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“Don’t panic.” — The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Chapter 14 of Films from the Future: The Technology and Morality of Sci-Fi movies, read by author Andrew Maynard
If there’s one chapter of the book Films from the Future that I would hope people read and listen to, it’s this one. It’s short — this is the wrap-up chapter for the book. But it does capture the essence of why I believe thinking about how we develop transformative technologies in responsible ways is important, and how science fiction movies are an important part of informing our thinking and ideas here.
It’s also a chapter that gave me the opportunity to bring in Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy!
I hope you enjoy it and are inspired by it — recording this was bittersweet as it marks the end of a quite incredible journey for me as I explored emerging technologies and responsible innovation through science fiction movies. But it also reminded me of the incredible power of creativity in helping us seeing beyond the present and imagine what the future could be.
About Films from the Future: I started writing Films from the Future in 2017. The intent was to explore the deeply complex landscape around emerging technologies, the future, and socially responsible innovation, in a way that would be accessible to most readers, and at the same time provide nuanced and important insights that weren’t available anywhere else.
One of the challenges with most books about tech and the future is that they take a polarized stance — we’re either all going to die unless we do something different, or technology is going to save the world. These sell — people love reading about extremes. But they’re not that helpful when it comes to navigating a deeply complex tech innovation landscape where there few right and wrong answers, where it’s important to weave together insights from many different areas of expertise — including the arts and humanities, and where dialogue and discussion are far more important than preaching.
And so I set out to write about emerging and converging technologies in as inclusive and accessible a way as I knew how, with the aim of taking readers on a compelling journey into the future where their thoughts and ideas were just as important as mine.
The result was a book that uses movies as a way to open up conversations about what responsible innovation means in a world that’s changing faster than ever before, and where new technologies are transforming how we think about the future and what it holds.
Of course some of the technologies it covers have moved on since I started writing the book. But at the end of the day this is not a book about science fiction movies, or about specific technologies, but about how all of us can think differently about our roles in ensuring the future we’re building is better than the past we leave behind.
I hope you enjoy these recordings of me narrating it — this is a book that reflects my voice quite deeply in the writing, and so it only made sense for me to one day actually read it aloud!
For more information on the book, visit https://andrewmaynard.net/films-from-the-future/
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit futureofbeinghuman.com -
“...okay to go...” ―Ellie Arroway
Chapter 13 of Films from the Future: The Technology and Morality of Sci-Fi movies, read by author Andrew Maynard
In this episode: ContactAn Awful Waste of Space | More than Science Alone | Occam’s Razor | What If We’re Not Alone
This chapter in the book Films from the Future almost didn’t make it. Of all the chapters, this is the one my editors couldn’t see the point of — the movie Contact was just too fantastical they thought for a book that was grounded in cutting edge but very real technological innovation.
I’m glad I dug my heels in, as I have a deep soft spot for this film. As a scientist, it’s frustrating when people erroneously boil science down to a method and a process, and to cold calculated facts — whereas the reality is a world of curiosity and creativity, of awe and wonder, and of the sheer majesty of the universe we live in.
To be a scientist is to be caught up in the incredible amazingness of not only experiencing the reality we live in, but being able to understand it and, in doing so, see even further and be even more awed.
Carl Sagan got this — and this heart of what it means to be immersed in science is captured beautifully in his movie Contact.
It is, very much, a love letter to science. And it’s one that is both humble and generous as it explores the interconnections between belief and science, all the while keeping a firm footing in critical enquiry.
I hope you enjoy the episode — and do yourself a favor and break out the movie afterward.
About Films from the Future: I started writing Films from the Future in 2017. The intent was to explore the deeply complex landscape around emerging technologies, the future, and socially responsible innovation, in a way that would be accessible to most readers, and at the same time provide nuanced and important insights that weren’t available anywhere else.
One of the challenges with most books about tech and the future is that they take a polarized stance — we’re either all going to die unless we do something different, or technology is going to save the world. These sell — people love reading about extremes. But they’re not that helpful when it comes to navigating a deeply complex tech innovation landscape where there few right and wrong answers, where it’s important to weave together insights from many different areas of expertise — including the arts and humanities, and where dialogue and discussion are far more important than preaching.
And so I set out to write about emerging and converging technologies in as inclusive and accessible a way as I knew how, with the aim of taking readers on a compelling journey into the future where their thoughts and ideas were just as important as mine.
The result was a book that uses movies as a way to open up conversations about what responsible innovation means in a world that’s changing faster than ever before, and where new technologies are transforming how we think about the future and what it holds.
Of course some of the technologies it covers have moved on since I started writing the book. But at the end of the day this is not a book about science fiction movies, or about specific technologies, but about how all of us can think differently about our roles in ensuring the future we’re building is better than the past we leave behind.
I hope you enjoy these recordings of me narrating it — this is a book that reflects my voice quite deeply in the writing, and so it only made sense for me to one day actually read it aloud!
For more information on the book, visit https://andrewmaynard.net/films-from-the-future/
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit futureofbeinghuman.com -
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“We were wrong.”—Vice President Becker
Chapter 12 of Films from the Future: The Technology and Morality of Sci-Fi movies, read by author Andrew Maynard
In this episode: The Day After TomorrowOur Changing Climate | Fragile States | A Planetary “Microbiome” | The Rise of the Anthropocene | Building Resiliency | Geoengineering the Future
The 2004 movie The Day After Tomorrow isn’t perhaps the ideal film to explore the topic of climate change through. But then there aren’t a whole lot of climate-related movies that are much better. And so, when looking for a climate-forward film to include in the book Films from the Future, I ended up going for one that’s at least entertaining to watch.
That said, for all it’s confusing storylines and implausible scenarios, The Day After Tomorrow does open up an opportunity to move beyond conventional narratives around climate change — not because there’s anything wrong with these, but because sometimes it’s good to think a little differently.
This is exactly what I was looking for when writing Films from the Future. I felt that I couldn’t complete a book on technology and responsible innovation without addressing human action-driven climate change in some way. At the same time, it seemed pointless repeating material that has been well covered elsewhere. And The Day After Tomorrow allowed me to do that.
The result is a chapter (and now this podcast episode) that explores topics ranging from environmental dynamism and human fragility to complex and integrated planetary systems, resiliency, and the Anthropocene. I also managed to squeeze in geoengineering, although this was a bit of a cheeky move as The Day After Tomorrow doesn’t really have much to say about this!
The end result is a chapter/episode that I’m quite pleased with, and one that compliments and even extends broader discussions around the state of the Planet and it’s future.
About Films from the Future: I started writing Films from the Future in 2017. The intent was to explore the deeply complex landscape around emerging technologies, the future, and socially responsible innovation, in a way that would be accessible to most readers, and at the same time provide nuanced and important insights that weren’t available anywhere else.
One of the challenges with most books about tech and the future is that they take a polarized stance — we’re either all going to die unless we do something different, or technology is going to save the world. These sell — people love reading about extremes. But they’re not that helpful when it comes to navigating a deeply complex tech innovation landscape where there few right and wrong answers, where it’s important to weave together insights from many different areas of expertise — including the arts and humanities, and where dialogue and discussion are far more important than preaching.
And so I set out to write about emerging and converging technologies in as inclusive and accessible a way as I knew how, with the aim of taking readers on a compelling journey into the future where their thoughts and ideas were just as important as mine.
The result was a book that uses movies as a way to open up conversations about what responsible innovation means in a world that’s changing faster than ever before, and where new technologies are transforming how we think about the future and what it holds.
Of course some of the technologies it covers have moved on since I started writing the book. But at the end of the day this is not a book about science fiction movies, or about specific technologies, but about how all of us can think differently about our roles in ensuring the future we’re building is better than the past we leave behind.
I hope you enjoy these recordings of me narrating it — this is a book that reflects my voice quite deeply in the writing, and so it only made sense for me to one day actually read it aloud!
For more information on the book, visit https://andrewmaynard.net/films-from-the-future/
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit futureofbeinghuman.com -
“If a plague exists, do you know how many governments would want it and what they’d do to get it?” —Sienna Brooks
Chapter 11 of Films from the Future: The Technology and Morality of Sci-Fi movies, read by author Andrew Maynard
In this episode: InfernoDecoding Make-Believe | Weaponizing the Genome | Immoral Logic? | The Honest Broker | Dictating the Future
I wrote chapter 11 of Films from the Future in 2018, two years before COVID was to sweep around the world. Yet looking back, the narrative around bioengineered viruses and global pandemics that was inspired by Dan Brown’s Inferno was eerily prescient.
From today’s perspective, it’s quite sobering how close to the start of the COVID pandemic we were when I wrote this:
The outbreak of Spanish flu in the early 1900s is estimated to have killed around fifty million people, or around 3 percent of the world’s population at the time. If an equally virulent infectious disease were unleashed on the world today, this would be equivalent to over 200 million deaths, a mind-numbing number of people. However, the relative death toll would likely be far higher today, as modern global transport systems and the high numbers of people living close to each other in urban areas would likely substantially increase infection rates.
It’s this sort of scenario that keeps virologists and infectious-disease epidemiologists awake at night, and for good reason. It’s highly likely that, one day, we’ll be facing a pandemic of this magnitude. Viruses mutate and adapt, and the ones that thrive are often those that can multiply and spread fast. Here, we know that there are combinations of properties that make viruses especially deadly, including human pathogenicity, lack of natural resistance in people, and airborne transmission. There are plenty of viruses that have one, or possibly two, of these features, yet there are relatively few that combine all three. But because of the way that evolution and biology work, it’s only a matter of time before some lucky virus hits the jackpot, much as we saw back in 1918.
Because of this, it makes sense to do everything we can to be prepared for the inevitable, including working out which viruses are likely to mutate into deadly threats (and how) so we can get our defenses in order before this happens.
Sadly, we weren’t prepared, and we suffered global (and continuing) consequences as result.
What is even more eerie is that one of the chapter’s primary foci was “gain of function” research, and specifically research into making viruses more virulent.
At the time, this was cutting edge research that few people were paying close attention to outside specialized circles. And yet now, because of concerns that COVID may have had its origins in such research, the concept of gain of function research — and its potential dangers — is now a familiar one.
I must confess that, on one level, this makes the chapter feel a little dated — we’ve literally lived the future it warns against. And yet beyond the specifics, the chapter also grapples with challenges that are still very real — including how scientists struggle to navigate the fine line between research, social responsibility, and activism.
Here, the chapter (and the podcast) explores the idea of the “honest broker” — a concept that was developed and popularized by Roger Pielke Jr.
If you’re at all interested in the complex dynamic between ideology-driven actions and the tension between science and activism, I’d strongly recommend checking out Roger’s work, including his Substack which, appropriately, is called The Honest Broker.
And of course, do listen to the podcast as well!
About Films from the Future: I started writing Films from the Future in 2017. The intent was to explore the deeply complex landscape around emerging technologies, the future, and socially responsible innovation, in a way that would be accessible to most readers, and at the same time provide nuanced and important insights that weren’t available anywhere else.
One of the challenges with most books about tech and the future is that they take a polarized stance — we’re either all going to die unless we do something different, or technology is going to save the world. These sell — people love reading about extremes. But they’re not that helpful when it comes to navigating a deeply complex tech innovation landscape where there few right and wrong answers, where it’s important to weave together insights from many different areas of expertise — including the arts and humanities, and where dialogue and discussion are far more important than preaching.
And so I set out to write about emerging and converging technologies in as inclusive and accessible a way as I knew how, with the aim of taking readers on a compelling journey into the future where their thoughts and ideas were just as important as mine.
The result was a book that uses movies as a way to open up conversations about what responsible innovation means in a world that’s changing faster than ever before, and where new technologies are transforming how we think about the future and what it holds.
Of course some of the technologies it covers have moved on since I started writing the book. But at the end of the day this is not a book about science fiction movies, or about specific technologies, but about how all of us can think differently about our roles in ensuring the future we’re building is better than the past we leave behind.
I hope you enjoy these recordings of me narrating it — this is a book that reflects my voice quite deeply in the writing, and so it only made sense for me to one day actually read it aloud!
For more information on the book, visit https://andrewmaynard.net/films-from-the-future/
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit futureofbeinghuman.com -
“Why can’t you scientists leave things alone? What about my bit of washing, when there’s no washing to do?”—Mrs. Watson
Chapter 10 of Films from the Future: The Technology and Morality of Sci-Fi movies, read by author Andrew Maynard
In this episode: The Man in the White SuitThere’s Plenty of Room At The Bottom | Mastering the Material World | Myopically Benevolent Science | never Underestimate the Status Quo | It’s Good to Talk
Each year, I teach a class on responsible innovation based on the 1951 film The Man in the White Suit. And each time I teach it, I brace myself for a barrage of negative student reactions at having to watch something so old. Yet time after time I’m blown away by how much my students enjoy it!
This, of course, is a testament to how good story telling transcends time and technologies. But it’s also a reflection of just how relevant to today the story that The Man in the White Suit spins is.
As I mentioned in my previous post, The Man in the White Suit is, at heart, a tale of a well meaning but desperately naive and myopic scientist (played by Alec Guinness) who firmly believes that his vision of the future is one that everyone else shares. Unfortunately, this is a vision where having to own more than one set of clothes is a burden that he feels everyone should be liberated from.
As you can imagine, this isn’t a vision of utopia that’s widely shared, and despite Guinness’ character’s genuine desire to do good, things don’t pan out as he expects — in large part because he didn’t think to engage with the people his work impacted, and instead chose to assume he knew what their needs, wants, and values were without bothering to ask them.
Watched with an appropriate guide (and here I would quite shamelessly say that this podcast is such a guide), The Man in the White Suit provides quite compelling insights into the importance and benefits of public engagement when it comes to emerging technologies. I’d go so far as to suggest that anyone who’s serious about being in the business of developing new technologies should watch it and learn from it (and just to make this easier, Apple, Amazon, YouTube and Google all stream it).
Alternatively, you can listen to this episode of The Moviegoer’s Guide to the Future podcast — or read the transcript!
Before you do though, it’s worth noting that this episode also takes a deep dive into nanotechnology. This may seem like a bit of a diversion from the theme of public engagement and tech innovation — as well as being a rather more contemporary technology than the polymer science that’s depicted in the movie. And yet, as the episode elaborates, there are deep parallels between the story in the film and modern day nanoscale science and engineering — including the role of public engagement in ensuring the emergence of safe and beneficial technologies.
Plus, who doesn’t enjoy a bit of nanotech insider baseball?
About Films from the Future: I started writing Films from the Future in 2017. The intent was to explore the deeply complex landscape around emerging technologies, the future, and socially responsible innovation, in a way that would be accessible to most readers, and at the same time provide nuanced and important insights that weren’t available anywhere else.
One of the challenges with most books about tech and the future is that they take a polarized stance — we’re either all going to die unless we do something different, or technology is going to save the world. These sell — people love reading about extremes. But they’re not that helpful when it comes to navigating a deeply complex tech innovation landscape where there few right and wrong answers, where it’s important to weave together insights from many different areas of expertise — including the arts and humanities, and where dialogue and discussion are far more important than preaching.
And so I set out to write about emerging and converging technologies in as inclusive and accessible a way as I knew how, with the aim of taking readers on a compelling journey into the future where their thoughts and ideas were just as important as mine.
The result was a book that uses movies as a way to open up conversations about what responsible innovation means in a world that’s changing faster than ever before, and where new technologies are transforming how we think about the future and what it holds.
Of course some of the technologies it covers have moved on since I started writing the book. But at the end of the day this is not a book about science fiction movies, or about specific technologies, but about how all of us can think differently about our roles in ensuring the future we’re building is better than the past we leave behind.
I hope you enjoy these recordings of me narrating it — this is a book that reflects my voice quite deeply in the writing, and so it only made sense for me to one day actually read it aloud!
For more information on the book, visit https://andrewmaynard.net/films-from-the-future/
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit futureofbeinghuman.com -
Chapter 9 of Films from the Future: The Technology and Morality of Sci-Fi movies, read by author Andrew Maynard
In this episode: TranscendenceVisions of the Future | Technological Convergence | Enter the Neo-Luddites | Techno-Terrorism | Exponential Extrapolation | Make-believe in the Age of the Singularity
Transcendence is neither the greatest science fiction movie ever made, nor Jonny Depp’s finest hour as an actor. And yet I have a soft spot for the film.
It’s partly because I’ve watched the film more times than I can remember as I teach from it in class — a type of movie Stockholm Syndrome I suspect. But for all it’s labored story telling and fantasyland technology, I rather like the way the movie creates an effective starting point for exploring the idea of a technological singularity, along with sometimes violent reactions against innovations that transform the world faster than we are comfortable with.
The portrayal of advanced technologies in Transcendence is most definitely more fantasy than reality. No future exists within this universe where nanotechnology, for instance, enables “nanobots” to recreate everything from solar cells to human flesh and blood in the blink of an eye. And yet beyond the fantasy, the idea of out of control tech innovation challenging the very essence of what it is to be human resonates deeply in today’s society.
This is a tension that’s developed well in Transcendence. And it comes with a couple of twists — which I won’t give away here, but which are captured in the podcast.
At the end of the day, the movie reminds us that the more powerful our technologies are, the more important it is for us to collectively take their potential impacts on society seriously, and work together to find positive ways forward.
It also reminds us that things are rarely simple when it comes to tech and the future, and that what we often think the the consequences of powerful technologies migh be, rarely are.
About Films from the Future: I started writing Films from the Future in 2017. The intent was to explore the deeply complex landscape around emerging technologies, the future, and socially responsible innovation, in a way that would be accessible to most readers, and at the same time provide nuanced and important insights that weren’t available anywhere else.
One of the challenges with most books about tech and the future is that they take a polarized stance — we’re either all going to die unless we do something different, or technology is going to save the world. These sell — people love reading about extremes. But they’re not that helpful when it comes to navigating a deeply complex tech innovation landscape where there few right and wrong answers, where it’s important to weave together insights from many different areas of expertise — including the arts and humanities, and where dialogue and discussion are far more important than preaching.
And so I set out to write about emerging and converging technologies in as inclusive and accessible a way as I knew how, with the aim of taking readers on a compelling journey into the future where their thoughts and ideas were just as important as mine.
The result was a book that uses movies as a way to open up conversations about what responsible innovation means in a world that’s changing faster than ever before, and where new technologies are transforming how we think about the future and what it holds.
Of course some of the technologies it covers have moved on since I started writing the book. But at the end of the day this is not a book about science fiction movies, or about specific technologies, but about how all of us can think differently about our roles in ensuring the future we’re building is better than the past we leave behind.
I hope you enjoy these recordings of me narrating it — this is a book that reflects my voice quite deeply in the writing, and so it only made sense for me to one day actually read it aloud!
For more information on the book, visit https://andrewmaynard.net/films-from-the-future/
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit futureofbeinghuman.com -
“One day the AIs are going to look back on us the same way we look at fossil skeletons on the plains of Africa. An upright ape living in dust with crude language and tools, all set for extinction.” —Nathan Bateman
Chapter 8 of Films from the Future: The Technology and Morality of Sci-Fi movies, read by author Andrew Maynard
In this episode: Ex MachinaPlato’s Cave | The Lure of Permissionless Innovation | Technologies of Hubris | Superintelligence | Defining Artificial Intelligence | Artificial Manipulation
In some ways everything about artificial intelligence has changed over the past 12 months. In others, little has changed.
The chapter behind this week’s episode of The Moviegoer’s Guide was written over five years ago, and so you might expect it to feel a little outdated. And in some respects it is, haven been created before large language models and generative AI was such a big thing.
And yet the underlying ideas remain profoundly important — probably more so now than when I was writing it.
Looking back, I’m still impressed by how prescient the movie Ex Machina was when it comes to overarching questions such as the right to experiment and develop AI without permission, the nature of intelligence, and the risks of us being manipulated by the machines we create.
Threading through the chapter is Plato’s allegory of the cave. It’s an allegory that Ex Machina plays with to good effect — something that we tease out in class when I teach from the movie. It’s also an allegory that still has the power to offer up new insights as we get ever-closer to developing machines that have awareness and agency, and that are not bound by our biologically grounded and very human ideas of right and wrong — and that become the “enlightened” that have the choice of bringing humans out of the cave of our limited understanding … or leave us there, to be manipulated, used, and enslaved.
Of course, one of the challenges of burying the ideas explored here in a book that most dismiss as simply being about movies is that they struggle to see the light of day — buried in their own metaphorical cave. Hopefully this podcast will help them find their way to the light.
About Films from the Future: I started writing Films from the Future in 2017. The intent was to explore the deeply complex landscape around emerging technologies, the future, and socially responsible innovation, in a way that would be accessible to most readers, and at the same time provide nuanced and important insights that weren’t available anywhere else.
One of the challenges with most books about tech and the future is that they take a polarized stance — we’re either all going to die unless we do something different, or technology is going to save the world. These sell — people love reading about extremes. But they’re not that helpful when it comes to navigating a deeply complex tech innovation landscape where there few right and wrong answers, where it’s important to weave together insights from many different areas of expertise — including the arts and humanities, and where dialogue and discussion are far more important than preaching.
And so I set out to write about emerging and converging technologies in as inclusive and accessible a way as I knew how, with the aim of taking readers on a compelling journey into the future where their thoughts and ideas were just as important as mine.
The result was a book that uses movies as a way to open up conversations about what responsible innovation means in a world that’s changing faster than ever before, and where new technologies are transforming how we think about the future and what it holds.
Of course some of the technologies it covers have moved on since I started writing the book. But at the end of the day this is not a book about science fiction movies, or about specific technologies, but about how all of us can think differently about our roles in ensuring the future we’re building is better than the past we leave behind.
I hope you enjoy these recordings of me narrating it — this is a book that reflects my voice quite deeply in the writing, and so it only made sense for me to one day actually read it aloud!
For more information on the book, visit https://andrewmaynard.net/films-from-the-future/
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit futureofbeinghuman.com -
Chapter 7 of Films from the Future: The Technology and Morality of Sci-Fi movies, read by author Andrew Maynard
In this episode: Ghost in the ShellThrough a Glass Darkly | Body Hacking | More that “Human”? | Plugged In, Hacked Out | Your Corporate Body
Ghost in the Shell is quite a complex movie, and when I was writing Films from the Future I must confess that I struggled with it. But it provides such a good jumping off point for exploring the world of using technology to augment the human body that I persevered — and I’m glad I did.
I now have a deep respect for Ghost in the Shell — aided I’m sure by watching it in class at least once a year with my students! It’s a beautiful, complex, and surprising philosophical film, that wraps deep reflections of the meaning of personhood in a Japanese Anime action movie.
What stood out to to me more than anything though when I was writing this chapter of Films from the Future was the insights that it provides into what it means to be human in a technologically complex world.
I wrote the chapter in late 2017/early 2018 — four years before I would launch the Arizona State University Future of Being Human initiative. Revisiting the chapter for this recording, I can see very clearly the seeds of how my own thinking had developed around personhood and the nature of being human when technology is increasingly a part of who we are.
What I wasn’t expecting as I pulled this episode together is how relevant the chapter still is to discussions around AI and AGI. While we’re still a long way from machines that have consciousness and self-awareness, I would argue strongly that we need to start thinking deeply about how they might be treated, and how this in turn reflects and defines our own humanity — and especially, how we avoid dehumanizing them by claiming that they are not and never will be “human” to justify how we control and use them.
This is where Ghost in the Shell provides a powerful backdrop for moving from very conventional ideas of humanity to more sophisticated concepts of personhood.
Note: On a re-listen I realize that I verbally slipped and stated Neuralink was launched in 2007 — of course the public launch was in 2017, not ten years earlier!
About Films from the Future: I started writing Films from the Future in 2017. The intent was to explore the deeply complex landscape around emerging technologies, the future, and socially responsible innovation, in a way that would be accessible to most readers, and at the same time provide nuanced and important insights that weren’t available anywhere else.
One of the challenges with most books about tech and the future is that they take a polarized stance — we’re either all going to die unless we do something different, or technology is going to save the world. These sell — people love reading about extremes. But they’re not that helpful when it comes to navigating a deeply complex tech innovation landscape where there few right and wrong answers, where it’s important to weave together insights from many different areas of expertise — including the arts and humanities, and where dialogue and discussion are far more important than preaching.
And so I set out to write about emerging and converging technologies in as inclusive and accessible a way as I knew how, with the aim of taking readers on a compelling journey into the future where their thoughts and ideas were just as important as mine.
The result was a book that uses movies as a way to open up conversations about what responsible innovation means in a world that’s changing faster than ever before, and where new technologies are transforming how we think about the future and what it holds.
Of course some of the technologies it covers have moved on since I started writing the book. But at the end of the day this is not a book about science fiction movies, or about specific technologies, but about how all of us can think differently about our roles in ensuring the future we’re building is better than the past we leave behind.
I hope you enjoy these recordings of me narrating it — this is a book that reflects my voice quite deeply in the writing, and so it only made sense for me to one day actually read it aloud!
For more information on the book, visit https://andrewmaynard.net/films-from-the-future/
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit futureofbeinghuman.com -
Chapter 6 of Films from the Future: The Technology and Morality of Sci-Fi movies, read by author Andrew Maynard
In this episode: ElysiumThe Poor Shall Inherit The Earth | Bioprinting Our Future Bodies | The Disposable Workforce | Living in an Automated Future
Elysium is a very earnest movie. Made at a time when there was a visceral global pushback against wealth inequity, it captures the frustration and anger of massive disparities between the uber-wealthy and everyone else — and the ways in which technology can exacerbate this if we’re not careful.
This divide is reflected in the chapter in Films from the Future that was inspired by the movie. It actually ended up being one of the more personal chapters in the book. In the original draft I even had a long and angry section on healthcare and health insurance in the US, and the sheer immorality around how we’ve monetized health and wellbeing.
That narrative didn’t make the final cut. But what did — and this surprised me at the time, but makes sense with hindsight — is a narrative around workplace safety and technology innovation. This is a theme that the movie touches on with quite some force— again, it’s part of the social inequity narrative. It’s also one that I’m deeply familiar with, having worked in occupational health for over a decade in my early career.
The episode also looks at the emerging technology of “bioprinting” human organs — which may feel like a bit of a non sequitur from the social inequity theme, but I did want to get some tech in there. And of course, the alignment is actually there as, if we could print replacement organs on demand, there are very significant questions around who gets access to them, and who does not.
And finally a bit of trivia about this episode: Jodi Foster and William Fichtner are the only two actors to appear together in two of the movies in the series — with the second one being Contact. But that’s yet to come …
Hope you enjoy the episode, and please do spread the word if you do!
Andrew
About Films from the Future: I started writing Films from the Future in 2017. The intent was to explore the deeply complex landscape around emerging technologies, the future, and socially responsible innovation, in a way that would be accessible to most readers, and at the same time provide nuanced and important insights that weren’t available anywhere else.
One of the challenges with most books about tech and the future is that they take a polarized stance — we’re either all going to die unless we do something different, or technology is going to save the world. These sell — people love reading about extremes. But they’re not that helpful when it comes to navigating a deeply complex tech innovation landscape where there few right and wrong answers, where it’s important to weave together insights from many different areas of expertise — including the arts and humanities, and where dialogue and discussion are far more important than preaching.
And so I set out to write about emerging and converging technologies in as inclusive and accessible a way as I knew how, with the aim of taking readers on a compelling journey into the future where their thoughts and ideas were just as important as mine.
The result was a book that uses movies as a way to open up conversations about what responsible innovation means in a world that’s changing faster than ever before, and where new technologies are transforming how we think about the future and what it holds.
Of course some of the technologies it covers have moved on since I started writing the book. But at the end of the day this is not a book about science fiction movies, or about specific technologies, but about how all of us can think differently about our roles in ensuring the future we’re building is better than the past we leave behind.
I hope you enjoy these recordings of me narrating it — this is a book that reflects my voice quite deeply in the writing, and so it only made sense for me to one day actually read it aloud!
For more information on the book, visit https://andrewmaynard.net/films-from-the-future/
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit futureofbeinghuman.com -
Chapter 5 of Films from the Future: The Technology and Morality of Sci-Fi movies, read by author Andrew Maynard
In this episode: The movie LimitlessA Pill for Everything | The Seduction of Self Enhancement | Nootropics | If You Could, Would You? | Our Obsession With Intelligence
It’s funny looking back and remembering that this was one of the toughest chapters to write when I was working on Films from the Future. It wasn’t so much the topic as it was me struggling with colds and brain-fog — to the extent that my inability to think in a straight line actually found its way into the narrative!
As it turned out, it ended up being one of the chapters I’m most pleased with. Strange how seeming adversity can sometimes sharpen your writing skills — even in the absence of mind-altering pharmaceuticals.
The idea of being able to selectively enhance cognitive function through chemical means — the theme at the core of Limitless — still intrigues me; not because I’m enthusiastic about using such a technology myself, but because the social norms and expectations around chemicals-based augmentation seem so different to physical augmentation (a topic that we’ll revisit in later episodes).
What intrigues me even more though is how an obsession with improving “intelligence” often reflects our biases and preconceptions around what intelligence actually is.
This is important as we explore augmenting human intelligence, whether this is using pharmaceuticals, prosthetics, implants, or other means. But it’s just as important when it comes to artificial intelligence — a topic touched on toward the end of the podcast.
It still feels slightly weird to me recording these chapters and listening to myself. I’m constantly reminded that the voice in my head is infinitely more professional and polished than the one that ends up hitting the microphone. However, I live in hope that there are a few listeners that find this useful, regardless!
About Films from the Future: I started writing Films from the Future in 2017. The intent was to explore the deeply complex landscape around emerging technologies, the future, and socially responsible innovation, in a way that would be accessible to most readers, and at the same time provide nuanced and important insights that weren’t available anywhere else.
One of the challenges with most books about tech and the future is that they take a polarized stance — we’re either all going to die unless we do something different, or technology is going to save the world. These sell — people love reading about extremes. But they’re not that helpful when it comes to navigating a deeply complex tech innovation landscape where there few right and wrong answers, where it’s important to weave together insights from many different areas of expertise — including the arts and humanities, and where dialogue and discussion are far more important than preaching.
And so I set out to write about emerging and converging technologies in as inclusive and accessible a way as I knew how, with the aim of taking readers on a compelling journey into the future where their thoughts and ideas were just as important as mine.
The result was a book that uses movies as a way to open up conversations about what responsible innovation means in a world that’s changing faster than ever before, and where new technologies are transforming how we think about the future and what it holds.
Of course some of the technologies it covers have moved on since I started writing the book. But at the end of the day this is not a book about science fiction movies, or about specific technologies, but about how all of us can think differently about our roles in ensuring the future we’re building is better than the past we leave behind.
I hope you enjoy these recordings of me narrating it — this is a book that reflects my voice quite deeply in the writing, and so it only made sense for me to one day actually read it aloud!
For more information on the book, visit https://andrewmaynard.net/films-from-the-future/
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit futureofbeinghuman.com -
Chapter 4 of Films from the Future: The Technology and Morality of Sci-Fi movies, read by author Andrew Maynard
In this episode: The movie Minority ReportCriminal Intent | The “Science” of Predicting Bad Behavior | Criminal Brain Scans | Machine Learning-Based Precognition | Big Brother, Meet Big Data
This episode of The Moviegoers Guide to the Future (based on chapter 4 of Films from the Future) draws on the 2002 Stephen Spielberg film Minority Report. Based on the 1956 Philip K. Dick novella The Minority Report, the movie is based around “precogs” who can see into the future to prevent murders — a technology that turns out to be not quite as ethical or foolproof as it’s backers hoped!
While the precogs in Minority Report are fanciful, the themes that the film touches on allow for rich pickings around the slippery slope of trying to predict criminal behavior, and predictive policing.
About Films from the Future: I started writing Films from the Future in 2017. The intent was to explore the deeply complex landscape around emerging technologies, the future, and socially responsible innovation, in a way that would be accessible to most readers, and at the same time provide nuanced and important insights that weren’t available anywhere else.
One of the challenges with most books about tech and the future is that they take a polarized stance — we’re either all going to die unless we do something different, or technology is going to save the world. These sell — people love reading about extremes. But they’re not that helpful when it comes to navigating a deeply complex tech innovation landscape where there few right and wrong answers, where it’s important to weave together insights from many different areas of expertise — including the arts and humanities, and where dialogue and discussion are far more important than preaching.
And so I set out to write about emerging and converging technologies in as inclusive and accessible a way as I knew how, with the aim of taking readers on a compelling journey into the future where their thoughts and ideas were just as important as mine.
The result was a book that uses movies as a way to open up conversations about what responsible innovation means in a world that’s changing faster than ever before, and where new technologies are transforming how we think about the future and what it holds.
Of course some of the technologies it covers have moved on since I started writing the book. But at the end of the day this is not a book about science fiction movies, or about specific technologies, but about how all of us can think differently about our roles in ensuring the future we’re building is better than the past we leave behind.
I hope you enjoy these recordings of me narrating it — this is a book that reflects my voice quite deeply in the writing, and so it only made sense for me to one day actually read it aloud!
For more information on the book, visit https://andrewmaynard.net/films-from-the-future/
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit futureofbeinghuman.com -
Chapter 3 of Films from the Future: The Technology and Morality of Sci-Fi movies, read by author Andrew Maynard
In this episode: Sins of Futures Past | Cloning | Genuinely Human? | Too Valuable to Fail?
This episode of The Moviegoers Guide to the Future (based on chapter 3 of Films from the Future) draws on the 2010 film Never Let Me Go. Based on the the 2005 novel by Kazuo Ishiguro, it’s not usually classified as a science fiction movie. However, underlying the very human stories of love, pain, and a live well lived, is a searing indictment of how powerful technologies — cloning in this case — can seduce us into soul-destroying behaviors and attitudes.
Of all the movies in this series, this is the one that haunts me the most as it reveals the moral risks of turning a blind eye to the evils of a technology’s use because the perceived benefits are so great.
About Films from the Future: I started writing Films from the Future in 2017. The intent was to explore the deeply complex landscape around emerging technologies, the future, and socially responsible innovation, in a way that would be accessible to most readers, and at the same time provide nuanced and important insights that weren’t available anywhere else.
One of the challenges with most books about tech and the future is that they take a polarized stance — we’re either all going to die unless we do something different, or technology is going to save the world. These sell — people love reading about extremes. But they’re not that helpful when it comes to navigating a deeply complex tech innovation landscape where there few right and wrong answers, where it’s important to weave together insights from many different areas of expertise — including the arts and humanities, and where dialogue and discussion are far more important than preaching.
And so I set out to write about emerging and converging technologies in as inclusive and accessible a way as I knew how, with the aim of taking readers on a compelling journey into the future where their thoughts and ideas were just as important as mine.
The result was a book that uses movies as a way to open up conversations about what responsible innovation means in a world that’s changing faster than ever before, and where new technologies are transforming how we think about the future and what it holds.
Of course some of the technologies it covers have moved on since I started writing the book. But at the end of the day this is not a book about science fiction movies, or about specific technologies, but about how all of us can think differently about our roles in ensuring the future we’re building is better than the past we leave behind.
I hope you enjoy these recordings of me narrating it — this is a book that reflects my voice quite deeply in the writing, and so it only made sense for me to one day actually read it aloud!
For more information on the book, visit https://andrewmaynard.net/films-from-the-future/
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit futureofbeinghuman.com -
Chapter 2 of Films from the Future: The Technology and Morality of Sci-Fi movies, read by author Andrew Maynard
In this episode: When Dinosaurs Ruled the World | De-Extinction | Could We, Should We? | The Butterfly Effect | Visions of Power
This episode of The Moviegoers Guide to the Future (based on chapter 2 of Films from the Future) riffs off the 1993 Stephen Spielberg movie Jurassic Park to explore themes from de-extinction and chaos theory to the always-tricky dynamic between entrepreneurial power and responsible innovation.
Despite Jurassic Park being made over 30 years ago, it still stands the test of time. And unusually for a Hollywood blockbuster, it brings a surprisingly nuanced perspective to the pitfalls of full-on no holds barred innovation.
Even though we still don’t have resurrected dinosaurs around, there are lessons here for everything from CRISPR gene editing to a “go fast and break things” approach to artificial intelligence.
About Films from the Future: I started writing Films from the Future in 2017. The intent was to explore the deeply complex landscape around emerging technologies, the future, and socially responsible innovation, in a way that would be accessible to most readers, and at the same time provide nuanced and important insights that weren’t available anywhere else.
One of the challenges with most books about tech and the future is that they take a polarized stance — we’re either all going to die unless we do something different, or technology is going to save the world. These sell — people love reading about extremes. But they’re not that helpful when it comes to navigating a deeply complex tech innovation landscape where there few right and wrong answers, where it’s important to weave together insights from many different areas of expertise — including the arts and humanities, and where dialogue and discussion are far more important than preaching.
And so I set out to write about emerging and converging technologies in as inclusive and accessible a way as I knew how, with the aim of taking readers on a compelling journey into the future where their thoughts and ideas were just as important as mine.
The result was a book that uses movies as a way to open up conversations about what responsible innovation means in a world that’s changing faster than ever before, and where new technologies are transforming how we think about the future and what it holds.
Of course some of the technologies it covers have moved on since I started writing the book. But at the end of the day this is not a book about science fiction movies, or about specific technologies, but about how all of us can think differently about our roles in ensuring the future we’re building is better than the past we leave behind.
I hope you enjoy these recordings of me narrating it — this is a book that reflects my voice quite deeply in the writing, and so it only made sense for me to one day actually read it aloud!
For more information on the book, visit https://andrewmaynard.net/films-from-the-future/
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit futureofbeinghuman.com -
Chapter 1 of Films from the Future: The Technology and Morality of Sci-Fi movies, read by author Andrew Maynard
In this episode: Beginnings | Welcome to the Future | The Power of Convergence |Socially Responsible Innovation |A Common Point of Focus
This episode sets up the main themes in the book. It’s one of only two chapters that don’t explicitly riff of a sci-fi movie, although if course I had to squeeze one in anyway! Importantly, it frames the importance of taking a nuanced approach to socially responsible innovation in the face of complex and converging emerging technologies — something that’s more important than ever with current developments in AI.
About Films from the Future: I started writing Films from the Future in 2017. The intent was to explore the deeply complex landscape around emerging technologies, the future, and socially responsible innovation, in a way that would be accessible to most readers, and at the same time provide nuanced and important insights that weren’t available anywhere else.
One of the challenges with most books about tech and the future is that they take a polarized stance — we’re either all going to die unless we do something different, or technology is going to save the world. These sell — people love reading about extremes. But they’re not that helpful when it comes to navigating a deeply complex tech innovation landscape where there few right and wrong answers, where it’s important to weave together insights from many different areas of expertise — including the arts and humanities, and where dialogue and discussion are far more important than preaching.
And so I set out to write about emerging and converging technologies in as inclusive and accessible a way as I knew how, with the aim of taking readers on a compelling journey into the future where their thoughts and ideas were just as important as mine.
The result was a book that uses movies as a way to open up conversations about what responsible innovation means in a world that’s changing faster than ever before, and where new technologies are transforming how we think about the future and what it holds.
Of course some of the technologies it covers have moved on since I started writing the book. But at the end of the day this is not a book about science fiction movies, or about specific technologies, but about how all of us can think differently about our roles in ensuring the future we’re building is better than the past we leave behind.
I hope you enjoy these recordings of me narrating it — this is a book that reflects my voice quite deeply in the writing, and so it only made sense for me to one day actually read it aloud!
For more information on the book, visit https://andrewmaynard.net/films-from-the-future/
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit futureofbeinghuman.com
