Futurism & Popular Culture
Cora: We're going to see things no one has ever seen before. Just think about it.
Grant: That's the trouble. I am.
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In the film Fantastic Voyage, a diplomat is nearly assassinated. In order to save him, a submarine is shrunken to microscopic size and injected into his bloodstream with a small crew. The crew has one hour to get in, remove the clot and get out of his body or they will be attacked by the patient’s immune system. They have just begun their voyage when it becomes clear there is a saboteur on board. Their impending journey imagines a completely new era of human endeavor, and was touted as “The most amazing science fiction ever conceived!” With nanotechnology in its infancy, the possible futures of nanotech are informed largely by the background, experience, and motivations of the persons who envision a particular future. Like the Internet and cyberspace before it, science fiction writers are some of the most influential voices in forecasting how nanoscience and nanotechnology will impact our daily lives, and even the future of humanity.
In the case of nanotechnology, the bestselling 2002 novel Prey by science fiction author Michael Crichton imagines a doomsday scenario in which swarms of tiny nanomachines and nanobots escape from a laboratory and endanger humanity. Some people believe the dangers of nanomaterials are more than just the stuff of science fiction and policy decisions and research are being oriented towards these concerns.
In fact, some newly coined English words use the term “nano” to indicate anything small or miniscule. For example, to nanotweak something is to constantly adjust, change, and refine tiny details that few would ever notice, save the person who is doing the nanotweaking. "Dude, quit nanotweaking that web page and get dressed!" The media, including radio, television, and film, are often an important factor in framing public debates about science and technology. Yet the notion that the media and the public perceive nanotechnology in a monolithic or even a consistent fashion was questioned by many participants in the Civic Forum on Societal Implications of Nanotechnology, sponsored by the Science, Technology and Society (STS) Program at the University of Texas at Austin in October 2005. Questions submitted by members of the public about nano prior to the event showed broader concerns than those reflected in media coverage. Participants in a role-playing “nano-scenario” were also often surprised when they assumed the roles of other groups. Social scientists are beginning to explore the complex societal implications that nanotechnology promises. Given the diverse roles and perspectives of various participants in this discussion and cross cultural differences in belief systems, different priorities will likely emerge and have to be negotiated as nanotechnology evolves. |
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In the early days of the 1980s, the Internet was often referred to as “cyberspace,” a term most often attributed to the author William Gibson’s 1984 sci-fi classic Neuromancer. This was before the advent of the World Wide Web in 1992, and Internet use had yet to reach much of the global population. Gibson’s hugely popular story follows an out-of-work computer hacker named Case as he is recruited to commit an impossible crime in cyberspace, a matrix of globally networked computers. The tale follows a dystopic future where artificial intelligence, technology, and multinational corporations have taken over the world, displacing humans. The concept of cyberspace as an alternate space for virtual interactions has now become a reality, and new legal, ethical and work-life challenges are indeed being encountered, although in different ways than early science fiction writers imagined. The Internet and cyberspace were imagined to be separated from geographical social spaces extant in offline communities—they were a place where anything could happen and anything was possible.
When many people think of the term “nano,” they may think of the iPod Nano, Apple’s portable computer player named such for its relatively small size. However, the iPod Nano at its smallest width is actually 1.3 centimeters, more than 13 million times larger than an actual nano particle!
