Peter Thiel Quotes

There is a sort of genre of optimistic science fiction that I like, and I don't think there is enough of. One of my favourites is a short story by Arthur C. Clarke, 'The City and the Stars.' It's set in this far future on Earth in this somewhat static society and trying to break out.

Whenever I read a contemporary literary novel that describes the world we're living in, I wait for the science fiction tools to come out. Because they have to - the material demands it.

As a literature of change driven by technology, science fiction presents religion to a part of the reading public that probably seldom goes to church.

Terminator' is a reflection of how the world is changing.

I'm trying to think overall. Some of our stories [Black Mirror], I think you're right in that they don't tend to have a message.

Science fiction is becoming more of a diverse kind of genre.

The concept of the robot encapsulates both aspects of technology. On one hand it's cool, it's fun, it's healthy, it's sexy, it's stylish. On the other hand it's terrifying, it's alienating, it's addictive, and it's scary. That has been the subject of much science-fiction literature.

I worked with Stanley Kubrick for almost a year back in 1990, trying to develop the screen story for his project 'Artificial Intelligence,' which is about a robot boy who wishes to become a real boy, a future scientific fairy tale inspired in the myth of Pinocchio.

Tokyo in the late 1960s seemed to be like one of the futures that science fiction presents. Here was the proto- super-technology of the future, electronically, robotically, blahblahblah, intercut with traditional Japanese cultural patterns, Shinto patterns.

Science fiction writers foresee the inevitable.

R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots)

I think the world will just be better if AI is helping us. It will reduce the cost of goods, giving us good education, changing the way we run hospitals and the health-care system - there's just a long list of things.

The idea of a computer winning the Nobel Prize for physics is not too unlikely, citing a computer as joint recipient. It's obviously not a huge leap to think of something similar happening in fiction.

I love that vein which uses sci-fi to address society's problems. It is the same when you have useful nightmares - things morph, and you get to confront issues in your dreams.

The original 'Star Trek' is very much a product of the '60s - the new frontier, optimism, the idea of bringing democracy to the galaxy. It's still a timeless show, but it's very much a show made in the 1960s.

Science fiction should not be dismissed as escapism. It is a profound vehicle for talking about social and political issues.

Software substitution, whether it's for drivers or waiters or nurses - it's progressing. Technology over time will reduce demand for jobs, particularly at the lower end of skill set.

I don't know why, but American sci-fi writers seem to focus on the near-future, which has given us Brits a clear run at the most fascinating.

Even though I knew pretty early that I was going to be a scientist, it wasn't the science that interested me in science fiction; it was the vision of future societies that, for better or worse, would be radically different from our own.

Science fiction's power, if it has any, is that it gives us reasonable extrapolations, not wild and woolly stuff.

Sci-fi is just as much about social science as technology.

Science fiction always has had strains of pessimism and optimism weaving through its historical development, sometimes one dominating and then the other, usually depending on the state of the world.

If you ask people whether a computer can be smarter than a human, 99.9 percent will say that's science fiction. Actually, it's inevitable. It's guaranteed to happen.

I think that some of the archetypes and works of science fiction that have pierced pop culture and stayed there are the darker ones and the dystopias.

How could you possibly call something science fiction at this point unless it has to do with something that hasn't been done? When I write about 'Drones over Brooklyn,' it's not like I'm making something up. Drones are policing American cities.