Re:YC's Winter Reading List
by mch82 on Monday December 12, 2016 @05:42PM
(#13162710)
Science fiction & fantasy are good tools to exercise mental creativity and think through scenarios of technical change.
Fantasy is a useful way to explore how technology might work in a world with unlimited resources. For example, Dor the magician in Piers Anthony's Xanth novels is able to talk to inanimate objects. In some ways that fantasy approximates a future state for how we interact with AI enabled objects like Amazon Alexa or Siri.
The USC Worldbuilding Institute (http://worldbuilding.institute/about) has been researching how fiction can serve as a catalyst for engineering, business, and social breakthroughs.
Fantasy is a useful way to explore how technology might work in a world with unlimited resources. For example, Dor the magician in Piers Anthony's Xanth novels is able to talk to inanimate objects. In some ways that fantasy approximates a future state for how we interact with AI enabled objects like Amazon Alexa or Siri.
The USC Worldbuilding Institute (http://worldbuilding.institute/about) has been researching how fiction can serve as a catalyst for engineering, business, and social breakthroughs.