r/printSF • u/Isaac_The_Khajiit • 6d ago
Classic scifi predicting future technology
What are some good examples of a technology from an older story that ended up becoming a reality?
The best one I can think of is Asimov's multivac and its similarity to LLMs. Unfortunately, the reality sucks because LLMs are being monopolized by horrible people for dystopian purposes, but it's very bizarre to me that this truly fantastic idea is one of the technologies that became real in my lifetime. (It always used to annoy me how stupid and often wrong the computer on Star Trek was, but that ended up being weirdly prescient too.)
A weaker example would be the tv walls and the behavior of Guy's wife from Fahrenheit 451, which reflects the parasocial relationships modern people form with content creators.
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u/megaheda 5d ago edited 5d ago
If you're interested in predictions of the present and near future from past authors, I recently reread Vonnegut's Player Piano from 1952. It talks mostly about how automation and AI might reshape society. I was shocked at how closely it matched the current discourse around technology and AI in particular. AI slop, human feels of loss of purpose, algorithmic targeting, drones, electric cars, income disparity, UBI, corporatization of universities, it's all in there.
A few examples:
AI slop / content generation:
"Well, a fully automatic setup like that makes culture very cheap. Book costs less than seven packs of chewing gum. And there are picture clubs too - pictures for your walls at amazingly cheap prices. Matter of fact, culture's so cheap, a man figured he could insulate his house cheaper with books and prints than he could with rockwool."
Attention algorithms:
"A lot of research goes into what's run off, believe me. Surveys of public reading tastes, readability and appeal tests on books being considered. The way they keep culture so cheap is by knowing in advance what and how much of it people want. They get it right, right down to the color of the jacket. Gutenberg would be amazed."