To steer the future we must imagine a different past

When I was in my 20s, I wrote dystopian fiction. I imagined many worlds like one, for example, where the elite lived in technological enclaves. Their privilege granted them sheltered existences, shielded from news of wars and climate collapse, and they were only tethered to reality through interaction with humanoid robots piloted by the poor and incarcerated. At the time I couldn’t tell you why I wrote such stories, but now I realize I wanted to explore how the social context of a technology influenced its development. While my writing veered toward pessimism, I was reacting to the fact that, in America, we seem to have lost the ability or desire to understand the role social governance plays in shaping technological progress.By governance, I mainly am referring to the legal, cultural, institutional, and economic actions that end up shaping how a technology diffuses and creates social progress. Our collective understanding of progress and innovation revolve around solitary, rock star…