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Note from the Author

Films from the Future is, I must confess, a bit of an oddity. In fact it does everything wrong when it comes to writing a best-selling book. And yet, this was intentional.

This is not a book about science fiction movies, despite what you might think from the title. Neither is it about emerging technologies per se. And it doesn’t preach opinionated dogma about tech innovation, or tell reader what to think. Rather, it eschews what sells for what I would argue is important as we grapple with technology-based opportunities and challenges — especially opportunities and challenges that cannot be boiled down to black and white opinions and tweetable sound bites.  

Instead, this is a book that’s about thinking differently, imaginatively, and creatvely, about how we can collectively develop and use powerul new technologies in ways that positively transform lives, together with the future we are heading for. And the only way that I know of doing this is to weave stories around the deep complexities and many different facets of what it means to innovate responsibly in an increasingly complex world.

Of course, there are movies here, and plenty of transformative new technologies. But it’s the tapestry that’s woven around and through them that’s important, not the individual strands.

As a result, Films from the Future was probably never destined to be a best seller, or fodder for readers who are simply looking for someone else to do their thinking for them. But if you are genuinely curious about where technology innovation is taking us and how we can collectively help steer it in directions that increase the chances of it leading to a future that’s better than the past, read on …

Andrew Maynard