TLDR: Not in your lifetime.People love the concept of animals that can talk like us, walk like us. The late 1800s and early 1900s are rich in the concept of animals with human level intelligence.  Surgery on the brain or a…

Will we prevent our bodies from aging?  TLDR: Yes Pre-1900s Immortality goes back much further than most other conjectures of science fiction writers.  There are many instances of immortality in the seventeen and eighteen hundreds.  However, the only consistent trend…

Meet George Jetson. Will we fly to work? TDLR: Yes.   We have no shortage of flying cars in our literature and especially in our movies and television. It is a topic approachable to nearly everyone as they sit in…

Will the next Shakespeare dream of Electronic Sheep?TLDR: Yes.Artificial intelligence covers a broad range of ideas, but at its essence, we are most intrigued by how they might replace human beings.  What makes a human being a human being? We…

Can you hear me now? Will we experience instant communication in our lifetime?  TLDR: No. Our major introduction to faster than light communication begins in the 50s and 60s. Often our authors provide a theoretical physics or even a philosophical…

Will robots be serving us OJ and French Toast in our lifetime? TLDR: Yes. Most often a writer’s fascination with robots centers around their programming rules or the concept of what it means to be human.  Before we get anywhere…

Will we experience mind reading within our lifetime?  TLDR: Yes. In the fifties, our intrepid science fiction writers focused more on the consequences of reading minds than exploring the science behind mind reading.  Consider the classic trope: a society attempting…

David Brin, in his foreword to the book Earth, shared the challenge he felt writing science fiction that takes place fifty years into our future. Within ten years real world events can turn an interesting read into a joke, as…