Christian Gülich

Science or Fiction?

Speech for the First Hanseatic Toastmasters in December 2003

Science Fiction: does it tend to be science or will it remain fiction ? In my speech I would like to show one possible answer to this question by illustrating a future technological development, which is described by two authors in a very different way.

First I would like to talk about Ray Bradbury, who had already published at the beginning of the 1950s a book The Illustrated Man, which is a collection of science fiction short stories. In one of these short stories (The Veldt) he describes the new house of a family, a so called Happy Life Home, which is full of electronics and has one very particular room. In the room for the children the walls are furnished in a very specific way: the walls are not only walls, but they can be activated as huge flat screens in order to show films. But this is - of course - not enough: there is even the possibility that the spectators can influence the story of a film by intervening themselves, taking an active role in the film itself, so that they are spectators and actors at the same time. In the beginning the two children (a boy and a girl, both about 10 years old) are very happy with this "toy", but after a while the parents notice a certain change in the behaviour of their children. The children disappear in the room for a very long time, they do not play with other children anymore, besides they become more and more insolent and even aggressive. The parents then ask a psychologist, and he gives advice to close the room for ever. When the children learn this decision of their parents, they scream and try to protest, but the parents do not change their mind. Some days later the children make their parents enter the room and suddenly the parents notice that they are alone in the room, the door for the way out is closed. The landscape that they see is not the expected one like at home, but a hot and dry savannah in Africa, on the horizon some elephants and antelopes etc. Then they see the lions, which have already observed them and which are coming nearer and nearer... I will not tell now exactly how story ends, but it is very tragic and without any hope.

In my opinion in this short story, Bradbury, already at a very early moment, tried to give a warning against the dangers of a society, which leaves the education of children in the hands of television and of an automatized toy world in general. He tried to show with this dramatic and even horrifying end, what may happen, if we manipulate a given technique and then loose control.

The technique, which had been described by Bradbury, was what today we call the interactive television or the interactive games - in this story of course brought to a purely fictional development. Now half a century later we can see more clearly, which technological developments have a certain probability to be realized in the future. This is shown by the Japanese physicist Michio Kaku, who published in 1997 the study Visions. How Science will revolutionize the 21st century. Kaku explains from a scientific point of view, which technological developments - especially in informatics and in genetics - can be expected in ten, twenty or even fifty years. Concerning the computer networks he shows the possibilities of so called intelligent environments like cars, clothes, flats, houses, robots etc. Especially the furniture of a flat will completely change by the influence of several techniques: the digital melting of television and internet, the development of huge flat LCD-screens, the digital voice recognition and a higher development of the AI - Artificial Intelligence. He then gives a comic example, how a flat will work in the year 2020:

In the morning you will wake up by a soft music you have already selected. You will look at the wall of your bedroom, there will be a very nice picture of a seaside, but then it will change and a friendly face, to which you have given the name Molly, will appear and tell you: “Sorry, but now you have to get up!” Meanwhile in the kitchen the coffee will be boiling. Then you will enter the living-room: Molly will appear again and ask, if you are ready to read your personal daily newspaper (collected each morning from your favourite websites). Besides Molly will remind you that later you will have a professional appointment outside of the town, but there is a terrible traffic jam and Molly will show you some alternative to go there. In the evening after work, you will tell Molly that you would like to talk to a friend. After having made the connection, the face of your friend will appear at the wall. Because you have decided to go to the cinema with your friend at the week-end, you will tell Molly afterwards to find out, in which cinema the chosen film will be shown and to make a reservation. Kaku gives a lot of other examples for shopping, banking, asking for medical advice etc., which all will be executed by your personal digital agent in your flat.

As a conclusion I would like to add: I hope it has become clear that both authors develop a kind of prophecy, but in a very different way. Kaku only explains what from a scientific point of view has a rather high probability to be realized in the near or not so far future. On the contrary Bradbury does not ask, if the technological developments he describes may one day become reality or not, and in this sense his novel is purely fictional. But sometimes the warnings deriving from fiction can help science to understand the possible dangers of a future technological development.

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