Guardian:  The AI future is too scary even for James Cameron. Where can the Terminator franchise go from here?

“I’m at a point right now where I have a hard time writing science-fiction,” Cameron told CNN this week. “I’m tasked with writing a new Terminator story [but] I don’t know what to say that won’t be overtaken by real events. We are living in a science-fiction age right now.”

Speculating about the future or writing science fiction is difficult now because there aren’t any recent game-changer scientific advances or technological developments.  Much of that happened in the 20th century.  For the last few decades, we have been making incremental progress.

Around the time of the Civil War, breechloading firearms with rifled barrels were developed.  When Jules Verne published, From the Earth to the Moon, in 1865, the spacecraft was fired out of a long barrel.  NASA and modern spaceflight were built upon the work of Werner Von Braun and the Nazi V-2 rockets of World War II.   Space exploration in movies, like 2001:  A Space Odyssey, in 1968 were based on what rockets might be able to accomplish.

In 1943, the British built what some consider to be the first programmable, electronic, digital computer.  Colossus used vacuum tubes, and was programmed with plugs and switches, but it’s potential was significant enough that it remained top secret for decades.  In 1970, Colossus:  The Forbin Project, explored the ramifications of artificial intelligence.

The original Star Trek, in 1967, assumed personal communicators, talking computers and artificial intelligence.  They also had faster-than-light travel, inertial dampers and matter teleportation.

Aviation, computers, radio communication and rocketry were understood and in use, a half-century ago.  Faster-than-light travel, time travel and teleportation haven’t advanced at all, and are essentially fantasy.

The 20th century was the century of physics.  We are getting more technological advances, but it’s all based on old science.  I expect that the 21st century will belong to biology.  We are a quarter of the way through, and what have we got?  Covid brought mRNA vaccines to everyone, and that’s something.  CRISPR and genetic engineering show promise. 

Physics and engineering will bring more technology as our instruments and manufacturing improve, but speculation in those fields can quickly be overcome by events, as James Cameron addresses in the article.  Biologic advances aren’t as dramatic or visually impressive.

Science fiction authors have a difficult challenge.  I wish them well.