hot coffee with the push of a button, just like The Jetsons. Smartphones, tablets, virtual reality, and even seemingly pedestrian sliding doors were all first presented to us as wondrous inventions in the utopian future of Star Trek. And then, of course, there is Philip K. Dick. His novels predicted all kinds of technological developments, from the authorities tracking criminals via satellite surveillance, to weapons being operated by remote control. And a quote often attributed to him in the Seventies sums up current fears about data snooping: “There will come a time when it isn’t ‘they’re spying on me through my phone’ anymore. Eventually, it will be ‘my phone is spying on me’.”

He wasn’t even wrong about the then-bonkers notion of cloning pets, as evidenced by this year’s Variety story in which Barbra Streisand admitted to paying a small fortune for genetic duplicates of her beloved dog Samantha. Perhaps what made Dick’s work so prescient was his understanding of the time he was living in and the people around him. After all, science fiction takes us to the future to talk about the now, to explore and better understand contemporary concerns.

The 1951 classic black and white film The Day The Earth Stood Still is a Cold War allegory in which the giant robot named Gort is something of an enforcer, entrusted by Earth’s alien neighbours with all responsibilities of keeping the peace. The slightest hint of violence from us mere mortals, and he unleashes hell. “In matters of aggression, we have given them absolute power over us,” explains Klaatu, the film’s extra-terrestrial visitor. “Your choice is simple,” he

Clockwise from left: Frank Tinsley’s 1957 interpretation of mail by rocket.

Google’s driverless car, food of the future - Huel, and Amazon’s new Prime Air drone which can deliver items in less than 30 minutes from ordering.

There will come a time when it isn’t ‘they’re spying on me’ through my phone’ anymore. Eventually, it will be ‘my phone is spying on me.”

Driverless cars are on their way to becoming a norm... Clockwise from left the Mercedes F 015 and the Tesla Roadster both with self-driving techonology.

Don’t worry, that’s not to say your virtual assistant is planning to kill you.

continues. “Join us and live in peace, or pursue your present course and face obliteration.” The all-powerful robot in this story is a stand-in for weapons of mass destruction, and the entire film is steeped in the fear and paranoia of the Atomic Age.

The artificially intelligent (AI) being which holds power over life and death is a commonly occurring trope, and one that strikes a nerve in 2018, with AIs becoming an increasingly ubiquitous part of daily life. In 2001: A Space Odyssey, the sentient computer HAL 9000z describes himself as “fool-proof and incapable of making an error,” and insists that any incidents which occur on the mission are a result of human error. His refusal to acknowledge any fallibility on his part leads him to make a series of increasingly extreme unilateral decisions, disabling the spaceship’s life support systems and ultimately murdering the crew he is designed to serve.

But don’t worry, that’s not to say your virtual assistant is planning to kill you. A much more recent, relevant and romantic depiction of AI is Spike Jonze’s Her, set in a near-future in which we don’t stare at screens or type out commands; everything we do is via voice. This was first hinted at in Star Trek with the computer system voiced by Majel Barrett, but Her showed us a less overtly futuristic, more accessible vision. It’s easier to imagine ourselves living in that world, because we practically do already; Scarlett Johansson’s Samantha could easily be a distant cousin of the voice-controlled Siri and Alexa.

And it is this future we are more likely heading towards, not some Terminator hell-scape. We are inviting AI into our lives because it makes things easier and more convenient; our homes are becoming increasingly “smart” and technology-driven and Jetsons-esque. But concerns around AI persist, especially pertaining to the very real possibility that advances in automation, robotics and machine learning will lead to a loss of jobs for human beings — not just in areas like driving, where autonomous vehicles are ostensibly safer and less prone to errors, but fields such as medicine, where AIs are quicker and more meticulous in analysing symptoms and diagnosing illness. Fear of the Singularity, the point at which the intellect of machines surpasses our own, is another common trope in media, which is viscerally examined in the 2014 film Ex Machina and HBO drama series Westworld, both of which see androids turn on their creators.

The ethics of developing artificial intelligence in the real world are themselves informed and influenced by the science fiction author Isaac Asimov, whose book I, Robot outlined three laws by which all robots must operate, the first of which is that a robot must never cause harm to a human being, or let harm come to them through inaction. But we have to add new rules to the list, to ensure that machine thinking fits into human living. Computers can analyse and process data at a rate far superior to the human brain, but as the last century of asking “what if?” proves, it’s human creativity and imagination that will really drive society forward.

Clockwise from top: Ava the robot from Ex Machina, Isaac Asimov’s classic novel I, Robot and Jonathan Nolan’s award winning television series Westworld all explored the future through humanoid’s.