In my very first post, I worried that our creativity had became stagnant and that we were left simply making increasingly smaller iterations of the same technology. However, I was so quick to discount the creativity and imagination present in information science professionals and scientists. I completely neglected to take into account the work of science fiction writers, who dream up the seemingly impossible, and allow us, the reader, to interact with the idea of this technology which may exist, maybe not now, but in 10, 50, or even 100 years.
As I mentioned in a previous post, it's important to factor human beings into this technological forecasting equation. New technology does not exist in a vacuum. In some cases, humans can serve as the weaker link - exploiting X or stealing Y, using said new technology. In this regard, science fiction presents said cautionary tale intermingled with the proposition of these wondrous innovations that seemingly highlight the good qualities of human beings - creativity, industriousness, etc. I think of the common theme that human beings, in science fiction, succeed in the face of adversity (e.g. alien invasion, zombie apocalypse, etc.) purely because they are human. Whether that's an example of misguided sense of self-importance or a testimony to the resilience of humans - I'll leave it for you to decide.
But I personally would like to believe that humans will continue to use language via scholarly communication or even science fiction novels to continue to innovate. We can only hope that these innovations will ultimately be beneficial, avoiding the futuristic dystopia present in so many science fiction novels.
Science fiction has always been fertile soil for the seeds of innovation. How often have the seemingly outlandish or impossible thoughts and creations manifested in fantastic literature and television been made real? How many of Gene Roddenberry's wondrous gadgets and devices created for Star Trek are now emerging as an actual part of our world? At the risk of sounding hackneyed... as long as we can imagine, we can create.
ReplyDeleteAnd you are right to bring up the cautionary factor! Human beings are notoriously at once self-destructive and (perhaps nigh-paradoxically) driven to triumph. For better or for worse, we are now in an age of great potential for innovation and progression; I suppose time will tell which facet of our nature guides our handling of these great discoveries.