every science fiction writer has a story
about a time when the future arrived too
soon I have a lot of those stories like
okay 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 gonna 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's 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
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 the
science fiction writer whose stories
often take place years or even centuries
from now I 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 in the way that people have
responded in the past to huge changes
and upheavals and and transformations
and Iker that with an attention to
detail because the details are where we
live we tell the story of our worlds
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 a 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 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 you know
what do they smell where do they touch
what's it like to fall in love inside a
smart city what do you see when you look
at your window and does it depend on you
know how the windows software interacts
with your mood and I finally I asked
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 apartments are made out of
a kind of fungus that can regrow 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 rain water 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 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 by augmented reality what kind of
new communities will we have what kind
of new crimes that we haven't even
thought of yet okay 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
in that scenario like it's just it I'm
sure I'll be fine
and then there's social media
I can imagine some pretty freaking
dystopian scenarios where things like
internet quizzes dating apps horoscopes
BOTS all combined 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 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
mean I think a lot about like 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 but the truth
is it's not going to be either of those
things it's gonna be in the middle it's
gonna 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 presence like people in
the 1980s thought that the Soviet Union
would still be around today but the
future is gonna be watch 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]