It’s a situation that may make Tesla’s CEO, Elon Musk, shudder: a future the place self-driving vehicles are the norm however a catastrophic digital breakdown traps 1000’s of individuals inside them.
This dystopian imaginative and prescient of the longer term was one sketched out by science fiction writers at an occasion this week the place specialists have been requested to arrange Britain for threats starting from pandemics to cyber and nuclear assaults.
The writers joined researchers and policymakers working in disaster administration and resilience on the gathering organised by RBOC (Resilience Past Noticed Capabilities), a community of teachers whose funders embody the Ministry of Defence (MoD).
Emma Newman, a sci-fi novelist who was on the occasion, stated: “Taking a really character-based method may help reveal points of future situations that you simply won’t essentially get from a extra pulled-out method.”
Newman, who was shortlisted for the Arthur C Clarke award in 2017 together with her novel After Atlas, emphasised the worth of with the ability to think about particular person experiences in future situations.
“So when the ability goes out for the primary hour from, say, an electro-magnetic pulse incident, it means somebody won’t be capable of make a cup of tea, however for others it’s about very important medical gear,” she stated.
“However then let’s consider a society in 2050 the place you simply have self-driving vehicles. What when you out of the blue find yourself in a state of affairs the place there are literally thousands of these individuals trapped of their vehicles?”
The occasion was the most recent instance of the talents and data of sci-fi writers being introduced in to assist with planning for the worst.
Allen Stroud, a Coventry College lecturer and chair of the British Science Fiction Affiliation (BSFA), who has additionally labored on dystopian-themed video video games, stated: “The science fiction neighborhood desires to be a part of the dialog and it has a task to play.”
Stroud just lately took a number one position in Inventive Futures, a analysis partnership involving outstanding science fiction writers and MoD specialists wanting on the challenges the UK will face within the subsequent century. There are plans to provide and promote a quantity of tales from that undertaking.
Final 12 months, as a part of a unique undertaking, the MoD printed on its web site an anthology of technological-themed tales by British sci-fi writers who sketched out situations corresponding to British troops being decimated by obvious Russian adversaries with superior AI and quantum know-how.
The concepts of sci-fi writers have lengthy been taken severely within the US, the place the novelists Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle have been amongst those that efficiently lobbied Ronald Reagan to create the proposed missile defence system referred to as the Strategic Protection Initiative (SDI), or the “Star Wars” programme.
After the 11 September assaults, the US navy solicited concepts from Hollywood screenwriters about what the longer term would possibly maintain. Final 12 months, Nato marked its seventy fifth anniversary with the publication of the Nato 2099 graphic novel, which takes place in a world experiencing devastating maritime assaults all through the 2050s.
Stroud, whose work has included guidebooks that inform the fictional narrative within the Elite Harmful on-line sport, conceded that working with authorities businesses had prompted unease on the a part of some sci-fi writers.
“This did come up in among the preliminary discussions we had within the BSFA and I do know there have actually additionally been ideas inside the sci-fi neighborhood the place there may be an comprehensible moral objection,” he stated.
“On the identical time, within the conversations we have now had with representatives of the MoD, it has been stated that this isn’t about new weapons. It may be about issues corresponding to preparing for one thing like useful resource shortages, or planning the place an plane provider with humanitarian help might be despatched.”
Stroud stated challenges regarding future vitality provide was one of many areas he believed was worthy of extra scrutiny.
“We work and reside in societies revolving round a western governmental mind-set that encourages us to have short-term pondering, however how do you intend for one thing that’s going to take 50 years at the very least earlier than it materialises?,” he stated.
“That’s the place I believe there’s a profit in having the involvement of people that can conceptualise what society might be like as far sooner or later as that.”
