Technophobia!: Science Fiction Visions of Posthuman Technology

by Dan Dinello

Techno-heaven or techno-hell? If you believe many scientists working in the emerging fields of twenty-first-century technology, the future is blissfully bright. Initially, human bodies will be perfected through genetic manipulation and the fusion of human and machine; later, human beings will completely shed the shackles of pain, disease, and even death, as human minds are downloaded into death-free robots whereby they can live forever in a heavenly "posthuman" existence. In this techno-utopian future, humanity will be saved by the godlike power of technology. If you believe the authors of science fiction, however, posthuman evolution marks the beginning of the end of human freedom, values, and identity. Our dark future will be dominated by mad scientists, rampaging robots, killer clones, and uncontrollable viruses. In this timely new book, Daniel Dinello examines "the dramatic conflict between the techno-utopia promised by real-world scientists and the techno-dystopia predicted by science fiction." Organized into chapters devoted to robotics, bionics, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, biotechnology, nanotechnology, and other significant scientific advancements, this book summarizes the current state of each technology, while presenting corresponding reactions in science fiction. Dinello draws on a rich range of material, including films, television, books, and computer games, and argues that science fiction functions as a valuable corrective to technological domination, countering techno-hype and reflecting the "weaponized, religiously rationalized, profit-fueled" motives of such science. By imaging a disastrous future of posthuman techno-totalitarianism, science fiction encourages us to construct ways to contain new technology, and asks its audience perhaps the most important question of the twenty-first is technology out of control?

Genres: Science Fiction

341 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

Reviews

[Silvio Curtis · Rating 2 out of 5]

Considering that the author is a college professor and the publisher is an academic press, this is a shamefully shallow book. The introduction and first chapter are a thirty-page rant against transhumanists and similar techno-utopians. The other chapters are basically a list with summaries of science fiction movies and books that treat futuristic technology in a negative or positive light. Dinello is interested in only one thing about these works, whether they are dystopian - that is, they're with him - or utopian - that is, they're against him. That has to lead to all sorts of oversimplifications. Without thinking too hard about it I notice this one, that a lot of the works that have human-posthuman struggles lead you to sympathize with the posthuman side at least as much as the humans, but Dinello just classifies them according to whether the conflict ends well or not. I can't even trust the new factual information I ran into here and there, because the book gets facts wrong too often: it says that Gnosticism is older than Christianity, and that the Turing Test is supposed to tell humans apart from artificial intelligences, and it garbles the plot of Asimov's "The Evitable Conflict."

[Alyssa Watson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think this book was made for me- for anyone with an academic-level interest in scifi and the moral conflicts of the future. Thought-provoking and an easy read. He explores various possible moral stances on topics as wide as cybernetics, the singularity, cloning, designer babies and a host of other moral conflicts explored in scifi but condensed and compared with one book. Theologians and philosophers may be reading this book if and when scifi tech becomes reality.

[Pippa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was so impressed by this that I bought my own copy, after borrowing it from the library. It covers a lot of real life science developments, and is a useful guide to SF themes.

[Diana Ramos]

Read a few chapters and realised this was not meant for my research at all. I won't be giving any rating because it wouldn't be fair to do so when I only read 15%