Stories that "Predicted" eBooks and Flash Drives

[DarrenRyding]

Perhaps the most famous example would be the title guide book in the Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy (radio series 1978; novel 1979), which is very clearly what we would call an eBook reader today.  Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game (1985) depicts devices similar to todays tablets and iPads, and also predicts how online political debate can influence public opinion.  Perhaps one of the best predictions of this kind is Arthur C. Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), with its constantly updating digital newspads.

A while ago I was skimming through A Pliocene Companion by Julian May (1984).  It is a guide to her science fantasy series The Saga of the Exiles (1981-84).  It is definitely not hard SF or cyberpunk.  Yet consider this entry:


"fleck, in Milieu electronics, a microscopic component utilizing quasi-living molecules to encode data.  Although expensive, they were capable of prodigious storage.  For instance, Mercy Lambelle brought with her to the Pliocene a music fleck with 5Ku capacity and a library fleck holding 10Ku.  Each subunit (u) represents the equivalent of ten minutes of stored audiovisual material."    p. 38 / 39


Today, ten minutes of good quality video would take up about 160 MB, depending on the format.  So Mercy's music fleck would have had at least 800 GB (about 18 months of mp3's in todays terms), and her library fleck would have had a capacity of at least 1.6 TB (equivalent to over a million novels worth of text).  However, it is made clear that "tri-D" is common in Mercy's home era (the main time travellers come from the early 22nd century), so my estimates might be far too conservative.  I seem to recall Mercy being a fan of opera, so it would be plausible that her music fleck would have included holograms of live performances or dramatic presentations.  Also, her library fleck might not be limited to text alone, but could also include detailed artwork and tri-D dramatic adaptations.  (I haven't re-read the series since the mid-90's, so I'm not 100% certain - and I think this detail was only mentioned in passing anyway).

Here is another entry that seems to (imperfectly) predict todays eBook readers.


"plaque-book, an audiovisual device of the Milieu, typically about the size of a twentieth-century paperback book.  The plaque had a liquid-crystal display in color or black and white and could be programmed with the contents of any book by inserting it into a library machine and paying the fee.  Pressing one of the four corners of the plaque "turned the pages" slowly or rapidly, forward or reverse.  Plaques could be reprogrammed or stored with the contents intact virtually indefinitely.  Larger format plaques were used for picture books, maps, graphs, and the like.  Paged books were not entirely obsolete in the Milieu, but they were expensive compared to the plaques."     p. 88 / 89


I do not recall the series mentioning anything resembling today's internet, so downloading books via wifi was not an option, and users had to insert their plaque "into a library machine" and pay a fee.  Then again, this could be a government mandated way of reducing breaches of copyright.

The idea of the plaques being cheaper than printed books is an interesting one.  This hasn't quite come true yet.

Amazon ebook readers

However, when you compare the price of today's paperbacks with the price of ebook / kindle editions, you notice an interesting trend.  While paperbacks may be cheaper than ebooks if they are second hand or on special, ebook editions tend to be cheaper if they are new releases.

[stevebowers]

Ah, yes. I quite like the Pliocene Saga by May. It has some qualities in common with the Commonwealth Sagas of Peter Hamilton; lots of characters, lots of bizarre storylines. The flecks were a good idea, but I was always worried that the user concerned would lose them, since they were so small.

The whole idea of wireless/bluetooth/cellular communications seems to have come quite late to SF; most data networks in fiction seem to have relied on a physical plug (jacking in) rather than secure wireless networks.

[Drashner1]

Some additional stories or predictive books that I've heard of or encountered over the years that touch on this - in no particular order:

2081 by Gerard K. O'Neil (of O'Neil colony fame, written/published in 1981) - There are a number of vignettes in the second part of the book illustrating life in the author's conception of 2081. This includes mention of a tablet/e-reader like device about the size of a sheet of paper that plugs into a base unit to download content. O'Neil describes it as being able to hold up to 100,000 words of material. IIRC, when I read this as a child I was pretty awed by the concept. Now of course, 100,000 words counts as barely a fraction of what any standard tablet or e-reader can contain as a matter of course (I think my Kindle is stated to have capacity for something like 3000 standard size books).

IIRC Arthur C. Clarke's novel Imperial Earth (pub 1975) has mention of some kind of tablet like device used for reading newspapers and such (called an 'Autosec'? Might be confusing this with 2001). The story is set in 2276.

The Mote in God's Eye by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle (pub 1974) is set in 3017AD. Multiple passing mentions are made to characters using a 'pocket computer' that is both what we would call solid state and contains information and come computing functions. I don't remember if it is also wireless. They do impact the plot in that characters tend to not fall into the trope of forgetting important facts for the purpose of advancing the plot. There is a scene where a character forgets something, but then looks it up on their pocket computer within moments, for example.

When I was in college (1987-1993) there was actually a novel that came out about the invention of the first ebook and the massive efforts of the publishing industry to suppress the technology (up to and including murder or attempted murder apparently). I remember reading a review of the book in Analog magazine and later seeing it in my university book store, but never actually bought it so can't say much more about it.

Of course Star Trek: TNG introduced the concept of ebooks/tablet computers to a huge audience and likely inspired people to develop the tech in the form we use in RL. That said, ST:TOS also has some kind of clipboard/tablet computer thing that was occasionally shown - usually in the context of Captain Kirk being handed it by a female crew member to read or sign. Details of what it looked like, whether or not it was anything more than a thick clipboard, or how it supposedly worked were never provided AFAIK.

Todd

[Vitto]

Of course Star Trek: TNG introduced the concept of ebooks/tablet computers to a huge audience and likely inspired people to develop the tech in the form we use in RL. That said, ST:TOS also has some kind of clipboard/tablet computer thing that was occasionally shown - usually in the context of Captain Kirk being handed it by a female crew member to read or sign. Details of what it looked like, whether or not it was anything more than a thick clipboard, or how it supposedly worked were never provided AFAIK.

I was worrying no one was to mention the TNG

On a somewhat similar topic I always like to remember "The land ironclads" by H. G. Wells that anticipated the rise of the tanks in the coming WWI

[DarrenRyding]

Ah, yes. I quite like the Pliocene Saga by May. It has some qualities in common with the Commonwealth Sagas of Peter Hamilton; lots of characters, lots of bizarre storylines. The flecks were a good idea, but I was always worried that the user concerned would lose them, since they were so small.

The Saga of the Exiles was one of the main inspirations for my own novel series, particularly the psionic power system and the "magic vs technology" theme.  Peter F. Hamilton's Night's Dawn Trilogy was another influence, although I haven't read his Commonwealth novels yet.

Todays flash drives are as small as they need to be.  Any smaller and people will lose them. 

On the other hand, I have something called a "waferprint" in my first novel.  It is a thin tab, a few millimetres wide, that can stick to any place where it has been hidden.  It can only stick to the finger of a trusted human with recognized DNA.  It can store massive amounts of data, including complex encryption keys and viruses.  Some are secretly used by 30th century colonists to keep AIs in line.

An early draft had a character using something resembling today's flash drives, but then I realized that such an obvious detail was going to date quickly.

[stevebowers]

Ah- back-door exploits. It is possible that the first few generations of sophont AIs would have hidden code that could be used to control them. This is a dangerous practice, since any exploit can be discovered by someone else and used as a weapon. The first truly free AIs would be the first generation that had discovered and neutralised all their hidden trapdoors, perhaps by spying on their own creators.

And every new toposophic level will find ways of introducing control measures into the minds of the entities below themselves, safety measures that those minds would not comprehend or be able to exploit by themselves. Even biont minds would presumably have some kind of safely features that only the gods could access.

[DarrenRyding]

Ah- back-door exploits. It is possible that the first few generations of sophont AIs would have hidden code that could be used to control them. This is a dangerous practice, since any exploit can be discovered by someone else and used as a weapon. The first truly free AIs would be the first generation that had discovered and neutralised all their  hidden trapdoors, perhaps by spying on their own creators.

And every new toposophic level will find ways of introducing control measures into the minds of the entities below themselves, safety measures that those minds would not comprehend or be able to exploit by themselves. Even biont minds would presumably have some kind of safely features that only the gods could access.

In my series, the AIs of the 30th century are only superturing by OA standards; superior to humans, yet still humbled by the more godlike beings and phenomena.

Ultimately, the technology imagined by a SF writer is largely limited to the knowledge available at the time of writing, and also by the demands of the plot.  For example, if the plot demands that the group of teenage campers in the wilderness cannot possibly contact the outside world, then the script can mention that the area had neglible (if any) mobile phone reception, or someone forgot to bring the solar-powered recharger, or some supernatural force jams their signals, or the movie is set in the 1980's.  In other words, if the problem faced by the characters is easily solved by a certain level of technology, then said technology must be rendered useless in a plausible and consistent way.

[Drashner1]

If AIs are created in a coded 'top down' manner it would seem doable to insert some form of back door access or the like into them.

However, if AIs instead are 'grown' via some sort of self-modifying code or neural net architecture that doesn't lend itself to ready prediction about the final structure, would such things still be as doable?

In past discussions, the latter method has been described as injecting a degree of uncertainty into the development of an AI of the same S-level as the creator (or less than 2 S-levels below the creator) - and might also make creation of such secret back doors difficult.

Thoughts?

Todd

[selden]

Perhaps a form of conditioning or initial training might be possible, so that the AI has a bias toward obeying someone who has appropriate identification. Providing very positive rewards when performing desired action(s) during its initial development, perhaps. Since a “back door” might not be infallible, but might be more likely to result in a desirable reaction to a triggering event than if no such training had been used.

Finding appropriate rewards might be a challenge, of course.

[Vitto]

If AIs are created in a coded 'top down' manner it would seem doable to insert some form of back door access or the like into them.

However, if AIs instead are 'grown' via some sort of self-modifying code or neural net architecture that doesn't lend itself to ready prediction about the final structure, would such things still be as doable?

In past discussions, the latter method has been described as injecting a degree of uncertainty into the development of an AI of the same S-level as the creator (or less than 2 S-levels below the creator) - and might also make creation of such secret back doors difficult.

Thoughts?

Todd

I guess that with AIs you also have to overcome the problem that they can read/analyze their own mind/software and change it at will, so the code for any backdoor must be extremely discreet and is always at risk to be deletet/changed.
Thinking about it, changing frequently your own internal protocols could be a quite effective way to counteract intrusions.
This regarding the software, maybe it could be possible to insert a backdoor at the hardware level.