Andrew Thaler

On spending a month publishing science fiction from our Ocean Future.

February 2, 2016February 2, 2016 Andrew Thaler 1 Comment

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January 2016 was different.

We blocked off an entire month, primed it with some of the best speculative fiction from our ocean’s future, wrapped it in a narrative to connect seemingly disparate topics, and launched Field Notes from the Future, 41 blog post imagining the issues we would face in 2041, 25 years in the future. This was the first time in the blog’s almost 8-year run that we dedicated an entire month to a single concept. It was also the first time that the authors collaborated and coordinated our content.

I am incredibly happy with the results. Field Notes from the Future gave us a chance to flex our creative muscles in new and exciting ways. It gave us an outlet to express our hopes and fears, to expand on our concerns, and to look beyond the horizon and imagine the conflicts that have yet to emerge.

Science and Science Fiction have always been deeply connected. For all the great work of the “heroes of science communication”, the STEM-advocates, the science outreach professionals, it was Clarke, Verne, Shelley, Wells, and Le Guin who inspired me to pursue a career in science. Science shows us the world as it is, Science Fiction imagines the world as it could be.

The final server update: All systems normal.

January 31, 2016January 26, 2016 Andrew Thaler

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He showed me exactly what we needed to see. He? I, me, we. The me that is yet to be. The Nautilus is not of the future. Only data flow backwards. That much, I understand. At least I think I understand. He that is, well, me, eventually, understood. Will understand. The message was a code. … Read More “The final server update: All systems normal.” »

Happy New Years, old me

January 30, 2016January 26, 2016 Andrew Thaler

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I really hope this old twitter embed code works, otherwise this whole thing is going to fall apart. Hey Dr. Thaler circa 2016, did you get my package? Check the infill. On January 1, 2016, the Southern Fried Science central server began uploading blog posts apparently circa 2041. Due to a related corruption of the … Read More “Happy New Years, old me” »

How to fight invasive software: the cure to the cyborg crisis.

January 29, 2016January 26, 2016 Andrew Thaler

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On January 1, 2016, the Southern Fried Science central server began uploading blog posts apparently circa 2041. Due to a related corruption of the contemporary database, we are, at this time, unable to remove these Field Notes from the Future or prevent the uploading of additional posts. Please enjoy this glimpse into the ocean future while we attempt to rectify the situation.

It came from the deep.

The heart of Zero Cloner is a snippet of cunningly concealed genetic code isolated from shrimp on the Mid-Cayman Spreading Center, retro-edited to create an easy to edit gene region to which other Cloner derivatives can latch. Zero Cloner pave the way for Omega Cloner. Omega Cloner spread across the world, locking augmented humans out of society. The Standard Deviants launched a series of attacks early Monday morning, destroying essential digital architecture needed to maintain a fully integrated world.

Entire nations are grinding to a halt. We needed a cure, and we needed it fast.

It also came from the deep.

Technocracy and the Sea

January 28, 2016 Andrew Thaler 1 Comment

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“The sea is big. The sea is cruel. She takes more than she gives. That’s how it’s always been.”

This line from my long forgotten first science fiction novel still resonates with me. The ocean is a tough place. No matter how good we get at working at sea, the sea always finds new and creative ways to totally undermine our endeavors.

The last quarter century has seen a tremendous rise in our collective faith in technology’s power to save us. When hundreds of thousands were dying on the roads, we made car that drove themselves, reducing traffic fatalities by several orders of magnitude. After the last great recession, we created new digital currencies to protect our savings from market forces. When we could no longer afford to burn coal and oil, we finally built an alternative energy infrastructure.

When firearm deaths and mass shootings were out of control, we built “safe” guns with sophisticated biometric locks, and developed clothing and shields to reduce fatalities. These measures had almost no effect, but we continue to throw technology at the problem.

That is the problem with technocracy.

Read More “Technocracy and the Sea” »

Welcome to the Future: Three Rules for Artificially Intelligent Underwater Robots.

January 27, 2016January 28, 2016 Andrew Thaler

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Underwater robotics has come a long way since I started working on it in the early ‘noughts. From the massive industrial beasts of the old guard to the small, sleak, eminently hackable sprite of the Connected Exploration movement to this new crop of fully autonomous, decision-making and directive setting AI-powered drones of the last few years, everything keeps getting smaller, cheaper, and more capable. It’s a great decade to be exploring the deep.

Last month, we deployed our first swarm of artificially intelligent deep diving robots designed to patrol the abyssal plane, identify regions of unique biodiversity, and recommend critical ecosystems for international protection in advance of biomining operations. What’s unique about this project is that we’ve assigned all decision-making authority directly to the swarm. They get to decide where in the world they go and how and when they sample. This came after years of debate and negotiation with stakeholders from science, conservation, and industry, and has been accepted through international agreement as the most unbiased and equitable solution to the challenge of getting groups with vastly different goals to agree upon dividing up the deep.

The future we wanted to build.

January 26, 2016January 26, 2016 Andrew Thaler

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Twenty-five years ago this month we tried a radical experiment. For 31 days, every single post we made came from the future. This future, to be exact. We explored the nature of change, the fate of our ocean, the cycles of environmentalism–from problem to proposal to success to complacency to new problem. We imagined solutions and their consequences. We envisioned struggles that would continue, and struggles that would fade, unremembered. We shifted the baseline and watched it crumble.

It seems weird, looking back now that the day has come, on those old posts. We got a few things right, and a lot of things wrong.

Damn the paradoxes! Southern Fried Server Update #4

January 25, 2016January 26, 2016 Andrew Thaler

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It is clear now that whatever is driving this flood of future content in inextricably connected to the virus infecting cyborgs in 2041. While human-machine interfaces are something that I have always been interested in, it is not something I write about, and it is certainly not something I would write about on a marine … Read More “Damn the paradoxes! Southern Fried Server Update #4” »

The Cyborg Crisis: new digital virus is fatal to augmented humans

January 24, 2016January 18, 2016 Andrew Thaler

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What began as a relatively benign, though eminently annoying cybernetic virus has evolved into a global catastrophe. Alpha Cloner was just the beginning of a series of increasingly malevolent molecular vectors. Once the code was out, creatives got to work, hacking together more clever, more wicked software packets. The flood gates were open.

Even the barrage of behavior modifying bugs was a distraction. Whoever coded Zero Cloner knew that there would be hundreds of hackers altering their code. They were counting on it.

The genius of Alpha Cloner was not that it tricked augmented humans into queuing up at a food truck. The genius of Alpha Cloner was that the ad hoc fix was for augments to shut off their internal geolocators. This practically guaranteed that the Center for Disease Control and Digital Security would be incapable of tracking the virus as beyond the initial outbreak or document the spread of the Zero Cloner base code–which we now know acts as a critical architecture for further infection. As, one by one, cyborgs opted out of the National Tracking Matrix, the origin and extent of the infection was obscured.

Gliding on starlight: Celestial Navigation for Martian Explorers

January 23, 2016January 15, 2016 Andrew Thaler 1 Comment

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Thousands of years ago, merchants on the Arabian Peninsula would cross vast, featureless desert as they traveled from settlement to settlement, selling their goods. They had no roads, no maps, no GPS, yet still they managed to find their mark. They accomplished this tremendous feat of navigation with the help of the stars and a tiny instrument called a kamal.

The kamal was a piece of wood, bone, or ivory, with a piece of string threaded through it at a precise point and measured out to a precise distance. By sighting the kamal against the horizon and the north star, these merchants could maintain a constant latitude as they marchd across the desert, and find their way home. For millennia, this basic principal–that the celestial pole could, with the right instrument, reveal latitude–was the driving force for exploration, trade, and travel. Polynesian sailors used latitude hooks to mark their journey. Portuguese explorers used quadrants to find their way across the Atlantic and around Africa. The age of discovery was already entering its twilight by the time we had figured out longitude–the great scientific puzzle of an generation. For most, simply knowing latitude and cardinal direction was enough to circle the world and return home.

The Martian Circumtropical Expedition kicks off net month, with teams from 17 nations racing to see who will be first to circumnavigate the red planet. Their sandgliders will be outfitted with the most sophisticated expedition gear that their sponsors can afford, costing, at the low end, hundreds of millions of dollars. The budget for China’s team surpasses the GDP of most countries. These will be the best outfitted and most connected explorers in history.

What happens if things go wrong?