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Science Fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke, in his new book, 3001: The Final Odyssey, details a sharply focused, if slightly idealistic, blueprint for the next millennium
You can breathe easy. We’ll be OK. Planet Earth will still be here in 1,000 years. The human race will survive another millennium, too, and we might even learn a thing or two. Arthur C. Clarke says so. And when the universe’s foremost living science-fiction writer makes a prediction about the future, you might just want to listen.
Although Clarke’s just-published 3001: The Final Odyssey paints mindmelting sci-fi images (anti gravity machines around every corner, computers that stick to your head like skin, a city suspended in space around the Earth’s equator), the fantastic worlds of Arthur C. Clarke aren’t so fantastic.
After all, this is the man who predicted satellites years before they orbited the planet. This is the man behind HAL 9000, the super-intelligent computer from the 1968 movie and novel 2001: A Space Odyssey, which many of today’s programmers consider the new standard for defining "artificial intelligence." This is the man who, through hundreds of books and stories since the 1940s has brought science to the fiction.
"I sometimes feel embarrassed and annoyed by the nonsense that’s put out in the media about UFOs, and I fear we science-fiction writers must bear some of the blame," he admits during an e-mail interview. "In my own work, of course, I always distinguish between fact and possible or plausible extrapolations."
So, the ideas in 3001, the third sequel to 2001, do more than explain longtime mysteries of the epic’s black monoliths and vanishing astronaut Dave Bowman. (Don’t worry if you missed "2010" and "2061," Clarke also provides a nicely guided tour through the history of the future.)
He details a sharply focused, if slightly idealistic, blue-print for the next millennium, and each chapter is foot-noted with actual, real-life research on things such as gravity-defying machines and computers that can store the contents of a human mind.
The 80-year-old sci-fi guru emerged last month (electronically, through Internet interviews and "appearances") from his home in Sri Lanka to promote his book, but found popular attention centred on his past vision, the HAL 9000 computer.
During an online academic conference last week at the University of Illinois, Clarke sent an over- the-Internet birthday greeting to his fictional mainframe HAL, which, according to the story, became operational in 1997.
And this month, the author will deliver another sermon on the subject (this time via videotape) to an artificial intelligence sympo- sium at Pasadena’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
"I am not sure why HAL’s birthday has gotten so much attention," he says. "It’s obvious there’s a big ‘2001’ constituency out there."
But C1arke and 2001 collaborator and director Stanley Kubrick have vowed not to let HAL-mania get out of control.
"There’s no truth in the nonsensical report that (Kubrick) is going to redo 2001 a la Star Wars," he insists, rebuffing rumours of a retold version of the 60s space epic
Instead of tinkering with past success as the year 2001 approaches, he sends his story far, far into the future, a full 10 centuries.
In the world of 3001, the citizens of Earth communicate through intricate computers worn on their skulls. The people live on the scorching surface of Venus and the strange moons of Jupiter.
They also look back in horror at the barbaric and naive children of the 20th century, a theme familiar throughout Clarke’s work. Superior aliens or futuristic humans have passed plenty of cautionary judgment on our so called modern world.
"Although some terrible things are happening politically," Clarke says, "I’ve seen far more progress in space than I ever imagined possible in my own lifetime."
Moon landings and Voyager probes haven’t ended war and misunderstanding, he says. But that’s not to say that Earthlings won’t grow out of it, that we won’t start paying attention to our own long-term fate.
His stories say we will. Our future depends on it.
"I am very disappointed every time I turn on the TV news these days. Who isn’t? Yet I’m still an optimist," he says. "I think we have a 51 per cent chance of survival." - NYT
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