People in their mid-20s may be the "last analogs." Although they grew up as digital natives, they're also the last generation with vivid memories of the pre-digital world—an era before the screeching of AOL dial-up infiltrated our homes, when landlines, fax machines and beepers were still modern pieces of technology. "The Last Analogs" also appeals because it sounds like the title of a sci-fi book, and science-fiction writers may be the closest thing the western world has to prophets—particularly when it comes to cloud computing.
Here are just five examples of how sci-fi writers have predicted the future.
1. Vernon Vinge: True Names
In his classic 1981 sci-fi novella, True Names, Vernor Vinge tells the story of a group of hackers who regularly meet and scheme in a virtual reality game called "The Other Plane." During the game, the hackers keep their true identities hidden to avoid persecution by law enforcement. True Names was one of the earliest cyberpunk novels, and the hackers' use of what is essentially cloud computing is surprisingly similar to today's reality of renting processor time to scale computing operations (in the hackers' case, money laundering).
Today: The ability to rent server space at a moment's notice is one of the hallmarks of the modern tech economy, allowing startups to scale quickly without the need for costly internal infrastructure.
2. Ray Bradbury: Farenheit 451
Ray Bradbury's classic dystopian novel, Farenheit 451, depicts an early version of the connected home entertainment system. Mildred—the wife of the story's protagonist, Montag—is addicted to the three full-wall-sized televisions in her parlor that fully interact with her. She converses with the characters on the screens and delivers commands, or basks in a finely constructed fantasy where a 100-piece symphony orchestra plays all around her. The power of the orchestra has a surreal, brain-washing effect on Mildred. It's what a truly "smart" TV might look like before long.
Today: The battle for the smart, connected entertainment center is going strong. Will it be won by Nest, Fire TV, or Facebook and Oculus VR? Or will an unexpected new player sweep in to dominate the market?
3. Neal Stephenson: Cryptonomicon
In Cryptonomicon, a group of crypto-currency hackers builds an underground data haven on a remote island—Kinakuta—to help facilitate widespread anonymous Internet banking. It's too bad that Stephenson didn't take this idea one step further; he could have founded Bitcoin.
Today: Kinakuta is reminiscent of some of the crazy places where tech companies are placing now data centers, like 300-million-year old caves, the Arctic Circle or mysterious barges. Meanwhile, crypto-currency has become downright legitimate business.
4. Hugo Gernsback: Ralph 124c 41+
Video teleconferencing has long been a staple in published lists noting the ways that cloud computing can transform your business. However, 103 years ago the technology was just an idea in the imagination of sci-fi writer Hugo Gernsback. Ralph 124c 41+ was a serial novel published in Modern Electronics from 1911 to 1925, and it predicted many modern technologies, including the video phone, which Gernsback gave the awesome name of "Telephot."
Today: Video calls are as common as a fax machine. Come to think of it, when's the last time you even saw a fax machine?
5. Orson Scott Cards: Ender's Game
The 1985 sci-fi cult classic Ender's Game features an impressive use of cloud computing technology. When fighting a great war against an alien race known as the Buggers, the story's protagonist, Ender, communicates with fellow soldiers millions of miles away as they control battleships in concert. It's as if they were all working on one giant shared spreadsheet, except the end game was destroying an alien race and saving Earth instead of crafting a marketing plan.
Today: Cloud computing along with advanced network infrastructures are enabling unprecedented levels of collaboration, allowing workers to connect from anywhere.
What's Next?
Given sci-fi writers' impressive ability to predict the technologies of today, shouldn't we turn to them to find out what's next? American sci-fi writer Kevin J. Anderson did this recently, asking some of the world's most prominent sci-fi writers to predict the future.
Michael A. Stackpole's prediction is especially intriguing, imagining that implanted sensors will turn humans into "Jedis." In his prediction, "We become keyboards, where gestures akin to Aslan allow us to remotely access information streams and control devices."
And Christopher Paolini believes we'll turn into real-life versions of the Terminator sometime in the next decade: “Computers will be built into the clothes we wear, and even airbrushed onto or tattooed into our skin in flexible matrixes that will derive power from the heat, motion, and electrical charge of our bodies.”
Now that's wearable computing--and maybe the shape of things to come.
