WEBVTT - Futures That Never Were 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.800 Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:12.119 --> 0:00:14.640 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:14.800 --> 0:00:17.800 Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio 0:00:17.880 --> 0:00:23.599 and love all things tech, and I also love speculative fiction, 0:00:24.000 --> 0:00:27.680 and I really love science fiction. No big shock there, 0:00:27.720 --> 0:00:32.320 I'm sure I love stories that involve cool and futuristic 0:00:32.360 --> 0:00:36.240 technology and you know, technically, stories that they play out 0:00:37.360 --> 0:00:39.880 in such a way that, if done well, it says 0:00:39.960 --> 0:00:43.040 something interesting about what it is to be human when 0:00:43.040 --> 0:00:44.760 you get down to it. A lot of science fiction 0:00:44.920 --> 0:00:47.199 isn't so much about the pew pew lasers and the 0:00:47.280 --> 0:00:51.159 zoom zoom spaceships. It's really more about stuff like resilience 0:00:51.400 --> 0:00:57.320 and hope and hubrists and enmity and other very you know, 0:00:57.520 --> 0:01:02.040 human qualities. So when you strip it all away, a 0:01:02.160 --> 0:01:05.480 good science fiction story you should tell us more about, 0:01:05.560 --> 0:01:09.759 you know, humanity. Now, when you create a science fiction story, 0:01:10.319 --> 0:01:13.959 you have to set it somewhere and some win. And 0:01:14.040 --> 0:01:16.560 that's what brings us to today's topic. I wanted to 0:01:16.560 --> 0:01:20.160 talk about some science fiction stories that were set in 0:01:20.240 --> 0:01:23.560 the years two thousand to two thousand twenty one, So 0:01:23.600 --> 0:01:27.880 over the last twenty one years, now, not necessarily written 0:01:27.959 --> 0:01:31.160 during that time, but set in that time, like this 0:01:31.319 --> 0:01:34.680 would be the futuristic setting, because sometimes it's fun to 0:01:34.720 --> 0:01:36.720 go back and talk about some of the wild things 0:01:36.760 --> 0:01:41.360 that writers imagined happening by now. And sometimes they predict 0:01:41.400 --> 0:01:44.880 stuff that comes true in some form or another. A 0:01:44.920 --> 0:01:47.040 lot of times they predict stuff that we just don't 0:01:47.080 --> 0:01:49.360 have yet. And I don't mean for this to be 0:01:49.480 --> 0:01:52.440 a Hey, isn't it fun that they thought we would 0:01:52.440 --> 0:01:55.040 be using holograms by now? Although there are a couple 0:01:55.040 --> 0:01:57.720 of instances of that in this episode, but it's not 0:01:57.840 --> 0:02:01.440 meant to poke fun at the futurists who were imagining 0:02:01.480 --> 0:02:05.080 the world. In some cases, the writer clearly was thinking, 0:02:05.840 --> 0:02:08.800 what is a year that's far enough out from today 0:02:09.280 --> 0:02:13.720 that this could seem plausible. In other cases, the writer 0:02:13.880 --> 0:02:16.840 might just have arbitrarily picked a year because the year 0:02:16.840 --> 0:02:21.520 itself isn't really what's important, Like you might say in 0:02:21.560 --> 0:02:24.920 the distant year of two thousand nine, but what you 0:02:25.000 --> 0:02:28.840 really just mean is at a time that's in the future, right, 0:02:29.480 --> 0:02:31.400 So in some cases, I think a lot of science 0:02:31.440 --> 0:02:33.840 fiction stories, when they have a year, you might as 0:02:33.880 --> 0:02:38.040 well just replace that year with, you know, in the future. 0:02:38.880 --> 0:02:42.440 But we're gonna ignore that, and we're gonna poke fun 0:02:42.960 --> 0:02:45.360 at some movies and some of their predictions, and not 0:02:45.440 --> 0:02:48.720 just movies, other stories too. So I'm gonna look at 0:02:48.720 --> 0:02:51.880 a lot of stories that were produced before the year 0:02:52.440 --> 0:02:54.640 the story is set in. So, in other words, these 0:02:54.639 --> 0:02:57.519 stories have to at least on some level make predictions 0:02:57.600 --> 0:03:00.359 about the future. A lot of science fiction films are 0:03:00.400 --> 0:03:02.880 set the same year they came out. A lot of 0:03:02.919 --> 0:03:05.160 science fiction stories are set the same year they come out, 0:03:05.240 --> 0:03:09.960 so those become more like alternate present rather than futuristic. 0:03:10.440 --> 0:03:13.959 So I'm ignoring all those, and I'm really focusing on 0:03:13.960 --> 0:03:17.600 ones that are more about projecting into the future. This 0:03:17.720 --> 0:03:19.880 also is not going to be an exhaustive list, either, 0:03:20.639 --> 0:03:22.400 because there have been a lot of stories that have 0:03:22.440 --> 0:03:25.200 been set between two thousand and two thousand twenty one, 0:03:25.240 --> 0:03:27.959 not as many as I thought there would be, or 0:03:28.000 --> 0:03:30.920 at least, based upon my research, not as many as 0:03:30.919 --> 0:03:32.840 I thought there would be. But there's still quite a few, 0:03:33.360 --> 0:03:35.960 and I'm gonna try and stick with ones that are 0:03:36.040 --> 0:03:40.280 either really famous or just super fun examples. So I 0:03:40.400 --> 0:03:43.040 may very well skip over some of your favorites. For that, 0:03:43.080 --> 0:03:46.640 I apologize I cannot cover them. All, but let's get 0:03:46.680 --> 0:03:50.360 to it um And also before I get into the 0:03:50.400 --> 0:03:53.680 twenty first century, let's have a couple of honorable mentions 0:03:53.680 --> 0:04:00.600 in here. For example, George Orwell's Four is a phenomenal novel. 0:04:00.680 --> 0:04:05.400 It describes the world as being governed by giant, totalitarian 0:04:05.440 --> 0:04:09.440 authorities who essentially have divvied up the world. And it's 0:04:09.440 --> 0:04:13.960 a world that's constantly under surveillance, like the government is 0:04:14.000 --> 0:04:18.320 looking at everything that's going on, and the government tries 0:04:18.320 --> 0:04:21.400 to regulate not just what people are allowed to do, 0:04:21.480 --> 0:04:24.960 but even so much as how people are allowed to think. 0:04:25.720 --> 0:04:28.560 It's a pretty terrifying story, and it's one I think 0:04:28.560 --> 0:04:31.280 we can still recognize as being relevant today, whether it's 0:04:31.279 --> 0:04:34.080 in the form of authoritarian governments. I mean, you can 0:04:34.120 --> 0:04:38.240 look at some of China's initiatives and say, like, oh, 0:04:38.279 --> 0:04:41.520 I see some similarities there. You can also arguably look 0:04:41.600 --> 0:04:43.960 at the U k. And the United States and say 0:04:44.000 --> 0:04:47.960 there's some elements there too. We also have seen the 0:04:48.080 --> 0:04:51.240 rise of mega powerful corporations, which in some ways have 0:04:51.400 --> 0:04:55.960 taken on some of the aspects that Orwell had attributed 0:04:56.040 --> 0:05:00.240 to governments, Like we're seeing companies take on that kind 0:05:00.240 --> 0:05:03.520 of of role and take on that kind of power. 0:05:04.120 --> 0:05:08.160 We're almost four decades decades out from the setting of 0:05:08.200 --> 0:05:10.960 that novel, and you know, we haven't quite reached the 0:05:11.040 --> 0:05:13.360 level of dystopia described in the book, but you can 0:05:13.400 --> 0:05:15.880 make a decent argument that a lot of the elements 0:05:16.640 --> 0:05:19.240 that were or well described have kind of crept into 0:05:19.279 --> 0:05:22.159 our actual world today. And granted, you know, some of 0:05:22.200 --> 0:05:24.600 those were things that he was observing at the time 0:05:24.640 --> 0:05:29.679 he wrote it, which was well before. Another honorable mention 0:05:29.760 --> 0:05:32.159 I have to add in here is the Star Trek 0:05:32.160 --> 0:05:37.640 original series episode Space Seed. The episode first aired in 0:05:37.800 --> 0:05:41.440 nineteen sixty seven, and the year in which the episode 0:05:41.520 --> 0:05:46.960 happens is supposed to be twenty two sixty seven. Uh, 0:05:47.080 --> 0:05:51.760 but it references something that should have happened in our past. 0:05:51.880 --> 0:05:54.719 It would have happened between those two years. This is 0:05:54.760 --> 0:06:01.200 the episode that introduced the iconic character con Nunioning. So 0:06:01.480 --> 0:06:04.760 in Star Trek lore, the world plunged into a global 0:06:04.839 --> 0:06:09.080 conflict in the nineteen nineties called the Eugenics Wars, and 0:06:09.160 --> 0:06:11.880 Cohn was one of several people who are part of 0:06:11.920 --> 0:06:16.880 a long term experiment that was focused on selective breeding 0:06:17.040 --> 0:06:19.159 of humans, and the idea being that this is a 0:06:19.240 --> 0:06:24.840 process that would eventually produce exceptional human beings. Eugenics is 0:06:25.240 --> 0:06:31.720 a real horrifying thing. It's also an incredibly racist thing. 0:06:31.960 --> 0:06:35.760 It's it's it's bad, y'all. But anyway, this was sort 0:06:35.800 --> 0:06:38.200 of the thing that Star Trek was pitching it as. 0:06:38.279 --> 0:06:41.440 So con is supposed to be stronger and more intelligent 0:06:41.520 --> 0:06:45.479 than your average person. In later Star Trek properties, his 0:06:45.560 --> 0:06:48.200 backstory gets tweaked a little bit, so he's actually the 0:06:48.240 --> 0:06:51.839 result not just of selective breeding, but of genetic engineering, 0:06:52.440 --> 0:06:55.880 because people recognize that any sort of selective breeding process 0:06:56.200 --> 0:06:58.760 would not progress to a point that you would have, 0:06:59.160 --> 0:07:03.800 you know, people with obviously superior human qualities within a 0:07:03.800 --> 0:07:07.280 couple of generations. That would take a very long time 0:07:07.279 --> 0:07:12.840 to really do. And again, eugenics is horrifying lee awful. Anyway. 0:07:12.920 --> 0:07:17.160 Within Star Trek lore, Kahn and his genetically superior colleagues 0:07:17.480 --> 0:07:19.920 managed to conquer about a third of the Earth before 0:07:19.920 --> 0:07:24.720 they were defeated, and then Kahn's crew escaped Earth. Most 0:07:24.760 --> 0:07:29.080 of the genetically engineered humans were captured and sentenced to 0:07:29.200 --> 0:07:33.160 death in the nineties, but Cohn and his crew escape 0:07:33.240 --> 0:07:36.240 on a ship called the Botany Bay, and they go 0:07:36.280 --> 0:07:39.360 into suspended animation and just go on a trip out 0:07:39.920 --> 0:07:45.040 into space to escape their capture, and then a couple 0:07:45.160 --> 0:07:50.040 hundred years later, the enterprise happens across them. Now, obviously 0:07:50.240 --> 0:07:51.880 a lot of the stuff that was predicted back in 0:07:51.960 --> 0:07:56.600 nineteen sixty seven never happened. There have been no eugenics wars. Thankfully, 0:07:56.720 --> 0:07:59.720 we don't have the ability to genetically modify humans to 0:07:59.760 --> 0:08:02.040 the point of guaranteeing that they are going to be 0:08:02.080 --> 0:08:06.080 stronger and more intelligent. But there are ongoing discussions and 0:08:06.120 --> 0:08:10.240 scientific circles about the ethics of genetic modification in general. Like, 0:08:10.440 --> 0:08:13.160 obviously we've been doing a lot of work in genetic modification. 0:08:13.840 --> 0:08:17.960 The development of crisper is a great example, but we're 0:08:18.000 --> 0:08:21.000 still very much at the early stages of science when 0:08:21.040 --> 0:08:26.040 it comes to genetically modifying things. And more than that, uh, 0:08:26.240 --> 0:08:29.320 we still have these big ethical debates on at what 0:08:29.440 --> 0:08:33.240 point do you say this is too far? Is it 0:08:33.360 --> 0:08:36.880 okay to do genetic modification if you are trying to 0:08:37.000 --> 0:08:41.240 make certain that someone is not born with a condition 0:08:41.280 --> 0:08:45.679 that would otherwise inhibit them or or negatively impact their 0:08:45.720 --> 0:08:49.200 quality of life? Is it okay if you go beyond that, 0:08:49.240 --> 0:08:51.400 if you say, well, let's make sure that they have 0:08:51.880 --> 0:08:55.400 certain qualities like blue eyes, or you go even further 0:08:55.440 --> 0:08:58.559 than that and say, let's make them stronger and more intelligent. 0:08:59.000 --> 0:09:03.520 This is an area that is thoroughly investigated by science 0:09:03.559 --> 0:09:06.720 fiction and it's one where we have real discussions going 0:09:06.760 --> 0:09:10.840 on today. Uh As for other science stuff that happens 0:09:10.960 --> 0:09:13.400 in that that story, obviously we don't have a way 0:09:13.400 --> 0:09:16.680 to put people in suspended animation, certainly not with any 0:09:16.679 --> 0:09:20.360 way of halting aging completely and yet still being able 0:09:20.400 --> 0:09:24.400 to revive the person with no adverse effects. We don't 0:09:24.520 --> 0:09:27.560 have that capability. Uh. This is also an area of 0:09:27.600 --> 0:09:32.000 intense interest. I mean, cryonics is a real thing in 0:09:32.040 --> 0:09:34.840 the sense that there are people who are working on it. 0:09:35.400 --> 0:09:39.440 Often the push for chronics comes from rich people who 0:09:39.440 --> 0:09:42.760 are terrified of dying. But yeah, we haven't cracked that 0:09:42.760 --> 0:09:45.600 one yet either. Beyond all that, we don't actually have 0:09:45.600 --> 0:09:48.960 a spacecraft that humans could crew that is meant to 0:09:49.160 --> 0:09:52.599 escape our solar system, let alone just wander the galaxy. 0:09:52.679 --> 0:09:55.280 So yes, space Seeds plot depends upon stuff that just 0:09:55.679 --> 0:09:59.400 didn't happen, and much of it couldn't have happened. Clearly 0:09:59.440 --> 0:10:02.000 the writer's didn't you know they needed to have CON's 0:10:02.040 --> 0:10:05.320 backstory happened sometime between the present day of nineteen sixty 0:10:05.360 --> 0:10:09.400 seven and the Star Trek date of twenty two sixty seven, 0:10:09.679 --> 0:10:12.360 plus it needed to be far enough back in the 0:10:12.440 --> 0:10:15.640 history of Star Trek's world so that the average person 0:10:15.840 --> 0:10:18.560 in Star Trek wouldn't immediately recognize the name of con 0:10:18.800 --> 0:10:21.440 and know who that is just on the face of it. 0:10:21.480 --> 0:10:24.160 So I get it. But it's a great example of 0:10:24.240 --> 0:10:27.720 predictions made in science fiction that just didn't happen. All right, 0:10:27.800 --> 0:10:30.200 let's talk about some of the stuff that was predicted 0:10:30.240 --> 0:10:33.240 to happen within the last twenty one years, And for 0:10:33.360 --> 0:10:35.679 the year two thousand, I would like to submit the 0:10:35.760 --> 0:10:39.679 film Death Race two thousand. This one was made back 0:10:39.720 --> 0:10:43.080 in nineteen seventy five. This was a Roger Corman production. 0:10:43.600 --> 0:10:46.360 And Corman is one of those folks in Hollywood who 0:10:46.520 --> 0:10:49.640 really was able to stretch a dollar as far as 0:10:49.640 --> 0:10:53.320 it could go. Typically his films are really low budget affairs, 0:10:53.679 --> 0:10:58.160 but he's been behind some pretty fun movies. Like Roger 0:10:58.200 --> 0:11:00.520 Corman film is probably gonna be super low budget, but 0:11:00.559 --> 0:11:02.360 it doesn't mean that it's not going to be good 0:11:02.480 --> 0:11:05.680 or at least entertaining. I consider Death Race two thousand 0:11:06.120 --> 0:11:10.960 to be a pretty entertaining movie. There's a nasty satirical 0:11:11.120 --> 0:11:13.520 edge to the movie, a really nasty one, but I 0:11:13.559 --> 0:11:16.640 find it fascinating. So in the lore of the movie, 0:11:17.000 --> 0:11:20.560 the world went through a massive economic crash in nineteen 0:11:20.640 --> 0:11:24.240 seventy nine, remember this film came out in seventy That 0:11:24.320 --> 0:11:27.960 economic crash then made the United States unstable and at 0:11:28.000 --> 0:11:31.720 some point the military overthrew the government and replace the 0:11:31.760 --> 0:11:37.640 democratically elected representatives with a totalitarian military regime. The government 0:11:37.679 --> 0:11:40.839 also co opted religion, so the state and the church 0:11:40.960 --> 0:11:45.160 are united. This was an effort to consolidate power and 0:11:45.240 --> 0:11:49.320 to keep the huddled masses distracted. Uh. The government has 0:11:49.360 --> 0:11:53.160 this incredibly violent coast to coast race called the Annual 0:11:53.200 --> 0:11:58.880 Transcontinental Road Race. It's meant to entertain people and redirect 0:11:58.920 --> 0:12:02.040 their attention so they, you know, they don't realize how 0:12:02.080 --> 0:12:04.920 bad things are and they don't get smart ideas like 0:12:05.000 --> 0:12:09.000 demanding rights and stuff. So the race has this brutal 0:12:09.120 --> 0:12:12.000 scoring system. Not only do you get points for you know, 0:12:12.240 --> 0:12:17.040 being fast, you also get points for killing innocent people 0:12:17.080 --> 0:12:19.199 along the way, like if you run down a pedestrian, 0:12:19.240 --> 0:12:22.240 those are extra points. So this is a way for 0:12:22.280 --> 0:12:26.120 an authoritarian government to retain control of a population, and also, 0:12:26.520 --> 0:12:29.760 you know, is a message saying no one is safe. 0:12:30.040 --> 0:12:33.120 This is a really common theme in stories that feature 0:12:33.160 --> 0:12:36.199 dystopian futures. I'm sure you can think of some examples yourself, 0:12:36.240 --> 0:12:39.800 but you can find it in movies like Rollerball, Uh, 0:12:39.920 --> 0:12:46.160 The Hunger Games, Battle Royal, The Running Man, and many more. Um. 0:12:46.320 --> 0:12:49.079 One of the drivers in the Death Race two thousand 0:12:49.080 --> 0:12:53.040 movie is the government backed Frankenstein, who is said to 0:12:53.120 --> 0:12:56.400 at least be part machine due to having sustained numerous 0:12:56.400 --> 0:13:00.839 injuries and past competitions, and that he's while he's you 0:13:01.880 --> 0:13:07.240 at least partly machine, he's also practically unkillable. So we've 0:13:07.240 --> 0:13:11.120 got some cyborg stuff going on here. Except spoiler alert, 0:13:11.400 --> 0:13:13.520 if you've not watched Death Rays two thousand and you 0:13:13.559 --> 0:13:15.559 really want to, you probably want to skip this next bit. 0:13:16.160 --> 0:13:21.240 But it turns out that Frankenstein isn't just one man. Instead, 0:13:21.400 --> 0:13:25.920 the government finds someone to pose as Frankenstein for each race, 0:13:26.600 --> 0:13:29.080 and should one of them die, they just get another 0:13:29.120 --> 0:13:32.040 person to pose as Frankenstein for the next one. So 0:13:32.160 --> 0:13:35.360 Frankenstein's outfit is a disguise in other words, and it 0:13:35.400 --> 0:13:40.280 creates the illusion that the government has access to indestructible agents. 0:13:40.280 --> 0:13:42.720 It's another way of sending the message of we're more 0:13:42.800 --> 0:13:46.280 powerful than you are, so don't bother resisting. Now. I 0:13:46.320 --> 0:13:49.800 won't spoil how the film ends except to say there 0:13:49.800 --> 0:13:52.000 are a lot of kind of double and triple crosses 0:13:52.040 --> 0:13:55.000 going on and stuff. It's kind of bonkers. But the 0:13:55.040 --> 0:13:58.560 tech and death rays two thousand isn't particularly outlandish. It's 0:13:58.559 --> 0:14:02.840 more about how society has devolved into this bloodthirsty and 0:14:02.920 --> 0:14:07.680 yet suppressed mob. And I'm sure depending upon your own 0:14:08.080 --> 0:14:12.040 you know, ideology, you might see some parallels in the 0:14:12.080 --> 0:14:16.400 real world. Moving on to two thousand one, we have Hey, look, 0:14:16.400 --> 0:14:19.880 it's two thousand one, a space odyssey. The novel and 0:14:19.960 --> 0:14:22.920 the movie are both considered classics, but they also project 0:14:23.000 --> 0:14:26.440 the level of technological sophistication that we have not yet reached, 0:14:26.600 --> 0:14:30.560 not even in twenty twenty one. Uh. We could probably 0:14:30.640 --> 0:14:33.880 forgive some of that because the stories that influenced two 0:14:33.960 --> 0:14:38.080 thousand one came out of the nineteen fifties and nineteen sixties. 0:14:38.280 --> 0:14:41.600 The movie version premiered in nineteen sixty eight, so at 0:14:41.600 --> 0:14:44.520 that time we were still just on the verge of 0:14:44.560 --> 0:14:47.640 going to the moon for the first time, it probably 0:14:47.680 --> 0:14:51.480 seemed inevitable that we would continue to make incredible progress, 0:14:51.560 --> 0:14:54.600 right Like, we were already within the span of a 0:14:54.640 --> 0:15:00.520 decade making incredible strides towards the stars, so I guess 0:15:00.560 --> 0:15:03.400 like it seemed kind of natural that we would continue 0:15:03.440 --> 0:15:06.840 that momentum. So in the story of two thousand one, 0:15:07.320 --> 0:15:10.400 there's a lunar base, and that's something we obviously don't 0:15:10.440 --> 0:15:14.720 have yet. NASA's Artemis program, in which the agency plans 0:15:14.760 --> 0:15:18.080 to return and send cruise to the Moon for the 0:15:18.080 --> 0:15:23.080 first time since the early nineteen seventies, has hit some snags. Currently, 0:15:23.080 --> 0:15:25.640 the agency says that a lunar landing will now take 0:15:25.640 --> 0:15:29.360 place in twenty five at the earliest. The original plan 0:15:29.560 --> 0:15:32.720 was to get there by four, but delays in various 0:15:32.800 --> 0:15:36.960 aspects of the mission have made that impossible. So no 0:15:37.120 --> 0:15:39.800 lunar base for us just yet. And there are those 0:15:39.800 --> 0:15:42.200 who question whether a lunar base is even a logical 0:15:42.240 --> 0:15:47.480 stepping stone, but it exists in the film anyway. There's 0:15:47.480 --> 0:15:50.000 also a space station in the movie. This is obviously 0:15:50.080 --> 0:15:53.080 something that we have achieved, but the story also has 0:15:53.120 --> 0:15:57.880 astronauts traveling to Jupiter via spaceship with some passengers in 0:15:57.920 --> 0:16:01.680 suspended animation. And we've already covered the suspended animation thing, 0:16:02.080 --> 0:16:06.080 but we obviously also haven't made any missions to go 0:16:06.280 --> 0:16:09.000 further out than our own Moon, and we haven't done 0:16:09.000 --> 0:16:13.280 that since the nineteen seventies, at least not with humans 0:16:13.320 --> 0:16:16.920 on board. We have sent, you know, unmanned spacecraft much 0:16:16.960 --> 0:16:21.320 further out, but not with a human crew. In some 0:16:21.600 --> 0:16:26.040 sections of two thousand one, the Jupiter mission section. UH, 0:16:26.040 --> 0:16:30.560 spacecraft generate artificial gravity by spinning. So the spacecraft acts 0:16:30.600 --> 0:16:33.960 like a centrifuge, and when you've got a rotating mass, 0:16:34.000 --> 0:16:38.600 there's this pseudo force that we call centrifugal force, even 0:16:38.600 --> 0:16:41.440 though it's not a quote unquote real force. UH. This 0:16:41.520 --> 0:16:45.680 is directed radially outwards from the axis of rotation. So 0:16:45.760 --> 0:16:50.200 if you imagine a bicycle wheel that has a pole 0:16:50.720 --> 0:16:53.440 that goes right through the middle of the wheel and 0:16:53.480 --> 0:16:57.200 it spins around the pole, the centrifugal force pushes outward 0:16:57.240 --> 0:17:00.680 along the circumference of the wheel, as this is ninety 0:17:00.720 --> 0:17:03.680 degrees out from the axis of rotation. So if you 0:17:03.720 --> 0:17:07.280 had a spacecraft shaped like a wheel and it's rotating, 0:17:07.760 --> 0:17:12.840 people could walk along the uh the well inner part 0:17:12.840 --> 0:17:16.160 of the wheel, but on the outer edge of it 0:17:16.240 --> 0:17:19.240 if you If that makes sense, like if you were 0:17:19.280 --> 0:17:22.159 inside a bicycle wheel, your feet would be on the 0:17:22.280 --> 0:17:25.280 rubber that would be on the outside, and you could 0:17:25.320 --> 0:17:28.080 walk around that way like you would have artificial gravity 0:17:28.119 --> 0:17:31.520 that way. The amount of artificial gravity would be dependent 0:17:31.600 --> 0:17:34.560 upon the speed of rotation as well as how large 0:17:35.240 --> 0:17:40.240 the spacecraft was. Uh. There are some problems doing this, however, 0:17:40.359 --> 0:17:44.720 because the magnitude of centrifugal force depends partly upon the 0:17:44.800 --> 0:17:49.720 distance from that axis of rotation, and that would mean 0:17:49.800 --> 0:17:52.919 that our heads, which are clearly a little closer to 0:17:52.960 --> 0:17:56.800 the axis, would be experiencing a different amount of force 0:17:57.320 --> 0:18:00.560 than our feet would. So it would work from a 0:18:00.600 --> 0:18:03.720 physics standpoint, but you might not feel so great if 0:18:03.720 --> 0:18:06.960 you were to actually try it out in practice. The 0:18:07.119 --> 0:18:10.920 primary antagonist for two thousand one is an artificially intelligent 0:18:10.960 --> 0:18:14.480 computer system called How, which is everyone points out means 0:18:14.520 --> 0:18:18.920 that each letter is just off by one from IBM. 0:18:19.040 --> 0:18:22.440 Arthur C. Clarke, who wrote this, says that's a coincidence. 0:18:23.040 --> 0:18:28.080 The system develops its own motivation and experiences something akin 0:18:28.160 --> 0:18:31.280 to fear as it pleads with a character not to 0:18:31.480 --> 0:18:36.680 deactivate it. So How goes eighte and kills nearly all 0:18:36.720 --> 0:18:40.439 the crew before it is deactivated, But as it's being deactivated, 0:18:40.480 --> 0:18:43.720 it's it's essentially pleading for its own life. While the 0:18:43.760 --> 0:18:48.320 discipline of artificial intelligence has advanced dramatically since the nineteen sixties, 0:18:48.359 --> 0:18:50.520 you know, we are still as of yet not able 0:18:50.520 --> 0:18:53.399 to do anything close to what how could do, And 0:18:53.520 --> 0:18:57.000 there's an ongoing debate on whether things like consciousness and 0:18:57.040 --> 0:19:01.440 emotional motivation can even emerge out of technological systems, or 0:19:01.480 --> 0:19:04.480 if they can, what level of complexity we would first 0:19:04.560 --> 0:19:07.240 need to achieve in order for that to happen. There 0:19:07.240 --> 0:19:10.960 are other technologies in two thousand one that have come true. 0:19:11.440 --> 0:19:14.160 There's a sort of tablet computer device that you can 0:19:14.160 --> 0:19:17.159 see in a couple of scenes, and obviously that's a 0:19:17.200 --> 0:19:19.560 tech that we have today, though it would be a 0:19:19.600 --> 0:19:21.760 little bit after two thousand one before we got one 0:19:21.840 --> 0:19:24.760 that was really practical and you know, something that would 0:19:24.760 --> 0:19:29.240 work in the mainstream consumer market. Voice activation is in 0:19:29.280 --> 0:19:31.840 the movie. That's come a long way, and we've got 0:19:31.920 --> 0:19:34.560 numerous systems that work with that. Also, a lot of 0:19:34.600 --> 0:19:36.880 the stuff shown in two thousand one is pretty darn 0:19:36.960 --> 0:19:40.840 accurate from a technical perspective. For example, there's no sound 0:19:40.840 --> 0:19:43.440 in space, right because you don't have enough particles out 0:19:43.480 --> 0:19:47.560 there to allow vibrations to carry in space. So Kubrick 0:19:47.640 --> 0:19:51.720 made sure that shots that were in outer space, like 0:19:51.800 --> 0:19:54.760 in the exteriors, were silent. That was a good touch. 0:19:55.280 --> 0:19:58.040 When we come back, we'll continue our journey through futuristic 0:19:58.080 --> 0:20:01.439 stories that were off by us the hair. But first, 0:20:01.840 --> 0:20:11.760 let's listen to these messages, all right. Before the break, 0:20:11.760 --> 0:20:14.240 we talked about two thousand one, which is widely considered 0:20:14.280 --> 0:20:16.919 to be a cinematic masterpiece, and it's also a pretty 0:20:16.920 --> 0:20:19.760 divisive film. Some folks don't like it so much that 0:20:19.800 --> 0:20:22.680 I think it's a little boring, like watching paint dry. 0:20:23.160 --> 0:20:26.120 I might be in that camp. I appreciate the movie 0:20:26.160 --> 0:20:28.320 for what it is, but I do not find it 0:20:28.400 --> 0:20:30.840 very entertaining. I find it hard to stay awake watching it. 0:20:31.200 --> 0:20:33.800 That's on me, that's not on the movie anyway. Our 0:20:33.800 --> 0:20:36.720 next film is definitely not a classic. It's a movie 0:20:36.760 --> 0:20:39.879 that did not do well critically or commercially, and I 0:20:39.920 --> 0:20:43.879 am talking about Bicentennial Man. The film is about a 0:20:43.920 --> 0:20:47.440 household robot, one that is bipedal. It has a human 0:20:47.520 --> 0:20:51.760 like body, and over time, this robot develops emotions and 0:20:51.840 --> 0:20:54.160 motivations of its own. So it's kind of like How 0:20:54.400 --> 0:20:58.000 in that regard. Only while How became a homicidal maniac 0:20:58.080 --> 0:21:01.360 determined to complete a mission, the robot character of Andrew 0:21:01.440 --> 0:21:05.000 and Bicentennial Man becomes so sweet he'll end up giving 0:21:05.000 --> 0:21:10.119 you cavities. It's Robin Williams as schmaltziest. But if we 0:21:10.280 --> 0:21:13.600 distill the movie down to the basics, we could say 0:21:13.640 --> 0:21:17.760 that it's about a robot with artificial intelligence that gains sentience, 0:21:17.960 --> 0:21:22.480 self awareness, and consciousness. And then how would humanity perceive 0:21:22.760 --> 0:21:25.760 that kind of a machine. How would humans react? Would 0:21:25.760 --> 0:21:31.000 they extend the idea of personhood to encompass an artificial being, 0:21:31.440 --> 0:21:35.240 or would humans dismiss that as unthinkable and refuse to 0:21:35.280 --> 0:21:39.400 acknowledge that a robot's humanlike qualities make it a person. 0:21:40.040 --> 0:21:42.639 These are questions that folks are actually asking right now. 0:21:42.680 --> 0:21:45.520 I mean, in the EU, there are committees that are 0:21:45.600 --> 0:21:49.639 dedicated into looking into the idea of granting personhood for 0:21:49.800 --> 0:21:53.159 robots and artificial intelligence. Should they reach a level of 0:21:53.200 --> 0:21:57.760 sophistication that would necessitate such a thing. Bi Centennial Man 0:21:57.800 --> 0:22:00.439 starts off in two thousand five, and I'm sure I 0:22:00.480 --> 0:22:02.400 do not need to point out to you we did 0:22:02.440 --> 0:22:06.359 not get intelligent bipedal helper robots in two thousand five. 0:22:06.960 --> 0:22:09.520 We don't have them now, and there are lots of 0:22:09.520 --> 0:22:13.000 reasons for that will put the AI side apart because 0:22:13.119 --> 0:22:14.959 we already talked about that with how so there's no 0:22:15.040 --> 0:22:18.439 need to tread over that again. But let's talk about 0:22:18.560 --> 0:22:22.719 bipedal robots. So we don't have a ton of these because, 0:22:22.760 --> 0:22:26.080 as it turns out, it's very hard to engineer a 0:22:26.160 --> 0:22:30.360 bipedal robot. Getting the robot to move so that it's 0:22:30.400 --> 0:22:32.800 not you know, just falling all over the place is 0:22:32.840 --> 0:22:37.840 a non trivial problem. Balance is tough, maneuverability is tough. 0:22:38.280 --> 0:22:40.840 We do have some robots that are bipedal, and they 0:22:40.880 --> 0:22:45.280 are even some famous examples like Asimo, but um, you know, 0:22:45.359 --> 0:22:48.359 they they're still very limited. I mean, Asimo could actually run. 0:22:48.680 --> 0:22:50.320 It was a little hoppy run and made it look 0:22:50.359 --> 0:22:52.680 like Asimo really needed to get to the Little Robots 0:22:52.760 --> 0:22:57.840 Room pretty quickly, but it had its own limitations and restrictions. 0:22:57.840 --> 0:23:02.400 It was largely under you know, annual control or very 0:23:02.560 --> 0:23:06.359 very limited autonomous control. That's part of the reason we 0:23:06.440 --> 0:23:09.960 typically see robots that depend upon wheels or treads to 0:23:10.040 --> 0:23:13.840 move around because those components are far less complicated than 0:23:13.960 --> 0:23:17.840 legs from an engineering perspective, they work on a simpler principle, 0:23:18.200 --> 0:23:21.479 and they're easier to repair if things go wrong. If 0:23:21.520 --> 0:23:24.960 you're looking at ways to simplify your robot design, getting 0:23:25.040 --> 0:23:28.200 rid of legs is a no brainer. However, a lot 0:23:28.240 --> 0:23:32.040 of human environments work best if you have legs. By 0:23:32.040 --> 0:23:34.760 the way, this is a big problem, not just for robots. 0:23:34.800 --> 0:23:38.200 I'm talking about accessibility in general. It's why we have 0:23:38.359 --> 0:23:42.480 laws that are meant to guarantee accessibility, because otherwise people 0:23:42.480 --> 0:23:45.680 who depend upon tech like wheelchairs to get around would 0:23:45.720 --> 0:23:49.120 find themselves locked out of a lot of experiences. I mean, 0:23:49.160 --> 0:23:51.680 they already do, but it would be even worse. And 0:23:51.760 --> 0:23:55.080 while we've had some progress on making the world more accessible, 0:23:55.440 --> 0:23:58.879 the fact is that the default design choice tends to 0:23:58.960 --> 0:24:02.159 favor people who can walk around. The stairs are just 0:24:02.200 --> 0:24:07.200 a simple example of that. Well, that's a pretty tough 0:24:07.280 --> 0:24:11.439 challenge for robots to One of darpast robotics challenges was 0:24:11.520 --> 0:24:14.520 for groups to design a bipedal robot that could complete 0:24:14.520 --> 0:24:19.439 several tasks autonomously, including doing such things as operating a 0:24:19.520 --> 0:24:24.119 vehicle opening a door, walking through a doorway, picking up 0:24:24.119 --> 0:24:27.280