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From augmented reality to fake news: Five glimpses of the future from sci-fi author Neal Stephenson

Augmented reality: “Part of this book takes place 20 years or so in the future, and I think it’d be silly to write a book 20 years in the future where people are still running around staring at little glowing rectangles in their hands,” he said (at 31:00 in the YouTube clip below).

Quantum computing:  In “Fall,” they’re essential to reconstructing consciousness — but Stephenson acknowledged that he doesn’t know a lot about the technical details. “I’m sort of waving a magic wand” to address a narrative need, he said. “Don’t take any of that too seriously.” (48:14).

Fake news:  Stephenson said fact-based discourse was one of the key concepts to emerge in the 16th century, as documented in “A Culture of Fact” by Barbara Shapiro. “It turned out to be an incredibly valuable and useful thing to have in a society, and now it’s being destroyed,” he said. The good news is that Shapiro’s account “gives us hope that there’s a way to rebuild the culture of fact going forward” (41:20 in the clip).

Amistics:  “Amistics,” the idea that segments of society can voluntarily forswear types of technology to preserve their own well-being. The word’s origin goes back to observations about Amish sect members, who avoid using electricity and automobiles for religious reasons. In “Seveneves,” society decides to swear off high-frequency social media tools because of their ill effects. For more about Amistics, check out “Amish Hackers” by Kevin Kelly, and “The Art of Amistics” by Tom Chatfield. (43:45).

 See the full story here: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/augmented-reality-fake-news-five-022225089.html