WOPR and playing games, the film cuts between the ominous blinking activity lights on WOPR and David playing war games with Joshua. Staring at those lights in the midst of the action, I wanted to know what was going on inside the computer. I tried to imagine how the computer worked. I wanted to know how an AI that complex could be built. How did you program such a thing? With my heart racing, I imagined how to do it. I could envision what was going on inside the big box with the silly name on the side.
I was already a geek before I saw WarGames, but the movie showed me that computers could be exciting. For me, the computer, Joshua, was the hero of the movie. I did not really care what happened to David. To me, WarGames was exciting because for the first time I imagined how to build something that I could not see. My mind literally opened up in that dark theater. I know now that I was thinking through high level system architectures, software stacks and network diagrams. The images of the WOPR and the AI were complex and intriguing, and if I used imagination and what I knew about computers, I could see how you might build it.
The most famous line from the movie is when the AI Joshua asks David, “Shall we play a game?” the words crudely vocalized through a make-believe voice synthesizer. But those words “Shall we play a game?” captured everything that was exciting and amazing about the movie.
Yes! I wanted to play a game. And I have been working with science and imaging technology ever since.
WarGames AS AN SF PROTOTYPE
In 1983, WarGames was a thriller of near-term science fiction. The writers, Lawrence Lasker and Walter F. Parkes, with the help of Peter Schwartz from the Stanford Research Institute, combined the capabilities of a new kind of personal computer with the threat of a nuclear war brought on by over-automation. When you think about it that way, WarGames is a kind of science fiction (SF) prototype.
What is a science fiction prototype? Stated simply, it is a short story, movie or comic based specifically on a science fact for the purpose of exploring the implications, effects and ramifications of that science or technology (we’ll get into the details of SF prototypes and prototypes in general in Chapter 2). WarGames imagines what could happen if a computer was given control over the U.S. government’s missile defense system, and something went terribly wrong.
Of course in the movie, the terribly wrong things are that David stumbles onto Joshua, the AI, and the two begin playing war games, not knowing that the games are being played out in real life.
I think what captivated me at 11 was that the movie allowed me to imagine the implications of a future that seemed very real. I knew enough about computers to know that this could possibly happen but what really captivated me was imagining how it could possibly happen.
The goal of SF prototypes is to start a conversation about technology and the future. This is incredibly important because the future is not set. The effects of science and technology are not a predetermined thing of nature. The future is made everyday by the action of people. We control our own future. It is precisely because of this that we must talk about the future we want to live in and explore the various futures we must avoid. Science fiction gives us a language so that we can have a conversation about the future. SF prototypes are tools to develop that language. The stories, movies and comics that we make can get researchers, designers, scientists, engineers, professors, politicians, philosophers and just everyday average people thinking about science in a new and creative way by using science fueled stories that capture our imaginations. SF prototypes let us imagine the future, to think through the ethical implications of technologies, play with possible benefits, explore possible tragedies and ultimately engage in a deeper conversation about science, technology and our future.
THE FUTURE IS IN YOUR HANDS
I am a futurist at the Intel Corporation. My brother says that if I were a character in a science fiction movie, when I came onto the screen and announced that I was a futurist from the Intel Corporation, pretty much everyone in the audience would assume that I was evil. That I was the villain! But I am not really that kind of futurist. My type of futurism is very pragmatic and realistic. It is my job to envision how people will use computers and intelligent devices in the future. I am writing this in 2011, it is my job to develop a practical vision for computers and gadgets in the year 2020 and beyond.
Now most of this work is not as exciting as it sounds. To have a vision for computing in 2020, you need to have a vision for what the world will actually look like in 2020. This involves a lot of research profiles, government reports, projections, market analysis, studies and a mass of data about where our world economies, environment and infrastructure are headed. The biggest let down about the year 2020 is that is looks a lot like 2010. Just like 2010 looked a lot like 2000 in many ways. But there are some bright spots, some cool new gadgets, some nearly magic technologies and some things that could change how we live, work and have fun.
Now future casting may sound like science fiction but it is not. It is actually very pragmatic. Intel makes microprocessors, Chips, the brains inside your computer. To design, build and produce a microprocessor take about 5 to 10 years. What that means is that today, in 2011, we have to have a pretty good idea of what people will want to be doing in 2017. We are building that 2017 chip today. I actually had a meeting about it this afternoon.
Future casting is not about predicting the future. Like I said before, the future is not set, we build our future everyday by the decisions we make and the things we do. Because of this, it is really impossible and useless to try and predict the future. Future casting is a process that we use to develop a vision for the future. We pull together trends, global projections and technology development into this vision and then iterate it over time. The future is always in motion, so we have to keep moving as well, adjusting to innovation and changes in culture. The key to this process is to make things, develop prototypes and generally just create stuff that expresses the future as we currently see it. Then, we share these artifacts with people to start or continue the conversation about where we are headed. Often, the things that we create are complex data models that we can analyze and discuss, but just as often, these prototypes are science fiction stories, movies and comics.
SF prototyping is an important part of future casting. We use these prototypes to envision technologies in the lives of real people all over the world. SF prototyping allows us to explore and iterate how technology can shape and be shaped by the people who use it. To date, probably the most public example of how we have used SF prototyping at Intel is The Tomorrow Project. In Germany, in 2010, we published Uber Morgen, roughly translated, it means “the day after tomorrow.” The English language version of the work was called The Tomorrow Project (http://newsroom.intel.com/docs/DOC-1490).
The Tomorrow Project is a short story anthology of four works by world renowned science fiction authors and futurists. To produce the stories, we gave them access to the technology development work we are doing in Intel’s labs. Our engineers showed them the work we are doing in robotics (robot assistants for interior spaces where people live or work), telematics (making road transportation more intelligent; cars, trucks, buses, street signs that could be equipped with IT systems to communicate and reduce congestion), photonics (transferring massive amounts of data using light), dynamic physical rendering (using intelligent material consisting of thousands of tiny robots to collectively facilitate telepresence, teleoperation and distributed sensing) and finally, the fascinating intelligent devices (devices equipped with sensors to analyze environmental pollution as well as a personal health and emotions, allowing people to interact with devices using gestures and even just their thoughts).
What was striking about each story was that even though they are all science fiction stories, they
