Curated playlist
Science fiction themes
- AI takeoverIn 2014, Stephen Hawking issued a stark warning about artificial intelligence. He said, "Success in creating AI would be the biggest event in human history. Unfortunately, it might also be the last, unless we learn how to avoid the risks."…
- PostmodernismThe word postmodern first appeared in print in 1870, in a painter's note about style.
- Galactic empireA galactic empire is a single centralized political power that rules most or all of the habitable planets in a fictional galaxy. It is one of science fiction's most familiar settings. Galactic empires turn up most often in space opera and…
- Technological singularityIn 1965, I. J. Good described a machine that designs smarter machines.
- 3D computer graphicsMost 3D computer graphics are shown on flat screens. The depth you see is an illusion built by math.
- TranshumanismIn 2002, Kevin Warwick had electrodes implanted in his arm to link his nerves to the internet.
- Space colonizationNo permanent settlement has ever been built beyond Earth. Space colonization is still only proposals and designs.
- Global catastrophic riskStudies show people are roughly as willing to save 2,000 birds as 200,000. Researchers call it scope insensitivity.
- MultiverseDoes everything that could exist actually exist? The multiverse idea asks exactly that.
- MechaIn 1972, Go Nagai put the pilot inside the giant robot Mazinger Z. Earlier robots were steered by remote control.
- Human outpostNASA trains astronauts for space by sending them to the ocean floor.
- HyperspaceIn Arthur C. Clarke's 1950 story "Technical Error", hyperspace flips a man's body left to right.