Global futurist Anders Sorman-Nilsson rates sci-fi flick Blade Runner’s November 2019 predictions
Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner made some bold predictions about what life would be like in November 2019. More than three decades after its release, here’s what the movie got right and wrong.
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Cult sci-fi flick Blade Runner made some bold predictions about what life would be like in November 2019.
The 1982 film followed Harrison Ford’s Rick Deckard as he hunted down human-like robots called replicants, with an unrecognisable Los Angeles as the backdrop.
More than three decades after the Ridley Scott classic was released, global futurist Anders Sorman-Nilsson analysed what the movie got right and what it got wrong.
He told the Herald Sun that the film was a “smorgasbord of ideas”.
“This genre (sci-fi) is known as the literature of ideas,” Mr Sorman-Nilsson said.
“It is really about dreaming up, having a thought experiment, doing some scenario planning around what could happen based upon present trends.”
HUMAN-LIKE ROBOTS CALLED REPLICANTS
Verdict: We’re not there yet – but we’re getting close
Artificially-intelligent robots are being developed around the world, including Robot Sophia who uses artificial intelligence, visual data processing and facial recognition to respond to questions, and imitate human movement and facial expressions.
She was granted Saudi Arabian citizenship in 2017.
A New Zealand lab has also created an artificially-intelligent virtual baby, BabyX, that has learnt to read, recognise objects and even play Mozart.
“While we might think of these technologies like Robot Sophia or BabyX as being in their infancy, these are exponential technologies,” Mr Sorman-Nilsson said.
“They are doubling every 18-24 months and the cost of them is coming down.
“We are not quite there yet but it is an emerging technology.”
FLYING CARS
Verdict: Almost
Prototypes of “flying cars” exist with passenger-carrying drones being trialled in Dubai and Tokyo, and Melbourne chosen as one of three cities to pilot Uber’s flying taxi service.
Japan has even teased that a flying car could be used to light the Olympic flame in 2020.
“November 2019 might have been a little to soon but, directionally, flying cars are something we will have,” Mr Sorman-Nilsson said.
“The fact that we are so close is heartening.”
WE TALK TO OUR COMPUTERS
Verdict: Absolutely!
Siri can now set an alarm, Google can read the news and voice control can change a car’s radio. In 2008, a Melbourne engineering graduate even developed a lip-reading service to control digital devices.
“We even have conversational commerce,” Mr Sorman-Nilsson said.
“We can order KFC, we are order new batteries just buy saying “hey Alexa, order me XYZ”.”
CRIME FIGHTING TECH
Verdict: Correct
Blade Runner’s bounty hunter-turned-police officer Rick Deckard famously used computer technology and facial technology to zoom in on crime scenes.
Similar technologies are now being used by police around the world.
“That is technology that we already have available,” Mr Sorman-Nilsson said.
“It is able to zoom in to pick out criminals in a huge crowd, which happened in China recently where a known criminal was identified by facial recognition in a stadium of tens of thousands of people.”
DIGITAL BILLBOARDS
Verdict: Yes
Buildings in Blade Runner’s futuristic city were blanketed with digital billboards spruiking Coca-Cola and other products.
Now, digital billboards are on Melbourne’s buildings, bus stops and overpasses.
“Billboards are now one of the hottest properties in digital marketing because they have moved from being dumb – just displaying one message no matter who passes,” Mr Sorman-Nilsson said.
“They are now able to advertise only ice cream on a really hot day and only hot chocolate on a cold day based on meteorological patterns.”
VIDEO PHONE BOOTHS
Verdict: No need
Deckard, played by Harrison Ford, was forced to use a video phone booth stuffed in the corner of a crowded bar.
While it may have seemed like cutting-edge technology at the time, Mr Sorman-Nilsson said smart phones had far surpassed what the movie’s creators could have imagine.
“The makers of the movie really based their forecast on 1982-style technology like a phone booth,” he said.
“We have a video phone booth in our pockets now.”
SMOKING AT WORK
Verdict: Wrong
Blade Runner used smoking as a test of whether the someone was human or a rogue replicant.
But the prevalence of smoking has dropped dramatically, with just 13.8 per cent of Australians aged 18 and over puffing on a cigarette daily in 2017–18.
“That feels more retrospective, rather than a glance into how in Australia we are very health conscious,” Mr Soman-Nilsson said.
“That is something we got totally wrong.”
CLIMATE CONCERNS
Verdict: A warning
Blade Runner paints 2019 Los Angeles as a dark and dreary city, almost constantly dampened by rain and tarnished by a changing climate and nuclear war.
While the city of angels remains one of the US’s sunniest cities, with more than 180 “nice days” a year, Mr Soman-Millson said the movie was a warning.
“The ideas from Philip Dick and Ridley Scott are based upon the pollution in the early 1980s and the spiralling out of control of the global climate,” he said.
“We don’t have the milieu that they forecast in the movie, but certainly it highlights the concerns we have.
“That is what is heartening about the movie: it is saying, “hey, if you change you’re behaviour today you can prevent these sorts of scenarios from playing out”.”
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ROBOT SNAKES
Verdict: No … thankfully
“I’m glad they are not here,” Mr Soman-Nilsson said.