MIT is one of the premiere skill and applied science universities in the United States . And now scholar there are being require to reckon the consequences of their inventions — by reading science fiction in class . Over at The Atlantic , Rebecca Rosenhas a terrifying consultation with the creators of this advanced form .
Writes Rosen :
This fall , MIT Media science lab researchers Dan Novy and Sophia Brueckner are teaching “ Science Fiction to Science Fabrication , ” aka “ Pulp to Prototype , ” a course that mines these “ fantastic imaginings of the future tense ” for analysis of our very genuine present .
In the inteview , Brueckner tells Rosen her motivations for teaching the class :
Before coming to the Media Lab , I was a computer software engineer in Silicon Valley , and what I built did indeed touch gazillion of people . I was struck by Silicon Valley ’s phrenetic culture of construction and launching projection as quickly as possible without considering their societal impact in the long terminal figure . Unfortunately , the makers of technology are generally not advance to be introspective or speculate too deeply on what they are make , and this really worries me .
Once any sorting of technology has users , it becomes extremely difficult to commute it — even if you know it should or must be shift . commonly the only thing you may do is tack on more features , but it can be inconceivable to change the core structure . And once something has 1000 , millions of drug user , the impact of every design decisiveness is huge . billion of people will be engaging in the same interactions possibly even 100 of a time a Clarence Shepard Day Jr. , and this is reinforcing very picky pathways in the mastermind .
How is that dissemble our societal structure and values ? How is that change the way we see ourselves and even the manner we understand our own genial performance ? I got my first computer , a Commodore 64 when I was two years older , and I often wonder how always interact with computing machine interfaces and code since a young years has affected my thought cognitive process and my perception of other mass and my environs .
Reading science fiction is like an ethics class for inventor , and engineer and designers should be try on to retrieve like science fiction authors when they come on their own workplace .
This is capital material . Read more at The Atlantic
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