This document discusses the relationship between science fiction and technology. It contains quotes about how science fiction can predict issues like traffic jams rather than specific technologies. It also discusses the concept of design fiction versus science fiction and includes examples of design fiction works. The document advocates that technology should inspire storytelling and imagination rather than just prediction, and notes that science fiction is ultimately about understanding the present.

1. Learning from Science Fiction
Greg Borenstein
MIT Media Lab, Playful Systems

3. OpenCV for Processing
github.com/atduskgreg

6. A good science fiction story should
be able to predict not the automobile
but the traffic jam.
— Fredrik Pohl

9. “The abrupt jolt into other flesh. Matrix gone, a wave of sound
and color . . . She was moving through a crowded street, past
stalls vending discount software, prices felt penned on sheets
of plastic, fragments of music from countless speakers. Smells
of urine, free monomers, perfume, patties of frying krill. For a
few frightened seconds he fought helplessly to control her
body. Then he willed himself into passivity, became the
passenger behind her eyes.”

18. thingiverse.com/thing:277787

19. Design Fiction
vs.
Science Fiction

20. “the deliberate use of diegetic
prototypes to suspend
disbelief about change.”
— Bruce Sterling

21. Keiichi Matsuda
Domestic Robocop, 2010

22. Veronica Ranner
Biophilia, 2011

23. Kevin Grennan
Prototype Robot Armpit, 2011

24. BACKWARDS

25. BACKWARDSBEAUTIFUL BUT

26. Imagination -> Prediction
!
Technology -> Storytelling

27. Technology -> Prediction
!
Storytelling -> Imagination

28. Collaboration with John Powers
2H2K

29. 2H2KArtificial Labor

33. Supervised Learning

35. Martin Cuilla
1028 emails

53. All science fiction is
really about the present.
— Cory Doctorow

54. Sophia Brueckner Dan Novy

55. thanks.
gregborenstein.com
@atduskgreg