I just came across a blog post at Popular Science that says the movie ‘Her’ is the smartest movie about AI in years. The writer of ‘Her’ had no idea what he was doing, which is par for the course, and unfortunate.

I say this is unfortunate, because people look to media in all forms to understand the world better. This takes us back to the idea that there are no big, sexy scientific achievements to inspire people to study STEMS. This led ASU president Michael Crow to respond and start Hieroglyph at ASU to get writers (namely Stephenson and Doctorow) and scientists collaborating. Unfortunately, the effort doesn’t seem to be taking off.

The title of this post is a result of my view of science fiction, which differs from Stephenson in that I’m not so concerned about inspiration as much as education, which is a more peripheral concern to Stephenson. The fact is that many people get a lot of their scientific education from science fiction and news articles. This can lead to a lot of misinformation when the blind are leading the blind. Media about interactive AI should be about the foundation of consciousness, which I previously posted about four years ago. Instead, we get dull acceptance of self-aware AI or irrational fear.

We aren’t being served by the idea that the writer needs only know more science than the average reader. We’re losing an important part of people’s scientific education. It is my hope that just as historical fiction is becoming popular, a blending of popular science and science fiction can become popular once more. A significant chunk of what Katherine and I are trying to present in our science fiction is a view into the systems of science and engineering. Hopefully we are doing so in a way that is enjoyable too.