emerging technologies. Watching them with an open mind and a critical eye can reveal subtle connections between irresponsible innovation and threats to what people value or aspire to, which in turn have profound implications for society more broadly. And this is where their creativity and imagination have the power to lift us out of the rut of conventional thinking, and allow us to see opportunities and dangers that extend beyond the world of make-believe and into the technological future we are striving to create.
In other words, I’m a sucker for using the imagination in science fiction movies to stimulate new ways of thinking about risk, and in turn, new ways of thinking about socially responsive and responsible innovation. But there’s another aspect to these movies that also gets me excited, and that’s their ability to break down the barriers between “experts” and “non-experts” and open the door to everyone getting involved in talking about where technology innovation is taking us, and what we want from it.
A Common Point of Focus
I was recently invited to a meeting convened by the World Economic Forum, where I was asked to moderate a discussion about how governments, businesses, and others can respond to the potential risks presented by new technologies. Much of our discussion was around regulations and policies, and what governments and companies can do to nip problems in the bud without creating unnecessary roadblocks. But one question kept recurring: How can we ensure the safe and beneficial development of new technologies in a world that is so deeply and divisively divided along ideological lines?
To my surprise, one of the participants suggested something that didn’t involve politics, regulations, or more effective education: art.
Naturally, we still need technical experts, laws, and policies if we’re going to get new technologies right. But the question that was put forward was an intriguing complement to these: Can we use art (including all forms of creative expression) to pull people out of their entrenched ideas and get them thinking and talking about how they can work together to build the future they want? Obviously, we’re never going to reach world peace and prosperity by insisting everyone contemplate Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa or one of Damien Hirst’s pickled cows.4 Yet art provides a common point of focus that allows people to express their ideas, thoughts, and opinions, while being open to those of others. And it allows the possibility of being able to do this without slipping into ideological ruts. Art, in all its forms, is a medium that can mitigate our tendency to close down our imagination (together with our humility and empathy), and it’s one that opens us up to seeing the world in new and interesting ways. In this context, science fiction movies are, without a doubt, a legitimate form of art, and one that has the power to bring people together in imagining how to collectively create a future that is good for society, rather than a dystopian mess—as long as that imagination is grounded in reality where it matters.
This isn’t to say that technical education and skills aren’t important—they most certainly are. Developing technologies that work and are safe demands incredible technical skills, and it would be naïve and irresponsible to discount this. No matter how inclusive we want to be, we can’t expect a random person plucked from the street to have the skills necessary to genetically engineer organisms safely, or to design aircraft that don’t fall out of the sky. That would be crazy. But one thing we’re all qualified to do is think about what the possible consequences of technology innovation might mean to us and the people we care for. And here, pretty much everyone has something to contribute to the socially responsible and responsive development of new technologies.
This is something that I hope will become increasingly clear through the remainder of this book. But before we dive into the movies themselves, I do need to say something about spoilers.
Spoiler Alert
This is a book that contains spoilers. You have been warned. It’s not a book to read if you’re one of those people who can’t stand to know what happens before you watch a movie. But I can guarantee that if you read the book before seeing the movies, your experience will be all the richer for it. Even if you’re familiar with the movies, you’ll see them through new eyes after reading the book. And if you decide not to watch the movies at all, that’s okay as well. Certainly, the movies are engaging and entertaining, but at the end of the day, it’s the technologies that are the stars here.
Each chapter starts with a brief overview of the movie it’s built around. This is partly to orient you if you haven’t seen the movie, or you aren’t particularly interested in watching it—although I’d hope that, after reading the chapter, you head out to your preferred streaming service to get the full effect. But it’s also to help set the scene for what’s to come. If you know these movies well, you’ll realize that the summaries are idiosyncratic, to say the least. They let you know what I think is interesting and relevant about each film, what grabs my attention when watching them and makes me think. But they don’t give everything away. In fact, I’d hope that, watching any of the movies after reading the book, you’d still be surprised and delighted by unexpected plot twists and turns.
With that said, it’s time to start the journey, starting with genetic engineering, resurrection biology, and the folly of entrepreneurial arrogance that is so adeptly captured by Stephen Spielberg’s original Jurassic Park. So buckle up, hang on, and enjoy the ride!
Jurassic Park: The Rise of Resurrection Biology
“God help us, we’re in the hands of engineers!”
—Dr. Ian Malcolm
When Dinosaurs Ruled the World
I was a newly minted PhD when I first saw Jurassic Park. It was June 1993, and my wife and I were beginning to enjoy our newfound freedom, after years of too much study and too little money. I must confess that we weren’t dinosaur geeks. But there was something about the hype surrounding the movie that hooked us. Plus, we fancied a night out.
That summer, dinosaurs ruled the world. Wherever you looked, there were dinosaurs. Dinosaur books, dinosaur parks, dinosaurs on TV, dinosaur-obsessed kids. Jurassic Park seemingly tapped into a dinosaur-obsessed seam buried deep within the human psyche. This was helped along, of course, by the groundbreaking special effects the movie pioneered. Even now, there’s a visceral realism to the blended physical models and computer-generated images that brings these near-mythical creatures to life in the movie.
This is a large part of the appeal of Jurassic Park. There’s something awe-inspiring—awe-full in the true sense of the word—about these “terrible lizards” that lived millions of years ago, and that are utterly alien to today’s world. This sense of awe runs deep through the movie. Listening to John Williams’ triumphant theme music, it doesn’t take much to realize that under the gloss of danger and horror, Jurassic Park is at heart a celebration of the might and majesty of the natural world.
Jurassic Park is unabashedly a movie about dinosaurs. But it’s also a movie about greed, ambition, genetic engineering, and human folly—all rich pickings for thinking about the future, and what could possibly go wrong.
Jurassic Park opens at a scientific dig in Montana, where paleontologists Alan Grant (played by Sam Neill) and Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) are leading a team excavating dinosaur fossils. Just as the team discovers the fossilized skeleton of a velociraptor, a dinosaur that Grant is particularly enamored with, the dig is interrupted by the charming, mega-rich, and, as it turns out, rather manipulative John Hammond (Richard Attenborough). As well as being founder of International Genetic Technologies Incorporated (InGen for short), Hammond has also been backstopping Grant and Sattler’s digs. On arriving,
