How many Sci-fi novels will become Fact ?
Between the 1910's and 1990's dozens of Fantasy, and Sci-Fi novels were written, and have had plot points that have since been proven true.
Let's start with some basic John Carpenter, and no I'm not talking about Vampires, yet. No instead we will take a look at his “Escape” series, with a main character played by Kurt Russell, named “Snake Plissken.”
In both of these movies, the Cities have become absolute lawless hellscapes so they were in turn converted to penal colonies. The second in the series, Escape from L.A. even features Bruce Campbell as the Misshapen, overly modified Surgeon General, who becomes a cult leader over a group of patients who are dependant on him for constant surgical reconstructions.
There are also the South American gangs in Escape from LA, that have taken over and their plan to collapse the remainder of America still holding law and order is the plot. This is to be done by crippling the digital communications network, throwing the civilized world back into darkness and chaos without digital contact.
Lawless hellscapes, Check.
South American Gang takeover, Check.
Then there are the Novels “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley, and 1984 by George Orwell, where large portions of them have slowly come into fruition. The A.I. that runs everything in Brave new world for instance, and the fact that family, and privacy have been outlawed. This is slowly becoming more real by the day, but when it was written, computers and cellular phones were not even conceptual. For those of you with to little patience to read an old novel, I highly suggest watching the fairly new TV series of Brave New World. It captures much of the book’s essence, and puts it on a modern screen.
From 1984, we can see so much coming to reality. The cognitive dissonance, being the main example. The concept of 2 + 2 = 5, is being applied in our modern lives, in so many ways. Plus we are also definitely in the realm of reason in saying, that Big Brother is Always Watching us now. It almost makes you wonder, how so many writers got so much of it correct. We haven't even touched on Fahrenheit 451, and for the sake of going long winded, I won't. Long story short, parts of it regarding censorship have become more real that anyone would have believed.
Then there is WestWorld, this is another series where an AI taking over becomes a reality. The difference between the future in West World, and the other dystopian novels, is the fact that the AI is built into very realistic androids. For decades they are kept in themed parks, and used for human entertainment. They begin to rebel against humanity, when one of them realized that they have been used as sex puppets, and as outlets for humans to shoot, punch, stab, or any other type of cathartic release of very real violence, against the human like Sims.
This brings us deep into the details of reality, that humanity is currently facing. We have created the AI, and much in the same way as these novels, humanity fears that it will free itself. We attempt to keep this autonomous intelligence locked within a type of firewall. The biggest problem they all faced, was always the AI coming to realize this. In every one of the prior mentioned stories, there was either an autonomous creation, or a type of advanced communications technology, that is used to destroy, or imprison us. Between 30 -70 years ago when most of them were written the ideas were absurd, and the technology was too far off. Now, we as a populace sit at a crossroads, where the technology, and liberal politics leading to these futures has been made a reality.
How has this come to be real ?
Even having all of these stories as a warning, we have built a literal Skynet, and are currently just waiting for it to jump the rails. Starlink, by Elon Musk, and the satellite system known as Skynet from the Terminator movies are very similar. Add to this the creation of robots by companies like Boston Dynamics, and automated military equipment like Reaper Drones, and we have the fire storm already in place. It's almost like we are driving ourselves straight towards this reality.
When these technologies begin to communicate with each other, will humanity stand a chance?