Wenzel Mehnert - Fictional Technofutures: Exploring the Role of Science Fiction in contributing to a global hype of emerging technologies [ETAC6 presentation]

Fictional Technofutures Exploring the Role of Science Fiction in contributing to a global hype of emerging technologies Wenzel Mehnert (cultural studies & future studies, interested in visions of technology) Doing technology foresight at the Austrian Institute of Technology Berlin Ethics Lab at the TU Berlin „Memory is our imagination of the past… …and imagination is our memory of the future“ Prologue Fictional Technofutures // ETAC6 2025 // Wenzel Mehnert Technofutures… …are mediated statements about our world being changed by new sciences or technologies, at a time when these technologies have not yet materialised. … come in the form of presentations, foresight reports, advertising, corporate visions, images, etc. … are fictional by nature, but they are "a fiction that masks its fictionality" (Iser 1993, 13) … attribute meaning to a technology that does not exist yet … which forges alliances (Ferrari & Lösch, 2017) … or decides on promotion and regulation of the technology (Grunwald, 2019, p. 106) 4 Iser, W. (1993). The Fictive and the Imaginary: Charting Literary Anthropology. The Johns Hopkins University Press. Ferrari, A., & Lösch, A. (2017). How Smart Grid Meets In Vitro Meat: On Visions as Socio-Epistemic Practices. NanoEthics, 11(1), 75–91. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11569-017-0282-9 Grunwald, A. (2019). Technology Assessment in Practice and Theory. Routledge. Fictional Technofutures // ETAC6 2025 // Wenzel Mehnert … statements about the future, that impact our thinking about the future and are clearly labeled as fictional. Prominent examples: R.U.R. – Rossum’s Universal Robots (Capek, 1920) The three laws of Robotic by Isaac Asimov Fictional Technofutures are… 5 "We have: One, a robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm." "Right!" "Two," continued Powell, "a robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law." "Right!" "And three, a robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does Dot conflict with the First or Second Laws." "Right!" Asimov, I. (2008). I, Robot (Reprint Edition). Del Rey. Capek, K. (2017). Die weiße Krankheit / R.U.R (J. Mols, Trans.; 1. Edition). CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. In the beginning was the word Fictional Technofutures // ETAC6 2025 // Wenzel Mehnert 7 Semantics (Ferdinand de Saussure) Fictional Technofutures // ETAC6 2025 // Wenzel Mehnert Futurolinguistic 8 „Foot. „Good. Onefoot, twofoot. Threefooter, fourfooted. Footing, footingly, footling. Footage, befootery. Footment. And footloose gets you footless, unfooted, defected. Ah, defeetism. Feetish, feetus ... feetback? Infoot and outfoot! I think we're getting somewhere. Feetality, twofootalitarianism.“ „But these words have no meaning!“ „At the moment, no, but they will. Or rather, they may eventually acquire meaning, provided footeries and defeetism catch on. The word 'robot' meant nothing in the fifteenth century, and yet if they had had futurolinguistics then, they could have easily envisioned automata.“ - (Lem 1970/1985, 23) Fictional Technofutures // ETAC6 2025 // Wenzel Mehnert 9 [Neologism] Definition: A new linguistic figuration, either in form of a new word (lexical neologism) or a new meaning of an existing word (semantic neologism) Example: „Science-Fiction encapsulates social, technological or cultural changes in form of neologisms and thus makes unnamed phenomena or concepts linguistically accessible and imaginable.“ Fictional Technofutures // ETAC6 2025 // Wenzel Mehnert 16 Imagination of Expectation SF as a semiotic reservoir for future imaginaries SF sets frames of expectation long before empirical facts are available … that make hypes possible in the first place „Science-Fiction writers and readers didn’t put a man on the moon all by themselves, but they created a climate of opinion in which the goal of putting a man on the moon became acceptable“ Fictional Technofutures // ETAC6 2025 // Wenzel Mehnert 17 SF as hype seed Visioneers (McCray 2013) regularly invoke SF as the inevitable time to come and to justify, inspire or to create legitimacy through distancing: „This looks like Science-Fiction. It’s not. [Drone Delivery]“ (Jeff Bezos 2013) „You could [upload your memories] as a backup and restore the memories. Then, ultimately you could potentially download them into a new body or into a robot body. The future's going to be weird.“ (Musk 2020) „[AI] is the technology that the world always wanted. Sci-Fi has been talking about this for a long time.“ (Altman 2023) The paradox: SF is dismissed as fiction while being essential point of reference to tech vision Societal meaning is reattributed Mccray, W. P. (2013). The Visioneers: How a Group of Elite Scientists Pursued Space Colonies, Nanotechnologies, and a Limitless Future (Reprint Auflage). Princeton University Press. Carlson, N. (2013, Dezember 2). Bezos On Amazon’s Delivery Drones: „This Looks Like Science Fiction. It’s Not.“ Business Insider. http://www.businessinsider.com/jeff-bezos-on-amazon-delivery-drones-2013-12 Musk, E. (Director). (2020). Watch Elon Musk’s ENTIRE live Neuralink demonstration [Video recording]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOWFXqT5MZ4 Altman, S. (2023, December 6). Sam Altman Is TIME’s 2023 CEO of the Year. TIME. https://time.com/6342827/ceo-of-the-year-2023-sam-altman/ Fictional Technofutures // ETAC6 2025 // Wenzel Mehnert 18 Hypothesis: Fictional Technofutures & Hype Hype doesn’t come out of nowhere Builds on stories that resonate, cultural memory, symbols [neologism] SF provides the semiotic infrastructure of hype: [Robots] that rescue, [AIs] that betray, [Zaibatsus] that surveil, [Solarpunk] communities that heal. These tropes travel They show up in the words of CEOs, the metaphors of politicians, the aesthetics of product launches. SF central object of analysis Hermeneutic technology assessment (Mehnert & Grunwald, 2024) To trace how meaning is constructed and changed through appropriation / elite capturing / commodification Thank you Wenzel Mehnert [email protected]