Science Fiction Prototyping. Brian David Johnson

      The future is Brian David Johnson’s business. As a futurist at Intel Corporation, his charter is to develop an actionable vision for computing in 2021. His work is called “future casting”—using ethnographic field studies, technology research, trend data, and even science fiction to create a pragmatic vision of consumers and computing. Johnson has been pioneering development in artificial intelligence, robotics, and reinventing TV. He speaks and writes extensively about future technologies in articles and scientific papers as well as science fiction short stories and novels (Fake Plastic Love and Screen Future: The Future of Entertainment, Computing and the Devices We Love). He has directed two feature films and is an illustrator and commissioned painter.

       KEYWORDS

      science fiction, futurism and future casting, user centered design, scenario planning, innovation, technology development and strategy, ethical implications of technology, research and development, human computer interaction, robotics and ai

Preface

      Science fiction is the playground of your imagination. If you are interested in science or fascinated with the future then science fiction is where you can explore new ideas and let your dreams and nightmares duke it out on the safety of the page or screen. But what if we could use science fiction to do more than that? What if we could use science fiction based on science fact to not only imagine our future but develop new technologies and products? What if we could use stories, movies and comics as a kind of tool to explore the real world implications and uses of future technologies today?

      This book is about science fiction prototypes (SF prototypes). SF prototypes are short stories, movies and comics that are created based on real science and technology. This is not a new idea, for over 100 years artists have been created fiction based on fact. What makes SF prototypes different is that they use these fictional creations explicitly as a step or input in the development process. Whether you’re a designer, engineer, scientist, artist, student or strategic planner SF prototypes offer a way to imagine and envision the future on a whole new way.

      I’m excited and honored that this book starts off with a Foreword from James Frenkel. If you wander down the aisles of any science fiction section or web site and scan the titles of the books you’ll see a great many titles that have been touched by Frenkel but you’d never know it. James Frenkel is a senior editor at Tom Doherty Associates or as it’s known to most SF geeks: Tor. Frenkel has shepherded and edited some of the greatest science fiction books and authors of the last thirty years. Now you may not be a SF fan but if you are you’ll recognize names like Vernor Vinge, Joan D. Vinge, and Frederik Pohl, Andre Norton, Loren D. Estleman, Dan Simmons, Jack Williamson, Timothy Zahn, Marie Jakober and Greg Bear. And if you’re not a SF fan then I’d recommend you start with any one of these legendary authors.

      But beyond his talent as an editor, Frenkel’s brain is a treasure trove of information, history and very strong opinions about all things science fiction. Every time I talk with him I’m amazed with his exhaustive knowledge of the people, stories and ideas that intermingle in the genre. He can draw from an early short story of Frederick Pohl in a discussion about human to robot interaction or use the best selling writing of Vernor Vinge to argue with you about the future of computing. He was the driving force and editor on the 2001 non-fiction collection True Names: And the Opening of the Cyberspace Frontier, proving that Frenkel is just as adept at exploring science fact as he is editing science fiction. In this book, we are going to explore short stories (Chapter 4), movies (Chapter 5) and comic books (Chapter 6) as different kinds of SF prototypes and how to build them. This book is much more of a “how to” book than a scholarly framework for design, research or engineering. Because the practice of SF prototyping is relatively new and is just beginning to be used in companies and taught at universities, we do not have the hard data and factual results needed to document the effect of SF prototyping on traditional design and engineering tasks. Never fear, this work is being done, but for the time being, we are more concerned about giving people a little background and grounding then getting them out there creating. Chapter 3 gives you a quick five-step process to beginning to build an outline for an SF prototype.

      Throughout the book we are going to have a few conversations with some experts who have some interesting ideas about the intersection of science and fiction. We will talk about some history and look at examples of how people are envisioning the future. Science fiction writer and activist Cory Doctorow, talks to us about the history and power of science fiction and also how he puts together his highly popular short stories. Physicist, Emory University professor and writer, Sidney Perkowitz, discusses science and the movies. Sidney is an expert on Hollywood science, and we explore the science and message of Moon, the 2009 science fiction movie directed by Duncan Jones and starring Sam Rockwell. Finally, we talk about comics with a senior editor at the legendary Dark Horse Comics, Chris Warner. Chris has spent his life in the comic book industry, and we discover that comics might just be the best way to combine science fiction and science fact.

      Throughout the book, we pull from a wide variety of other books, movies and articles, with the idea that if you see something you like or you find a bit of advice helpful, then you should seek out that book or author and dig in.

      Finally, Chapter 7 looks at some concrete examples