Tech

22 Ideas for the Future, book review: Stories that ask search questions


22 Ideas for the Future

22 Ideas for the Future • Edited by Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram • CyberSalon Publishing • 154 pages • ISBN 978-1739593902 • Price £9.99

If you didn’t know that the technology you use is tracking you and that social media uses algorithms to control your attention, you may not have noticed or just reading about the problems is not enough. to get your attention and keep you interested.

Perhaps the speculative hypothesis can bring more of us to the attention of piling problems, from climate change to economic inequality, and that AI is no longer a killer robot and more ‘machines’. say no’ on a global scale. This may reveal what Douglas Rushkoff claims in his introduction to 22 Ideas for the Future is “the truth that we have hidden from ourselves”.

“You can’t read about the world after a climate disaster without accepting the possibility of climate change,” he suggests.

22 (very) short stories in this collection – originally written to be read aloud at Cybersalon events by many authors (including longtime ZDNET book critic Wendy Grossman) – is about the ‘non-stop journey of data fiction’. They aim to incite and annoy you to demand a data society that better serves super followers.

There are some clever ideas here: what if people believed the fitness tracker said you were dead; let’s say you have to swap out your personal data for health care and the bacon burger turns out to be contraband; Is it embarrassing that your health tracker takes you out of the family so your adult daughter gets so much information about your sex life?

Some technologies are more fictitious than speculative. Will trees really talk back and advise us on a more planet-friendly bank? Does tricking people into turning their online pitches against scams with bad behavior really give the community a healthy outlet?

With shorts like these, there’s no space for the underlying technology and society to naturally appear in the background, so there are certain flaws in many of the stories. Others manage to pack strong characters and compelling stories into just a few pages. Mostly optimistic, there are some more optimistic – and sometimes over-optimistic – views: the recurring theme is that small is beautiful and that a small startup can upset the already established financial order. set if it is like part of base. Just a few stories that remind you of how technology can make the world a better place when it is used to connect people.

The best contributions are both smart and funny, because they’re about human nature and not about technology – in this case. Friday Night Drinks at Horse and Zoom, laughing with a group of friends going for drinks, Lai Rai explores the different effects of moderation technology on people who appear in person versus online. Do not play favorites, Heartbeat – one of two Grossman stories in the collection – perhaps as striking because it makes sense: the chilling exploration of what today’s technology and politics can mean for someone who wants to disrupt pregnancy is hardly an election and a new generation of pregnancy tests. .

The thoughts at the bottom of each section (about how tracking too much data can mean healthcare, commerce, community, and programmable money) are also different: some just explain what the story itself makes clear, while others give you background interest and additional analysis to them.

There has been a great deal of speculative fiction regarding the many topics explored here, but what 22 Ideas for the Future The present gives you a glimpse of the future without having to deal with problems. These stories raise questions that you will most likely have to answer for yourself.

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