Back in 1818, when Mary Shelley penned the masterpiece Frankenstein, she was unknowingly forecasting the future. The monster is brought to life with a method called galvanism: the concept of manipulating muscles with an electrical current in order to animate flesh. Cut to over a century later, and in 1947, the American surgeon Dr Claude Beck saved a teenage patient’s life with a 60Hz jolt to the heart using a homemade defibrillator. Within just a couple of years, the machines were reviving patients around the world.
Sci-fi books, TV, and movies have predicted all kinds of other real-world inventions. Take Star Trek the show featured hand-held communication devices before cell phones were around, and Star Wars gave us the inspiration for later technologies such as 3D holograms and electronic prosthetics. AI has taken its cues from sci-fi, too. Blade Runner shaped many popular ideas about AI (for better or worse) and Total Recall is widely credited with forecasting a future with driverless cars. Johnny Cab, an autonomous computer system, is Arnold Schwarzenegger’s character Douglas Quaid’s getaway driver (although, it isn’t long before Quaid takes the wheel).
While a bunch of big breakthroughs were sparked by sci-fi, there are also a whole lot of great ideas from sci-fi that haven’t become a reality yet. Below, the XPRIZE team run us through the big ideas they still want to see become reality.
Teleportation
"Of all the sci-fi imagined technology that could make life easier for humans, teleportation would be at the top of my list,” says Rachel Hefner, Project Manager at XPRIZE. “I'm sure I wasn't the only kid who spun a globe with their eyes closed and vowed to go wherever my finger landed. How nice would be that be to have a Hayden Christensen “Jumper-like" ability to picture a place and be there a few seconds later?”
Invisibility cloaks
Lisa Covington, Product Lead on Impact and Design, agrees. “Here’s my case for why I need the invisibility cloak to become a reality... Every morning I have to roll right out of bed to walk the dog – the one that starts staring at me over the edge of the bed at about 6:30 am. It’s not pretty. I tend to put on whatever sweats and raggedy sneakers are on the floor next to the bed, and let’s not even get into what my hair looks like. Now, if I had an invisibility cloak or a personal cloaking device, I could just throw that sucker on, or engage it, and get our mile walk done without having the neighbors call the cops on ‘that scary-looking lady in old, torn sweatpants (and sometimes orange crocs)’ roaming the neighborhood, bringing home values down. I would, of course, need the extra large/2 creature option to cover the dog as well, or I’d have animal control out after the stray dog that appears every morning. No greater-good story here, just a simple need not to be seen poorly dressed, with a significant case of bedhead and no bra. My life would be complete.”
Smart socks
Cindy Hemming – our resident long-distance runner and Senior Manager, Paralegal, Legal and Corporate Development – is looking to go beyond Marty McFly’s Nikes. "We have smartwatches, why not smart socks (spelled Sox). Shoes with built-in sensors that can automatically adjust the stabilization and cushion of the shoe to minimize impact.”
Emotional transfer and instant learning
“In the book The Giver by Lois Lowry, the titular character can directly transmit memories, emotions, and sensory experiences, like color, through the power of touch,” explains XPRIZE’s Senior Associate, Partnerships Justin D’Angona. “Imagine having the power to immediately understand how someone else was feeling, or share your entire lived experience with a stranger in an instant? The ability to engage someone’s empathy like this could radically accelerate us towards a more equitable and just society and shift the focus of our interpersonal exchanges to the experiences that make us uniquely human, which will become increasingly valuable as AI and computer power outpace our ability to process information rationally.”
Justin also thinks Matrix–style instant learning would make life a whole lot easier. “There's a tower of unread books in the corner of my room that is growing wobbly with each new addition,” he says. “It would be incredible to be able to download their contents in an instant, like Neo in The Matrix. Plus it would free up some floor space. Fingers crossed for a Neuralink and Coursera integration sometime soon.”
Universal translators
We already have Google Translate, but could we go further, wonders David Poli, Senior Associate, Research, Impact and Design? "One of the technologies from Star Trek I think would be really impactful (and probably isn’t that far off) is the universal translator,” he muses. “It’s a device that helps you hear what another person is saying in their voice, but in your language. In Trek it enables interstellar diplomacy, but even here on Earth it could help bridge divides, spread ideas, and enable meaningful relationships between very different people.”
Liquid breathing, avatar tech, and dream sharing
Meredith Walker, XPRIZE’s Global Economist and Head of Prize Advancement, says she would like to see “liquid breathing featured in James Cameron’s The Abyss, so I could dive thousands of feet without compressing”. Meredith would also like to see the avatar technology featured in Cameron’s Avatar become a reality – “to be able to experience running like a cheetah, flying like an eagle, swimming like a dolphin, or as other living creatures.” Plus, PASIV device, the portable dream-sharing machine featured in Christopher Nolan’s Inception, “to share dreams and envision new worlds.”
NZT-48 and Cortexiphan
"We have all had those days when our brain just doesn’t want to cooperate. I’d love to see some version of NZT-48 from the TV show Limitless,” says Chris Classen, Head of Brand Experience at XPRIZE. “I could get so much done having access to every neuron in my brain! Although I think it was just for a limited amount of time, understandably. I might also opt for Cortexiphan from another favorite show of mine that sadly ended after one season; Fringe. Cortexiphan was a treatment that prevents mental decline, and I think we would all love to be our sharpest selves for our entire lives.”
OASIS (Ontologically Anthropocentric Sensory Immersive Simulation)
"My favorite sci-fi movie has recently been Ready Player One. In this movie humanity uses the virtual world OASIS (Ontologically Anthropocentric Sensory Immersive Simulation) to escape the real world in terms of all aspects of life, where the limits of reality are your own imagination,” says Sofie Hernandez-Tapia, Executive Assistant to Chief Marketing Officer at XPRIZE.
“Everything that people want to do and be is all in the OASIS! For example, need a vacation? Take a trip to the Vacation Planet and surf a 50-foot wave in Hawaii, ski on the Great Pyramids, or climb Mount Everest with Batman! Want to be someone different in the Oasis? You can choose whether you look beautiful, scary, if you want to be animated, turn into a different species, or turn into an object even! I actually don't think we are far from creating a world that is like this. It would be very exciting to see this become a reality and kind of live a double life and have a true abundance of universes to interact with!”
Time travel… or at least, cross-time communication
Haneen Khalaf, Principle Project Manager at XPRIZE says: “I think about the past looking forward, and I wish I had a direct communication line with my ancestors. I want to tell them about how I am living their wildest dreams using technology – like a supercomputer in my pocket – to accomplish things that would have been unthinkable to them. I want to tell them that I’m grateful for this opportunity to make them proud.”
The Force
And finally, of course, no list of sci-fi concepts would be complete without The Force. “The Force is what gives a Jedi his power. It’s an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us; it binds the galaxy together,” said Obi-Wan Kenobi, to Luke Skywalker, in Star Wars: The Last Jedi.
“It’s more metaphysical, but the concept of The Force is really moving to me,” says Anna Lucier, Director, Individual Giving at XPRIZE. “If my memory serves me correctly, in episode IV when Luke is attempting to destroy the Death Star, he takes two tries using the computer-aided tech and he misses hitting the tiny, vulnerable spot on the Death Star that if hit would destroy it. Then Obi-Wan Kenobi, speaks to him and tells him to put away the machine and use the force. Luke takes his third and hears Obi-Wan saying ‘use the Force Luke’. He shoots, hits the vulnerable spot, and the death star explodes. All of this was accomplished using ‘The Force’. It gives me goosebumps to this day thinking about that scene.”