Science Fiction and Innovation Design

Thomas Michaud

• Publisher: Wiley-ISTE
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781786305831
• eBook ISBN: 9781119780113
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Computer Science
• Subtopic: Architecture Design
• Index: Computer Science

Science fiction is often presented as a source of utopia, or even of prophecies, used in capitalism to promote social, political and technoscientific innovations.

Science Fiction and Innovation Design assesses the validity of this approach by exploring the impact this imaginary world has on the creativity of engineers and researchers. Companies seek to anticipate and predict the future through approaches such as design fiction: mobilizing representations of science fiction to create prototypes and develop scenarios relevant to organizational strategy. The conquest of Mars or the weapons of the future are examples developed by authors to demonstrate how design innovation involves continuous dialogue between multiple players, from the scientist to the manager, through to the designers and the science fiction writers.

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Technological Innovations in the Post-Apocalyptic World: Lessons Learned from Science Fiction Movies

1.1. Introduction

Science fiction intrigues a world in which material reality and social life are disrupted by technological innovations. These transformations are characterized by advances that make it possible to relieve humans of a large number of tasks, to the point of freeing them from their constraints. In addition to being freed from all physical and intellectual effort, humanity would no longer have to endure illness and death because of therapies that would ensure health, longevity and even immortality. If we are able to escape the limits of body and mind, humanity could also escape the limits of time and space by leaving Earth. These are the contributions that some innovations promise and that many science fiction stories develop. Yet, despite the high level of technology that humanity has achieved, these scenarios continue to depict catastrophic situations as direct or indirect consequences of these innovations. The ideal level of progress based on unlimited growth and infinite innovation is contradicted by the collapse of civilization. The progress that these innovations seem to contain is limited by the apocalyptic or post-apocalyptic consequences described in these works of fiction.

While apocalyptic movies look at the before or after of a disaster, post-apocalyptic movies represent the post-disaster world. These works of fiction all have in common a question about the future of the Earth and humanity in the event of the collapse of civilization. Depictions include Earth having lost its habitability, and humanity being deprived of the systems of protection and organization that framed and regulated its activities. These works of fiction can, on the other hand, differ on the causes of the disaster: domination of machines, pollution, pandemics, climate change and scarcity of resources. In spite of these singularities, apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic movies follow the same master plan that gives this subgenre of science fiction its homogeneity. The lessons that we can learn from these movies will be accompanied, in parallel, by those brought to us by the analyses of certain researchers who insist on the need to respect planetary limits for present and future generations.

We will first see how science fiction normalizes the idea of a world revolutionized by the use of digital technology and builds the vision of a world dominated by machines with autonomy. However, despite the description of the possibilities offered by these innovations, we will show that many movies are interested in what can result in disaster for our societies. This will allow us to analyze what these science fiction movies can be used for, since, although they allow us to imagine certain possibilities, they show their dangerousness as well as their unsustainability in the long term. Despite the catastrophic nature of these movies, we will show, nevertheless, that they can also have a positive impact on the audience.

1.2. The future machine of humanity

The Swedish television series, Real Humans (Lars Lundström, 2012– 2014, Äkta människor in Swedish), raised some questions on the intrusion of robots in human societies. Over two seasons, this series developed questions about the definition of a human and what differentiates it from the machine. The story opposes humans to hubots, a contraction of human and robot, which can be humanoid robots, clones or augmented humans. Among humans, some humans form special relationships with hubots. Others reject them until they want to destroy them. The former worship technology, its innovations and the infinite possibilities it offers to the human race. The latter see it as a violation of the laws of nature and in artificial intelligence and its applications a threat to the human condition. This opposition makes it possible to show what is at stake in the debate between technoprophets and technophiles on the different conceptions of humanity, its definition and its destiny.

Dr. Eischer, the designer of hubots, belongs to the category of technoprophets and sees humanity as an infinite field of exploration and experimentation. The accidental death of his wife and son accelerates his research and applications through the creation of a being half-human, half-robot, a cyborg. His son, Leo, becomes the most accomplished representative of a cyborg. As for his wife, Bea, her spirit is transferred into a hubot body, an android robot. Unlike other hubots, it is a free robot that has benefited from programming based on a source code that integrates the transgression of Asimov’s laws. Dr. Eischer has developed, through a few hubots he calls “his children”, the code that ensures their autonomy and awareness of their condition. These hubots, defining themselves as free, do not hesitate to commit murder to recharge their electricity and express their intention to replace humans they consider inferior to them. They are able to reset themselves, and download all programs to increase their brain power and physical performance. They repair themselves and can transfer their mechanical brain into a new hubot body.

The benefit for everyone lies in the autonomy given to all hubots and the possibility for humans to increase their capabilities. The emotional reactions of humans and their slow learning and execution are replaced by a new form of life based on programming, information and digitization and their brains reduced to a program devoid of reflection, intuition and imagination. Hubots are traded and trafficked from the virtual machine to the sex object. They perform all the tasks for which they are programmed, without getting tired, without questioning and without any hesitation. They give hope to the humans around them to achieve such performances by transforming themselves into hubots. The issue of the series is then, for humans and for the few liberated hubots, to find the code that Dr. Eischer, before his death, made sure to hide because he considered it too dangerous to leave in the hands of humans or hubots. Having conceived this type of creature, the scientist, like Dr. Frankenstein, realizes the dangerousness and monstrosity of such an innovation. In this case, the trouble does not come only from a humanity dominated by its machines, which is a recurring theme in science fiction works, but from a humanity whose dream is to become a machine itself. The dystopian character of this series lies in the description of a world in which humans would no longer be evaluated solely on the basis of speed and efficiency.

Cédric Biagini describes the fascination of new technologies as follows: “With them, everyone thinks of freeing themselves from the constraints and limits of time, space, human relationships and their bodies... They plunge the individual into excess” [BIA 13, p. 362, author’s translation]. These possibilities would render obsolete the laws of nature, which would be replaced by a new way of being, designing and acting. Yet, far from remedying the presumed inadequacies of our condition, technological prowess is proving to have destructive consequences for the environment and by extension for humanity. As Philippe Bihouix notes, “Computer science is obviously the field where the level of our ambitions is the most hallucinating, where the – usual – hypothesis of infinite resources on the planet is the most obvious” [BIH 14, p. 226, author’s translation]. Despite the infinite possibilities that innovations promise us, science fiction, but also numerous analyses, show us their limits.

1.3. A pending world?

In Real Humans, the possession of a hubot for domestic or professional use is a sign of social distinction. This unequal situation is discussed in Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982), Gattaca (Andrew Niccol, 1997), AI (Steven Spielberg, 2000) and I, Robot (Alex Proyas, 2004). In these movies, innovations in artificial intelligence, robotics or biotechnology benefit only a minority of individuals at the expense of a majority who are excluded. While privileged populations enjoy a certain comfort, others live in unsanitary neighborhoods and cities, victims of scarcity, persecution and discrimination. The authors of La face cachée du numérique legitimately ask: “If the ‘information society’ is so energy and material efficient, and generates growth for all, how is it that inequalities and consumption of resources continue to increase?” [FLI 13, p. 45, author’s translation]. If everything seems to be designed, on the surface, to improve the fate of humans, in reality, this economic and technological development benefits first and foremost those who exploit it and contributes to the unbearable future of the Earth. Science fiction, in the age of the digital revolution, has noted an internal contradiction in this technoindustrial logic.

The appearance of freedom offered by these technologies becomes a mechanism of surveillance and control in both professional and private life. A movie such as Minority Report (Steven Spielberg, 2002) develops all the implications. Above-ground life dependent on artificial intelligence, as described in Real Humans, serves as a metaphor for the derealization of the world that the digital revolution is accomplishing. Éric Sadin takes the example of the television series Mr. Robot (Sam Esmail, 2015–2017) and writes, “Probably the contemporary individual has recently been suffering from ‘Mr. Robot syndrome’, exhilarated by the impression that reality, as a field everywhere strewn with constraints, is eclipsed when it enjoys ‘computational facilitation’” [SAD 16, p. 204, author’s translation]. This state of dependence on computer imperialism is described by François Cusset as follows: “Such are the ravages of abundance: loss of the effective experience of life, companion items, precluded desires, access to everything at once, and their effects on social relations and on the future of the world” [CUS 18, p. 162, author’s translation].

Large-scale manufacturing of hubots can only generate an additional accumulation of non-recyclable wast...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Table of Contents
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Introduction Science Fiction: A Technical Imaginary World to be Deciphered
• 1 Technological Innovations in the Post-Apocalyptic World: Lessons Learned from Science Fiction Movies
• 2 Using Science Fiction in Engineering Education: Technological Imagination as an Element of Technical Culture
• 3 Engineers Versus Designers: Transposition of the Technical Imaginary World into the Visual
• 4 Imaginary Worlds to Be Projected or to Be Criticized? Methodological Considerations
• 5 Marsism, from Science Fiction to Ideology
• 6 Quo Vadis Engineering? Science Fiction as a Means to Expand the Epistemic Boundaries of Technoscientific Innovation
• 7 Design Fiction, Technotypes and Innovation
• 8 Science Fiction, Innovation and Organization: Where Do We Stand?
• List of Authors
• Index
• Other titles from ISTE in Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Management
• End User License Agreement