Although this is an author self-promoting, what he has to say is interesting: Imagine a future where population shrinks. A lot. Non-disastrously.
Originally shared by Alexander M Zoltai
https://www.tor.com/2018/08/16/escaping-the-default-future-when-writing-science-fiction/
When you pay peanuts, you get… bots.
Originally shared by John Ward
Rick Wayne, this may interest you. It has to do with sociology.
https://www.wired.com/story/amazon-mechanical-turk-bot-panic/
Imagine a cyberpunk future, but with a lot more Chinese influence than Japanese, and corporations controlled by the government instead of vice versa.
Originally shared by Singularity Hub
Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent: The Rise of China’s Tech Giants https://suhub.co/2w9UXTW
This is not at all concerning.
Originally shared by Singularity Hub
China Is Building a Fleet of Autonomous AI-Powered Submarines. Here Are the Details https://suhub.co/2vMneAB
You could take the ideas in this piece in either direction – hopeful or dystopian. Or, of course, a mixture.
Originally shared by Singularity Hub
AI Can Help Create a Better World—If We Build it Right https://suhub.co/2P6qSNJ
Augmented/mixed reality: not there yet. But slowly advancing.
I was reading through this article, trying to find a story angle that wouldn’t be hard to make interesting, and eventually hit this, near the bottom:
“Dutch startup Nerdalize has begun trials of a solution for the domestic market: customers pay the company to install servers in their homes and receive free heating in exchange.”
Story idea: unbeknown to you, there’s data stored on the server in your home that scary people want to steal or destroy.
Go!
Originally shared by Singularity Hub
Waste Heat: The Overlooked Energy Problem, and How to Solve It https://suhub.co/2nmKdgZ
I refuse to use Gmail’s autosuggested reply “Ok”.
Because the correct capitalization is “OK”.
This kind of “nagged by our tech into decisions we don’t really mean” issue was something I touched on in “Aspiration Value” (though in the final version of the story it got deemphasized a bit): http://compellingsciencefiction.com/stories/aspirationvalue.html
Originally shared by Walter Roberson
Mike Reeves-McMillan for multiple reasons
https://www.fastcompany.com/90205359/google-you-auto-complete-me
Here’s some useful handwavium for you. Comes with a shelf life; a lot of research is going into figuring out what this stuff is actually good for and how to make it do that. But for now, you can probably use it to justify all kinds of crazy materials properties in your SF if you need to.
Originally shared by Singularity Hub
Graphene and Beyond: The Astonishing Properties and Promise of 2D Materials https://suhub.co/2KvRQux
My almost-finished WIP is full of punched cards. Full.
Originally shared by Winchell Chung
I suddenly had visions of a dystopian zee-rust future with people surfing the web via punch cards. And the piles of cards that would accumulate when reading a flame-war.
https://twitter.com/mainframed767/status/1025023780416966656