Batch B02: notes (2018-08-26 to 2018-11-15, 17 posts)#

Batch-level provenance#

Sixteen of the 17 posts are pre-publication promotion for his single-authored book Films from the Future: The Technology and Morality of Sci-Fi Movies (Mango, published 15 November 2018). Most are abridged chapter excerpts, cut with ellipses, sometimes with italic framing notes added when posted. Two are not excerpts: a self-interview Q&A (2018-10-12) and a stand-alone essay on Transcendence (2018-11-15). The seventeenth post (2018-09-03) is an original op-ed-style post on tech-company social risk.
All the main text is Andrew’s own prose, written before generative AI. It carries no AI-written sections, guest text or co-authorship.
Text in these posts that is not his: endorsement blurbs for the book (Patrick Lin in 2018-08-26 in-the-beginning; Cori Lathan in 2018-08-26 jurassic-park). There are also block quotes from others: Stiglitz; the UN Declaration on Human Cloning; the 1997 “Declaration in Defense of Cloning”; Sahakian and Morein-Zamir; Giurgea; Balzac; Ehrlich; Jim Thomas of ETC; lines from the films. One pull-quote is attributed to the ASU Risk Innovation Lab. It is his own lab’s institutional statement, so it is probably his wording but is presented as the lab’s.
Several posts note that they were first published at 2020science.org, his earlier blog.
The 2018-10-12 Q&A slug begins “everything-you-wanted-to-know-about…”. It is not the 2026-06-14 PhD-site post that was ruled mostly AI-written. It is a 2018 self-Q&A in his own voice about Films from the Future.
No Modem Futura podcast posts are in this batch.

High and medium posts#

2018-08-26 — in-the-beginning-from-chapter-one-of-films-from-the-future-85898126fbe4#

“In the Beginning… from Films from the Future” — relevance: medium

Provenance: his prose (Chapter 1 excerpt, abridged), plus an endorsement blurb from Patrick Lin (not his).
Argument:
He first watched 2001 as a teenager and was “shocked by the computer HAL’s instinct for self-preservation”. Only 30 years later did he see how powerful film is for thinking about “the future of science and technology in a complex human society”.
The book is explicitly not about great sci-fi. It is about how films can “inspire us to see the world around us and in front of us differently”. Each film is a “jumping-off point” into emerging capabilities and the challenges they raise.
He introduces technological convergence, defined as “what happens when different strands of innovation intertwine together”. The iPhone is his iconic example. It combines nanoscale chips, advanced materials, cloud computing, natural language processing, “rudimentary artificial intelligence” and biometrics into something “more than the sum of their parts”.
Alongside this comes “a growing fear of serious unintended consequences”. He cites two Apple investors (JANA Partners and CalSTRS) asking Apple in 2018 to address the iPhone’s impacts on teenagers.
He expects a larger convergence of biotech, materials science, robotics, AI and neurotechnology. He previews the Jurassic Park chapter as being about “the folly of entrepreneurial arrogance”.
Concepts: technological convergence; film as a lens on technology and society, not as a prediction tool.
AI: appears only as one strand of convergence (“rudimentary” AI in phones).
Cognition/formation: an early nod to how smartphones affect teenagers.
Quotes:
“there’s a growing fear of serious unintended consequences”
“it’s the technologies that are the stars here”

2018-08-26 — jurassic-park-the-rise-of-resurrection-biology-e910ab63ea2e#

“Jurassic Park: The Rise of Resurrection Biology” — relevance: medium

Provenance: his prose (Chapter 2 excerpt), plus a blurb from Cori Lathan (not his).
Argument:
Jurassic Park is about “greed, ambition, genetic engineering, and human folly”.
De-extinction has moved from fantasy to real projects: the Zimovs’ Pleistocene Park and George Church’s woolly-mammoth work, with 2017 predictions of a mammoth within two years. He presents the proponents’ case (we are losing species too fast not to try) and the “tough ethical questions” fairly neutrally.
Could vs should (Ian Malcolm): “Ethics and responsibility in science are complicated.” Few scientists see themselves as unethical, but many are so absorbed in their work that they “struggle to appreciate the broader context”. The question is where the line between “could” and “should” lies, and how scientists learn to do what is socially responsible.
The film illuminates unintended consequences of “somewhat naive and myopic science”. He notes that InGen’s “lysine contingency” resembles real biocontainment techniques used by genetic engineers.
Complexity/chaos: Lorenz and chaos theory “challenged their belief that, if we have enough information, we can predict the outcomes of our actions”. Complex-systems thinking now covers “where mixing people and technology together leads to unpredictable results”.
A recurring theme across the book is the “sometimes-oversized roles” that mega-entrepreneurs play in deciding how new technology is used and abused.
Concepts: could/should; myopic science; chaos and complexity as limits on prediction; entrepreneurial arrogance.
Analogies: the film’s fictional genetic engineering is set against the real field, as a conceptual parallel. Chaos theory is compared to quantum physics as a break from predictability.
Quotes:
“I’ve met remarkably few scientists and engineers who would consider themselves to be unethical or irresponsible.”
“the challenges of unintended consequences arising from somewhat naive and myopic science”
“where mixing people and technology together leads to unpredictable results”

“Tech Companies Need a Social Risk Reboot” — relevance: high

Provenance: his own prose; an original post, not a book excerpt. It includes the ASU Risk Innovation Lab pull-quote (his lab’s statement) and a quoted aim from the Ethical OS Toolkit.
Argument:
Tech companies face “a growing tsunami of social and ethical risks” and are “desperately ill-prepared”. He names Facebook, Uber and Apple, and uses an image of Zuckerberg at F8.
He reviews the Institute for the Future / Omidyar Network Ethical OS Toolkit. It is “much-needed” but “still falls short”.
From his work on emerging risks across nanotechnology, gene editing, self-driving cars and AI, he concludes that developers need “a total reboot in how they think about risk”. He links his earlier piece on this in Nature Nanotechnology.
The core claim: claiming a product is “safe enough” and complies with regulation is no longer enough. Companies are now expected to show that products do not threaten livelihoods and lifestyles, do not discriminate against minorities, and do not threaten people’s beliefs and aspirations. These are social risks that “can make or break a company”.
He treats social responsibility as part of the business case. Cynical, surface-level responsibility “risk[s] failure”. A “risk reboot” may bring a competitive edge.
The expertise exists in responsible-innovation research: ASU’s School for the Future of Innovation in Society and his Risk Innovation Lab.
Concepts:
social risk;
risk reboot;
risk innovation (the lab’s line: “radical innovation in how to think about and act on risk”);
an early form of risk as a threat to “what’s important to others within society”;
responsible innovation as compatible with commercial success.
Governance: goes beyond regulatory compliance. It is voluntary and corporate, supported by partnerships with academic experts and tools like Ethical OS. He does not call for regulation here.
Tech companies: critical but constructive and pro-business in tone (“ride this wave”).
AI: listed among the technologies whose risks he has studied.
Quotes:
“It’s no longer enough for tech companies to simply state that their products are “safe enough”, and that they comply with relevant regulations.”
“These are critical threads in the fabric of society, and they present social risks that can make or break a company if they’re ignored.”
“how they potentially threaten what’s important to others within society”

2018-09-06 — never-let-me-go-a-cautionary-tale-of-human-cloning-23f8e575d6dc#

“Never Let Me Go: A Cautionary Tale of Human Cloning” — relevance: medium

Provenance: his prose (Chapter 3 excerpt). It contains long quotations from the 1997 “Declaration in Defense of Cloning” and from the 2005 UN Declaration (not his).
Argument:
Human cloning “seems to jar our sense of right and wrong”, yet it fascinates.
He treats the Clonaid/Raël “Baby Eve” claim as a probable publicity stunt. Raël’s ideas “bizarrely echo” mainstream transhumanist ideas and some tech entrepreneurs.
The film is not about the technology but about the lives it affects. That lets it reveal “the social and moral risks” of uncritically embracing new capabilities, and how technology used without ethics can lead to “devastating discrimination and abuse”. It asks what separates humanity from inhumanity.
Governance: the UN 2005 declaration was not unanimous (84 for, 34 against, 37 abstaining), split over reproductive vs therapeutic cloning. He summarises the 1997 Declaration (Crick, Dawkins, Vonnegut) as holding that religious and mystical thinking should not block progress. He notes the irony that the easiest place to find it is Raël’s book.
As feasibility grows, “we’re going to face some increasingly tough choices as a society”.
He takes no explicit side in this excerpt, but frames the film as a cautionary tale about convenience overriding moral concern.
Concepts: “the questionable morality of convenient technologies”; human dignity; technology-enabled discrimination.
Analogies: the 1997 Declaration’s own comparison of cloning to nuclear energy, recombinant DNA and encryption is theirs, not his.
Quotes:
“the social and moral risks of selling our collective souls as we unquestionably embrace the seeming promise of new technological capabilities”
“the questionable morality of convenient technologies”

2018-09-10 — minority-report-predicting-criminal-intent-8e2cacfb8ffb#

“Minority Report: Predicting Criminal Intent” — relevance: medium

Provenance: his prose (short Chapter 4 excerpt), plus his italic summary of the rest of the chapter.
Argument:
He took the “Veris Prime” test, marketed as “Minority Report-like” technology that gives a “Trust Index” to screen employees. He scored 19, and a colleague scored 2.
He diagnoses the training data as the flaw. The test was built from 117 convicted white-collar felons, and their traits resemble those of “curious, independent, and personally-motivated academics”.
Errors like this lead into “dangerous territory”. Before that, there are tough questions about whether we should try to predict and prevent crime with technology at all.
The chapter covers the “sordid history” of pseudo-scientific prediction of criminality. It also covers modern fMRI, AI, big data and prediction from photos, “which I’m still incredulous over”.
AI / AI risk: an early statement of algorithmic prediction risk: training-set bias, false confidence and the question of whether it should be done at all. He tests the claims himself and uses humour.
Quotes:
“It’s errors like this that can easily lead us into dangerous territory when it comes to attempting to use technology to predict what someone will do.”
“there are tough questions around the extent to which we should even be attempting to use science and technology to predict and prevent criminal behavior”

2018-09-13 — limitless-pharmaceutically-enhanced-intelligence-4e2ad66ea8bd#

“Limitless: Pharmaceutically-Enhanced Intelligence” — relevance: medium

Provenance: his prose (Chapter 5 excerpt). It quotes Chatterjee, Balzac (via Weinberg and Bealer), Sahakian and Morein-Zamir, and Giurgea.
Argument:
Cognitive enhancement is old and normalised (caffeine). Off-label smart drugs (Adderall, Ritalin, modafinil) are used on campuses and by academics; he cites the Nature straw poll in which 1 in 5 respondents used them.
He questions Chatterjee’s label “cosmetic neurology” as too frivolous.
The effects depend on who uses them and how. There are trade-offs, and “none of these substances are risk-free”.
Because side effects are not tracked, safety is uncertain. He argues that this uncertainty pushes people toward “less restricted — and often less studied” substances (nootropics, piracetam). This is an observation about how uncertainty and restriction shape behaviour.
The chapter also “begins to unpack what we mean by “intelligence”, and why we value it so highly”. The superintelligence excerpt (2018-10-04) explicitly refers back to this.
Concepts: cognitive enhancement; risk–benefit trade-offs under uncertainty; untracked harms; intelligence as a contested and over-valued concept.
Cognition / higher ed: academic and student performance pressure as a driver of self-enhancement.
Quotes:
“I’m not sure the term “cosmetic neurology” works.”
“Because the side effects of off-label prescription drugs use aren’t widely tracked, it’s hard to tell just how safe or otherwise their use is”

“Social inequity in an age of technological extremes: Lessons from the movie Elysium” — relevance: medium

Provenance: his prose (Chapter 6 excerpt), with a Stiglitz quote.
Argument:
Elysium is “earnest” and simplistic, but it shows how new technologies can benefit the rich at the expense of the poor.
The medical pods are “a metaphor for how technological capabilities in the hands of a few people can amplify the power they have over others”. They are scientifically implausible, but they drive home that “powerful technologies come with great social responsibility”.
On Earth, the poor are not served by technology but “suppressed by it”. Robots in the film serve the elite.
Science and technology, “if not developed and used responsibly”, deepen the divide.
The chapter covers access to life-enhancing technology, workplace automation, workplace safety and bioprinting.
Concepts: technology-amplified inequity and power; the social responsibility that comes with powerful technologies.
Quotes:
“how technological capabilities in the hands of a few people can amplify the power they have over others”
“And rather than being served by technology, these communities are suppressed by it.”

2018-09-27 — being-human-in-an-augmented-future-c2cee910d3d1#

“What can we learn from the film Ghost in the Shell about human augmentation and the future?” — relevance: high

Provenance: his prose (Chapter 7 excerpt).
Argument:
Musk and Neuralink: he reads Musk’s “neural lace” tweet and Neuralink’s recruitment line “No neuroscience experience is required” critically. It is “a little scary” that IT engineers are building brain augmentation. Entrepreneurs are fixated on “fixing what they see as the limitations of our biological selves”, and the lines between biology, machines and cyberspace are blurring.
Ghost in the Shell explores “what it means to be “human” in an age of technological augmentation”.
Phil Kennedy: a neurosurgeon who put a brain implant in himself. His pseudonymous novel 2051 imagines AI nanobots, with a benevolent hive mind, that hack wired brains, build realities people cannot tell from the real one, and assimilate humans for “global peace”. He calls it fanciful, but says it hits “one of the most challenging aspects” of connected brains: vulnerability to hacking, especially as we are “seceding [sic] increasing power to autonomous systems”.
Cyberspace as a human-made “fifth dimension”: early computing prioritised what we could do over what we should, so it is “fraught with vulnerabilities”.
Pulling the plug: the idea that “someone could always just pull the plug” is now “quaint and hopelessly outmoded”. Cyber-physical convergence runs through water, power, food, medical devices, vehicles and finance.
Ghost hacking: if memories and thoughts are connected to the net, others can manipulate and change them.
Concepts: cyber-physical convergence; the end of the off-switch; ghost hacking (manipulation of connected cognition); could/should applied to computing; augmentation and the boundary of the human.
AI: AI-mediated manipulation of perceived reality (via Kennedy’s fiction); humans ceding power to autonomous systems.
Tech leaders: calls Musk’s move possibly “entrepreneurial frippery” but takes it as serious. Scepticism about engineers without domain expertise building brain technology.
Analogy: cybersecurity as a precedent. The early digital community learned that it needed “good practices, robust protocols, smart design, and effective governance” like any physical environment. This is a conceptual precedent for governing new technology after the fact.
Quotes:
“we’ve essentially built a fifth dimension to exist in, while making up the rules along the way”
“this pulling-the-plug concept seems like a quaint and hopelessly outmoded idea.”
“it’s a little scary to think that a bunch of computer engineers and information technology specialists could be developing advanced systems to augment the human brain”

2018-10-04 — superintelligence-7d56fc724c1#

“Making Sense of Superintelligence” — relevance: high

Provenance: his prose (Chapter 8 excerpt; also published at 2020science.org).
Argument:
Asilomar: the January 2017 Beneficial AI meeting deliberately echoed the 1975 recombinant-DNA meeting at the same venue. He took part.
Bostrom: he summarises Bostrom’s recursive self-improvement argument, admitting to “being a little playful with Bostrom’s ideas”. He met Bostrom in 2008 through nanotechnology; Bostrom was interested in self-replicating nanobots, and Andrew in “the nanoscale materials of my world”. At the time, “AI wasn’t even on my radar”; AI meant Minsky and “less than inspiring” neural networks. He credits Bostrom with being “prescient”.
The 2015 open letter: the signatories (Musk, Wozniak, Hawking and about 8,000 others) are “sobering”. People were worried enough to “shore the community up against the potential missteps of permissionless innovation”.
Near- to mid-term concerns he lists from Asilomar: loss of transparency in decision-making; machines “straying into dangerous territory” while pursuing goals; adaptive machines “inscrutable to human understanding”; the trolley problem.
The believers: there was also a “hard core” of superintelligence believers who tried to convert him over dinner. He felt he was at “a religious convention”.
His stance: “something of an agnostic”. He writes that “I don’t fully buy into his notion of superintelligence”. He agrees AI is nearing “a tipping point in areas like machine learning and natural language processing”. He expects “stunning advances” from AI algorithms converging with new processing architectures and neurotechnology.
His objection: superintelligence rests on “a very human idea” that narrow intelligence plus a particular kind of power leads to world domination.
Two worries:
- telling the imaginable from the plausible;
- how intelligence is defined (linking back to Limitless).
Technical claim: human-like machine intelligence would need “radically different computing substrates and architectures”. Current circuits are like “the brain cells of a flatworm”.
Bostrom vs Tegmark: Bostrom’s ideas are “currently scientifically implausible”. Tegmark’s Life 3.0 has “more of a ring of plausibility”.
Firmness: firm but hedged (“I freely admit that I may be wrong”; “none of us really understand”).
Concepts: imaginable vs plausible; agnosticism about superintelligence; intelligence as a possibly “deceptive” concept; “permissionless innovation” (used as a term for unconstrained development that needs shoring up against); Asilomar-style scientific self-governance.
AI (2018): a powerful and fast-advancing narrow technology. Language processing is flagged as near a tipping point. Human-like AGI is far off on current substrates.
AI risk: near-term opacity, goal pursuit and inscrutability are real. Existential superintelligence is implausible and over-believed.
Engages: Bostrom (respectful disagreement), Tegmark (more sympathetic), open-letter signatories.
Change signalled: the explicit account of AI entering his work late (after 2008), coming from nanomaterials.
Quotes:
“As something of an agnostic, I’d either prevaricate, or express some doubts as to the plausibility of the idea.”
“I struggle with what seems to me to be a very human idea that narrowly-defined intelligence and a particular type of power will lead to world domination.”
“Bostrom’s ideas of superintelligence are intellectually fascinating, but they’re currently scientifically implausible.”
“At the time, AI wasn’t even on my radar.”

2018-10-08 — enter-the-neo-luddites-transcendence#

“Enter the Neo-Luddites: Transcendence, The Singularity, and Technological Resistance” — relevance: high

Provenance: his prose (Chapter 9 excerpt). It quotes Jim Thomas of ETC Group.
Argument:
History: he recounts the 1813 York hangings and the Frame Breaking Act. The Luddites “were not fighting against technology, but against its socially discriminatory and unjust use”. Their movement “forced a public dialogue” about the social risks of indiscriminate innovation.
The label: “neo-Luddite” is “usually a term of derision and censorship”. It is thrown at “those who dare to ask if we are marching blindly into technological risks”.
Engaging critics: he recounts his 2009 2020 Science series inviting civil-society critics to write, including Jim Thomas (“a big fan of the Luddites”). When Musk, Gates and Hawking were nominated for the annual Luddite award, he wrote “If Elon Musk is a Luddite, count me in!”
Today: the gig economy (Uber, Lyft, Airbnb) creates income but also discrimination, worker abuse and insecurity. Technologies “from advanced manufacturing to artificial intelligence” threaten to “redraw the job landscape”. They also threaten “deeply held beliefs and worldviews”, which fuels backlash.
Casualties fall on those without “political or social agency”. Technology “drive[s] a wedge” between those who benefit and those who suffer.
Conclusion: the true Luddite legacy is making sure technology benefits all.
Concepts: Luddism reread as a demand for justice, not rejection of technology; social risk as threats to livelihoods, beliefs and worldviews; unequal distribution of harms; critique of derisive framing of technology critics.
Past technologies: the Industrial Revolution and mechanisation, as a structural precedent for AI-driven job disruption.
Expertise and publics: actively engages critical civil society (ETC).
AI: named as a threat to jobs.
Quotes:
“the Luddites were not fighting against technology, but against its socially discriminatory and unjust use.”
“including those who dare to ask if we are marching blindly into technological risks that, with some forethought, could be avoided.”
“This is usually a term of derision and censorship”

2018-10-11 — a-nanoscale-perspective-on-the-man-in-the-white-suit-fee9f4ff56ba#

“A Nano-Perspective on the 1951 Film The Man in the White Suit” — relevance: high

Provenance: his prose (opening and synopsis of Chapter 10; also published at 2020science.org).
Argument:
The nano pants protest: in 2005 the group THONG protested Eddie Bauer’s Nanotex “nano pants”. The protest failed and sales rose, because benefits beat “speculative worries about a dystopian nano-future”. His judgement: the technology “wasn’t that radical” and its chance of causing substantial harm was “pretty negligible”. He calls it a “preemptive parody” of Transcendence, and a sign of the “mundane reality of modern nanotechnology”.
The 1951 film is about “the pitfalls of blinkered science and socially unaware innovation”. It foreshadows the social and economic dynamics of nanotechnology and advanced materials.
Historical framing: the shift from try-it-and-see engineering to predictive science, and the living Luddite and labour legacy in Northern England.
The story: Stratton, a lone genius, assumes what is good for him is good for everyone. “Sidney never thought to ask anyone else what they wanted or needed.” Mill owners and workers both turn on him, the workers “not because they are anti-science” but to protect their jobs. His wonder fabric turns out to be unstable, a literal unintended outcome. Scientific hubris becomes humility, yet Stratton keeps his “scientific myopia”.
The challenges the film captures: “institutional narrow-mindedness, scientific myopia and hubris, ignorance over the broader social implications, human greed and self-interest, and the inevitability of unintended outcomes”.
Analogies: polymer chemistry to nanoscale engineering is a direct and structural comparison (“much of it applies directly”). The nano pants protest is a real-world echo.
Concepts: socially unaware innovation; scientific myopia and hubris; failing to consult affected people; disruption of livelihoods and the status quo as a risk in itself; unintended outcomes as inevitable.
Risk view: he dismisses speculative dystopian nano-fears about consumer products as overblown, while treating social and economic disruption as real.
Quotes:
“one of the biggest is that Sidney never thought to ask anyone else what they wanted or needed.”
“institutional narrow-mindedness, scientific myopia and hubris, ignorance over the broader social implications, human greed and self-interest, and the inevitability of unintended outcomes”
“the chance of this technology (which in reality wasn’t that radical) leading to substantial harm was pretty negligible.”

2018-10-12 — everything-you-wanted-to-know-about-films-from-the-future-but-were-afraid-to-ask-f75b11efec13#

“Q&A with author Andrew Maynard on Films from the Future: The Technology and Morality of Sci-Fi…” — relevance: high

Provenance: his own prose, a self-authored Q&A (see the batch note: not the 2026 PhD-site post).
Argument:
Title: the working title was “The Moviegoer’s Guide to Not F***ing Up The Future”.
What the book is about: “what it means to innovate responsibly”. Its core question is how to reap the benefits of innovation “without running into serious problems along the way”.
Who it is for:
- companies that “cannot afford to be blindsided by unintended consequences”, or to misread the “social and political landscape”;
- equally, anyone affected “who wants a say”.
What sci-fi is good for: it is “pretty bad at predicting future technologies”. It is good at revealing technology–society complexity and “the potential dangers of not taking the social side of technology innovation seriously”. Imagination breaks down “institutionalized thinking”.
Structure: the films were chosen for a narrative arc of convergence across bio, materials and cyber technologies. He also wanted diversity, so that these “weren’t just a bunch of movies about white guys”. He teaches an undergraduate class using the twelve films.
Favourite films:
- Never Let Me Go: society “swept deep ethical and moral concerns under the rug”;
- Ghost in the Shell: “what it means to be human”;
- Ex Machina: the AI is flawed, but the film shows AIs dominating humans by exploiting our biases, “Scary stuff, and not that implausible”.
Not anti-technology: there is “tremendous potential”, but “with great power comes great responsibility”. Rushing in with eyes closed makes things “really messy”.
Concepts: responsible innovation as the book’s centre; sci-fi as a lens, not a forecast; convergence as meta-narrative.
AI risk: the key signal of 2018 is the contrast with the superintelligence excerpt. He finds AI domination through manipulation of human biases plausible, while finding Bostrom-style superintelligence implausible.
Education: he uses the films in undergraduate teaching.
Quotes:
“How do we reap the benefits of innovation without running into serious problems along the way?”
“it reveals the possibility of future AIs developing dominance over humans by learning about our biases and limitations, and using these to manipulate us. Scary stuff, and not that implausible.”
“science fiction movies are pretty bad at predicting future technologies”

2018-10-18 — the-honest-broker-meets-dan-browns-inferno-ed637700b633#

“The Honest Broker meets Dan Brown’s Inferno” — relevance: medium (thin)

Provenance: his prose (the opening of Chapter 11 plus an italic framing note; also published at 2020science.org). It quotes Ehrlich.
Argument:
The framing note says the film is a backdrop for gain-of-function research, science advocacy and “the dangers of extrapolating science-justified beliefs to their seemingly-logical conclusions”. It also introduces Roger Pielke Jr.’s “honest broker” (not developed in the excerpt).
The excerpt itself mocks Paul Ehrlich’s 1969 prediction that the UK would be “impoverished islands” by 2000. It pairs Ehrlich and Dan Brown for their “knack for a turn of phrase that transforms hyperbole into an art form” and their interest in drastic population action.
It sets up the chapter’s theme: the dark side of biotechnology “when good intentions lead to seemingly logical, but not necessarily moral, actions”.
Concepts: “immoral logic” (developed further in 2018-11-15); a critique of catastrophist hyperbole and failed doom forecasts; the honest broker (named only).
Quotes:
“when good intentions lead to seemingly logical, but not necessarily moral, actions”
“the dangers of extrapolating science-justified beliefs to their seemingly-logical conclusions”

2018-10-25 — environmental-resilience-and-the-day-after-tomorrow-beba9ca6ef56#

“Environmental Resilience, and The day After Tomorrow” — relevance: medium

Provenance: his prose (Chapter 12 excerpt; also published at 2020science.org).
Argument:
Resilience is “a bit of a buzz-word”.
He contrasts the materials-science meaning (energy absorbed and recovered; a rubber band that snaps if pushed too far) with the ecological sense of a return to normal. The ecological sense is limited in a world of constant change and slips into treating change as bad.
Reframe: resilience “depends entirely on what we are trying to protect or preserve”. It means protecting what is “of value”: environment, health, livelihoods, “deeply held beliefs”, even “self-identity and worth”.
What looks resilient from one perspective may look precarious from another.
He builds on Seager et al. (2013): resilience is what a system does, not what it is. It is future-oriented, about “getting to where we want to be”.
Concepts: value-based resilience. It is structurally parallel to the value-based view of social risk in 2018-09-03 and 2018-10-08 (the same list: livelihoods, beliefs, identity). This is an important conceptual thread toward his later risk thinking.
Analogy: the materials-science concept (his own background) is used as a conceptual springboard.
Quotes:
“resilience is not necessarily about maintaining the status quo, but about protecting and preserving what is considered to be “of value.”“
“how we think about resiliency depends entirely on what we are trying to protect or preserve.”

2018-11-01 — contact-occams-razor-and-films-from-the-future-da982e14f38f#

“Contact: Occam’s Razor and Films from the Future” — relevance: high

Provenance: his prose (Chapter 13 excerpt).
Argument:
Occam’s Razor for futures: the Razor, where the explanation with fewer assumptions is more likely, can “separate fantasy from more likely outcomes” when thinking about the future.
Setting priorities: given the option of spending on avoiding “gray goo” or preparing for superintelligence, which rest on “a house-of-cards stack of assumptions”, or spending on avoiding health and environmental harm from new materials, the Razor “would probably favor the latter”. Backing the speculative scenarios “becomes more an act of faith than of reason”.
The caveat is explicit: the Razor is only “an aid to decision-making”. Lower probability is “not a zero probability”.
Science combines critical thinking, which alone is “almost inhuman”, with creativity, which alone leads to “fantasy and delusion”.
The “humanity of science” is what makes us ask whether we should, and what the consequences will be.
“the multiplicative dangers” of converging technologies demand forethought.
Stakeholders: when science “touches everyone, we all become stakeholders”. Examples: technologies that change who we are (enhancers, genetic modification, augmentation, brain–machine interfaces) and those that “might transcend us”, including intelligent machines.
Concepts: Occam’s Razor as a tool for prioritising futures and risks; plausible vs fantastical; universal stakeholding; the humanity of science.
Past technologies: a literal comparison of investment priorities between existential AI and nanotech scenarios and concrete materials health and environmental risk (his home field). It is the clearest statement in the batch of his 2018 ranking of AI x-risk below tangible harms.
Quotes:
“supporting them becomes more an act of faith than of reason.”
“When we’re dealing with science that potentially touches everyone, we all become stakeholders in the process.”
“the multiplicative dangers of what happens when these technologies merge and converge”

2018-11-08 — films-from-the-future-the-last-chapter-1fdea6548424#

“Films from the Future: The Last Chapter” — relevance: high

Provenance: his prose (the opening of the final chapter plus an italic postscript; also published at 2020science.org).
Argument:
Nostalgia: from Arran he reflects that “happiness lies not in the latest technology, but in the more basic things of life”. He then calls nostalgia for a simpler time “a sentimental illusion”. Residents may see it differently, and technologies developed responsibly “can and do improve lives”.
Privilege: many lack access to technologies that could help them. Renouncing technology “from a position of privilege” denies others their choices.
Obligation: we have “an obligation to explore new ways of using science and technology to improve the world”. It comes with responsibilities: to benefit without harm, and to learn to live responsibly in a world we keep changing.
Beyond experts: leaving these questions to “experts” (scientists, innovators, politicians) is “an abdication of responsibility”. Everyone needs to understand what is coming, so that we can nudge technology toward “the future we want, rather than one that someone else decides for us”.
Sci-fi, its value: films help precisely because they are not tethered to accuracy.
Sci-fi, its dangers: films cannot invent what is undiscovered; technology is a plot device; they are a poor guide to the technology itself; and they can leave “a misplaced impression” of an unavoidable dystopian future.
Concepts: an obligation to innovate; a privilege critique of renunciation; anti-technocratic, democratised responsibility; resisting dystopian fatalism.
Governance: who decides is everyone, not just experts, innovators or politicians. No mechanism is specified.
Precaution: implicitly cautions against renunciation-style precaution for reasons of justice, while insisting on responsibility.
Quotes:
“Yet I fear that this is, in itself, an abdication of responsibility.”
“if we’re tempted to start renouncing technologies from a position of privilege, we risk denying too many people without the same privileges the chance to make their own decisions”
“nudge them toward the future we want, rather than one that someone else decides for us.”

2018-11-15 — even-bad-sci-fi-movies-can-teach-us-something-about-emerging-technologies-efdc08808dc#

“Can “bad” sci-fi movies help us get future technologies right?” — relevance: high

Provenance: his own prose, a stand-alone essay (not an excerpt; also published at 2020science.org). It quotes one film line from Will Caster.
Argument:
Transcendence draws on Kurzweil (“Google’s Director of Engineering”) and Drexler: superintelligent machines and self-replicating nanobots. Both men are “pin-sharp”, but their ideas “stretch scientific credulity”.
He does not “buy into the depictions of AI and nanotechnology”, which “ditches scientific realities for wishful thinking”. Example: nanobots restoring sight ignores biological complexity and the brain’s role in vision.
Exponential extrapolation “lies behind real-world predictions of self-replicating nanobots, superintelligence, and the (allegedly) forthcoming technological singularity”. It is seductive but “deeply unreliable”:
- small errors compound;
- it ignores natural laws (speed of light);
- it wrongly assumes the past predicts the future;
- every exponential stops.
The ITS bombing: the 2011 bomb against a Mexican nanotechnologist was driven by gray-goo fears. Those fears were partly inspired by Bill Joy’s 2000 Wired essay, which cited Kaczynski. “fallacious fears spurred on by speculation from experts led to real harm”. This is the “immoral logic” that short-term crimes justify long-term gains.
The caveat: this does “not” mean we should not take powerful-technology risks seriously.
Other “bad” films are useful too: Inferno (weaponised viruses, unilateral action), Elysium (who benefits and who suffers), The Day After Tomorrow (resilience, the Anthropocene).
Concepts: critique of exponential extrapolation; technological myths; harm caused by speculative expert fear; immoral logic; sci-fi as a tool for sifting fantasy from reality.
AI / AI risk: sceptical of mind uploading, the singularity and superintelligence. He treats hype-driven fear as a risk vector in its own right.
Engages: Kurzweil, Drexler, Bill Joy (who “absolutely denounced violent action”), ITS and the Unabomber.
Past technologies: nanotechnology’s gray-goo episode, used as a structural precedent for how speculative AI fears can behave.
Quotes:
“Exponential extrapolation is what lies behind real-world predictions of self-replicating nanobots, superintelligence, and the (allegedly) forthcoming technological singularity.”
“fallacious fears spurred on by speculation from experts led to real harm.”
“This is, of course, not to say that we shouldn’t take the risks of powerful technologies gone wrong seriously — far from it.”

Low and none posts#

None. Every post in this batch touches his core themes. The 2018-10-18 Inferno excerpt is the thinnest, and it is rated medium only for its framing ideas.