So you thought Cyberpunk was dead?
Cyberpunk 2020 is only ten years and two months away.
Is it still fiction? I think so.
The fact is Kids aren’t super hackers, they can barely read and write. There is no Totalitarian, Dystopian world government. politicians are too inept to rule effectively in the current system never mind toppling democratic process and seizing global power. They can’t even get away with lining their own pockets without being caught.
We have no direct energy weapons, no flying cars and no crazy cool cybernetic enhancements. well not many :)
Secondlife -is- Netrunning, The father of cyberpunk, Neuromancer author William Gibson says so. I respectfully disagree.
Artificial intelligence has turned out to be an oxymoron. We may get to a stage of “strong AI” or general intelligence. Artificial consciousness however seems to be an impossible dream.
But the world of cyberpunk and science fiction in general still fascinates me, and many others. Take datafortress as an example. This website was updated on the 31 Oct 2009. My heart leapt for joy when i navigated to this site for the first time in years. It’s full of amazing cyberpunk content and links. I would go as far as to say its THE definitive resource.
Check out datafortress now!
I think elements of Cyberpunk are here but the blurred boundaries will take a little longer to arrive. The Gibson cyberpunk genre was an extrapolation of the greed and materialism of the 80s. The 90s was more about disillusionment and hedonism, which cut that dead.
Strong AI and all forms of general intelligence is a myth. We barely understand what intelligence is, let alone try and apply it to anything other than a biological medium. Consciousness is a slippery topic too. You get 20 philosophers and biologists into a room and you’ll get 20 opinions – none of them particularly convincing.
I think the next punk world will one of shadow cities ( http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/robert_neuwirth_on_our_shadow_cities.html ) not their current state but whatever shadow cities turn into. Where laws are peeled back, high technology floods in and ingenuity reigns.
I just can’t wait to see Dr K Warwick turn into T1000.
We are in the future. Dissapointed?