Chapter 1 of the book Films from the Future: The Technology and Morality of Sci-Fi movies, read by the author Andrew Maynard
In this episode: 2001 A Space Odyssey | Beginnings | Welcome to the Future | The Power of Convergence |Socially Responsible Innovation |A Common Point of Focus
Originally published July 7, 2023. Remastered November 4, 2026
Preamble
Way back in 2017, I started to write a book about the growing number of transformative technologies that were beginning to emerge, and the challenges and opportunities they presented as they collided with humanity with all our hopes, aspirations, complexities and — not to put too fine a point on it — oddities and idiosyncrasies. This was not intended to be just a book about technology, or about society and the future, or even just about the risks and benefits of powerful tech. Rather, I set out to peel apart the layers of what it means to be human in a technological age (an early forerunner of much of my current work), and how this intersects with how we think about, understand and, ultimately navigate, deeply complex advanced technology transitions. And to do this, I needed a way of approaching the topics I was writing about that drew readers in and opened up new possibilities, no matter who they are.
My solution was to use science fiction movies — not as the focus of the book, but as a medium through which readers and I could journey together as we explored emerging capabilities and their potential implications.
The result was the book Films from the Future: The Technology and Morality of Sci-Fi Movies, published in 2018. The title was my publisher’s idea, not mine — I wanted The Moviegoer’s Guide to the Future, but that wasn’t to be.
Then, in 2020, covid hit, and there was an upswell in people creating online content for people isolated by the various lockdowns that were enforces around the world. As part of this, I recorded myself reading the complete book and posted the videos on YouTube.
A couple of years after that, I rediscovered those recordings, and thought it worth repackaging the audio as a podcast as part of the Future of being Human Substack. I was teaching a course from the book, and this was another way of providing my students access to the content for free. But, re-visiting it, I was also surprised by how relevant it still was.
Those original recordings were, truth be told, a little scrappy. But with the magic of audio processing, they have been cleaned up. The current recordings were updated in November 2026, and include no new content, but plenty of new audio polish!
In editing them, I was struck again just how relevant the book is. Written before covid and before current advances in AI, it remains deeply relevant to navigating the technology transitions we are currently in. In fact, I suspect that it’s more relevant now than it was eight years ago as we are collectively grappling with how to make sense of a world that is being transformed before our eyes.
I hope you enjoy listening and find these readings useful. And please do share them.
Oh, and if you’re interested in exploring further, please do explore the website spoileralert.wtf, which extends the book’s content to the present day, and is designed to be explored with AI.
Happy listening,
Andrew Maynard
November 2026
This Episode
This episode sets up the main themes in the book. It’s one of only two chapters that don’t explicitly riff of a sci-fi movie, although if course I had to squeeze one in anyway! Importantly, it frames the importance of taking a nuanced approach to socially responsible innovation in the face of complex and converging emerging technologies — something that’s more important than ever with current developments in AI.
