2020 Science in 2020
Andrew Maynard
The post 2020 Science in 2020 appeared first on 2020 SCIENCE ARCHIVE.
responsible innovation
Sci-fi movies are the secret weapon that could help Silicon Valley grow up
Andrew Maynard
If there’s one line that stands the test of time in Steven Spielberg’s 1993 classic “Jurassic Park,” it’s probably Jeff Goldblum’s exclamation, “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.” Goldblum’s character, Dr. Ian Malcolm, was...
Films from the Future: The Last Chapter
Andrew Maynard
Through this book, I’ve set out to show how science fiction movies can help point the way along this journey, flawed as they are. As I’ve been researching and writing it, I’ve developed a deeper appreciation of how the movies here can expand our appreciation of the complex relationship between...
Contact: Occam’s Razor and Films from the Future
Andrew Maynard
William of Occam was a fourteenth-century English philosopher, friar, and theologian. From historic accounts, he was sharp thinker, and a somewhat controversial religious figure in his time. Yet, these days, he is best known for the scientific rule of thumb that bears his name. The post Contact:...
The Honest Broker meets Dan Brown’s Inferno
Andrew Maynard
Each week between now and November 15th (publication day!) I’ll be posting excerpts from Films from the Future: The Technology and Morality of Sci-Fi Movies This week, it’s chapter eleven, and the movie Inferno. Inferno may seem like an odd choice of movie in a book about science fiction films...
Everything you wanted to know about the book “Films from the Future”, but were afraid to ask
Andrew Maynard
The post Everything you wanted to know about the book “Films from the Future”, but were afraid to ask appeared first on 2020 SCIENCE ARCHIVE.
A Nanoscale Perspective on The Man in the White Suit
Andrew Maynard
Each week between now and November 15th (publication day!) I’ll be posting excerpts from Films from the Future: The Technology and Morality of Sci-Fi Movies This week, it’s chapter ten, and the movie The Man in the White Suit. The Man in the White Suit is a 1951 Ealing Comedy that’s as dry as it...
Enter the Neo-Luddites: Transcendence, The Singularity, and Technological Resistance
Andrew Maynard
On January 15, 1813, fourteen men were hanged outside York Castle in England for crimes associated with technological activism. It was the largest number of people ever hanged in a single day at the castle. These hangings were a decisive move against an uprising protesting the impacts of increased...
Superintelligence: From Chapter Eight of Films from the Future
Andrew Maynard
In January 2017, a group of experts from around the world got together to hash out guidelines for beneficial artificial intelligence research and development. The meeting was held at the Asilomar Conference Center in California, the same venue where, in 1975, a group of scientists famously...
Being Human in an Augmented Future (From chapter seven of Films from the Future)
Andrew Maynard
The forthcoming book Films from the Future: The Technology and Morality of Sci-Fi Movies explores the complex dynamics between emerging technologies and society through twelve science fiction movies. This excerpt comes from the chapter on the 1995 Japanese Anime movie Ghost in the Shell. Through a...
Social inequity in an age of technological extremes (from chapter six of Films from the Future)
Andrew Maynard
On September 17, 2011, a small group of social activists occupied Zuccotti Park in New York City. The occupation became the spearhead for the global “Occupy” movement, protesting a growing disparity between “haves” and “have-nots” within society. Two years later, the movie Elysium built on this...
Limitless: Pharmaceutically-Enhanced Intelligence (from chapter 5 of Films from the Future)
Andrew Maynard
In2004, the academic and medical doctor Anjan Chatterjee wrote a review of what he termed “Cosmetic Neurology.” He was far from the first person to write about the emergence and ethics of cognitive enhancers, but the piece caught my attention because of its unusual title... The post Limitless:...
Minority Report: Predicting Criminal Intent (From chapter four of Films from the Future)
Andrew Maynard
There’s something quite enticing about the idea of predicting how people will behave in a given situation. It’s what lies beneath personality profiling and theories of preferred team roles. But it also extends to trying to predict when people will behave badly, and taking steps to prevent this......
Never Let Me Go: A Cautionary Tale of Human Cloning (from chapter three of Films from the Future)
Andrew Maynard
In 2002, the birth of the first human clone was announced. Baby Eve was born on December 26, 2002, and weighed seven pounds. Or so it was claimed. The announcement attracted media attention from around the world, and spawned story after story of the birth. Since then, no proof has emerged that...
Jurassic Park: The Rise of Resurrection Biology (from chapter two of Films from the Future)
Andrew Maynard
I was a newly minted Ph.D. when I first saw Jurassic Park. It was June 1993, and my wife and I were beginning to enjoy our new-found 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...
In the Beginning … Chapter One of “Films from the Future”
Andrew Maynard
I first saw Stanley Kubrick’s 2001 A Space Odyssey on a small black and white TV, tucked in a corner of my parents’ living room. It was January the first 1982, and I was sixteen years old... The post In the Beginning … Chapter One of “Films from the Future” appeared first on 2020 SCIENCE...
Excerpts from Films from the Future
Andrew Maynard
Over the next several weeks, I’ll be posting short excerpts from Films from the Future: The Technology and Morality of Sci-Fi Movies ahead of the book’s publication on November 15 — visit regularly to read the latest, and remember that you can pre-order the book now on Amazon! Schedule: August 23....
Book update: New title, Amazon Listing, Publication Date, Contents, and more …
Andrew Maynard
After a hectic summer of writing and editing, I’m pleased (if a little frazzled) to report that the book formerly known as “The Moviegoer’s Guide to the Future” is on schedule to be published mid-November of this year. Just to whet your appetite, here’s a quick update on where things stand: What’s...
Nootropics
Andrew Maynard
Excerpted from a early draft of Films from the Future: The Technology and Morality of Sci-Fi Movies (out November 2018); inspired by the movie Limitless. In 2004, the academic and medical doctor Anjan Chatterjee wrote a review of what he termed “Cosmetic Neurology”.[1] He was far from the first...
The “Science” of Predicting Bad Behavior
Andrew Maynard
Excerpted from a early draft of The Moviegoer’s Guide to the Future; inspired by the movie Minority Report. In March 2017, the British newspaper The Guardian ran a web-story with the headline “Brain scans can spot criminals, scientists say”.[1] Unlike in Minority Report, the scanning was carried...
I just signed a book deal – The Moviegoer’s Guide to the Future’s happening!
Andrew Maynard
The big news is that I’ve just signed a book deal with the publisher Mango! The working title for the book is The Moviegoer’s Guide to the Future (Update: the final title is Films from the Future: The Technology and Morality of Sci-Fi Movies), and it’s going to be a roller coaster ride through...
After Tempe fatality, self-driving car developers must engage with public now or risk rejection
Andrew Maynard
Andrew Maynard, Arizona State University; Jameson Wetmore, Arizona State University, and Thaddeus R. Miller, Arizona State University On Sunday evening, March 18, an Uber SUV hit and killed a pedestrian in the Arizona city of Tempe. In a place where vehicle-related pedestrian fatalities are...
What is the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and why should you care?
Andrew Maynard
We have a new video up on the YouTube Risk Bites channel that asks what the fourth industrial revolution is, and looks at the technological trends underpinning it. If you’ve ever wondered what the fourth industrial revolution is, why it’s so important, what whatever happened to the previous three,...
Dear Elon Musk: Your dazzling Mars plan overlooks some big nontechnical hurdles
Andrew Maynard
Elon Musk has a plan, and it’s about as audacious as they come. Not content with living on our pale blue dot, Musk and his company SpaceX want to colonize Mars, fast. They say they’ll send a duo of supply ships to the red planet within five years. By 2024, they’re aiming to send the […] The post...
Will driving your own car one day be as socially unacceptable as smoking in public?
Andrew Maynard
In 2014, over 32,000 people were killed in car crashes in the U.S. In 2012, more than two million Americans visited the emergency room as a result of car crashes. And an estimated 94 percent of the crashes that cause these injuries and fatalities are attributable to human choice or error. These...
Taking on the complex ethics of emerging brain technologies
Andrew Maynard
Imagine infusing thousands of wireless devices into your brain, and using them to both monitor its activity and directly influence its actions. It sounds like the stuff of science fiction, and for the moment it still is – but possibly not for long. Brain research is on a roll at the moment. And as...
Elon Musk’s new master plan will take more than advanced tech to pull off
Andrew Maynard
Elon Musk – CEO of Tesla Motors – has just revealed the second part of his master plan for the company. And it’s a doozy. Not content with producing sleek electric cars (which to be fair, was only ever a stepping stone to greater things), Musk wants to fundamentally change how we live our lives....
How risky are the World Economic Forum’s top 10 emerging technologies for 2016?
Andrew Maynard
Take an advanced technology. Add a twist of fantasy. Stir well, and watch the action unfold. It’s the perfect recipe for a Hollywood tech-disaster blockbuster. And clichéd as it is, it’s the scenario that we too often imagine for emerging technologies. Think superintelligent machines, lab-bred...
Nanoparticles in baby formula: should parents be worried?
Andrew Maynard
There’s a lot of stuff you’d expect to find in baby formula: proteins, carbs, vitamins, essential minerals. But parents probably wouldn’t anticipate finding extremely small, needle-like particles. Yet this is exactly what a team of scientists here at Arizona State University recently discovered....
Public universities must do more: the public needs our help and expertise
Andrew Maynard
The water crisis in Flint, Michigan, has been in the national headlines for months, culminating in its central role at a recent debate in the city when Democratic presidential hopefuls Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton slammed government officials for dismissing the health of residents. Sadly,...
What if we approached risk like entrepreneurs approach innovation?
Andrew Maynard
If you’ve been following this month’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES), you’ll know with absolute certainty that the future is cool, shiny and stuffed to the brim with “must-have” gadgets. Reading the ebullient reports, you’d be hard-pressed to find anything other than overflowing optimism for how...
If Elon Musk is a Luddite, count me in!
Andrew Maynard
On December 21, the company SpaceX made history by successfully launching a rocket and returning it to a safe landing on Earth. It’s also the day that SpaceX founder Elon Musk was nominated for a Luddite Award. It’s an odd juxtaposition, to say the least. The post If Elon Musk is a Luddite, count...
Making sense of gene drives and gene editing
Andrew Maynard
Gene editing and gene drives are rapidly emerging as the disruptive technologies du jour. But what are they, what can they do, and why should you care? Just last week, research was published that took us a step closer to being able to re-engineer whole species by driving specific genes through...
New report on sustainable hydraulic fracking
Andrew Maynard
Back in 2011 – while I was Director of the University of Michigan Risk Science Center – I was part of a larger team exploring the possibility of conducting a full-blown assessment of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) possibilities and pitfalls in Michigan. We were interested in applying the...
The Poetry of Innovating Responsibly
Andrew Maynard
What have technology innovation, haiku, and this summer's blockbuster-in-waiting Jurassic World got in common? The answer: a short book of haiku on responsible technological innovation that a group of colleagues helped put together last summer. The post The Poetry of Innovating Responsibly...
Responsible Innovation, and the (nano) entrepreneur’s dilemma
Andrew Maynard
Responsible innovation is a great concept - it embodies ideas around ensuring our inventiveness works for the long term good of society, without inadvertently throwing up more problems than it solves. But to entrepreneurs and others trying to make ends meet while launching a new product or idea,...
Responsible development of new technologies critical in complex, connected world
Andrew Maynard
The World Economic Forum's 2015 top 10 emerging technologies reflect the tremendous potential of technology innovation. Yet to build a resilient tech-based future, we need new ideas, new research and new tools that will enable us to realize the benefits of technology innovation, while keeping us...
Emerging technologies must be developed responsibly
Andrew Maynard
From smart phones to cancer cures, we depend on technology innovation more now than at any point in human history. Yet in a cruel twist of irony, emerging technologies that could help improve lives and protect the environment may ultimately end up doing more harm than good. That is, unless new...