Tuesday, January 26, 2016

Digital Psychic


At the heart of much speculative fiction (and fiction in general) is a question. What if? On Tuesdays I like to throw one out there and see what you make of it. Do with it as you please. If a for-instance is not specified, feel free to interpret that instance as you wish. And if you find this becomes a novel-length answer, I'd appreciate a thank you in the acknowledgements ;)

What if someone created a digital psychic? (By "digital psychic", I mean a computer program or robotic device that can accurately predict the future.)

23 comments:

  1. That person would be very rich I think! I would imagine they would sell their predictions to the highest bidders.

    betty

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  2. I think it would be a scary proposition. Fate is never set though so we'd still try to change the future outcomes.

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  3. Western governments would do everything to stop it going public and revealing their crimes :)

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  4. I'd ask this digital psychic, "When and how will you be used for evil?" (That's both the pessimist and optimist in me talking.)

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  5. I think a lot of people would want to destroy it.

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  6. It reminds me of that movie with Tom Cruise which the title escapes me at the moment. I could see many people wanting it so they could get the winning lottery #'s. It would be too powerful a tool that us mere humans could not use correctly

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  7. Hmmm, too many people would try to change the present in negative ways to affect the future.

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  8. I'm not interested in knowing the future! Knowing today is stressful enough! I'm glad nothing like that is possible

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    1. But what if something wonderful was coming?

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    2. Then it would be a happy surprise!!

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  9. Wow, this is a thinker. This is the kind of thing that could inspire an interesting book. I'm definitely going to have to let it run around in my head for a while...

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  10. Liz, I think we all sorta wanna know what the future holds for us. No man can predict the future, even though some believe there are people who can see what's ahead. Let's say for the moment such a device is created, then if we knew where our path would lead, then this would change the way we lived, right? This could be a good thing or bad depending the information you were given. For most people, if they got bad news then they'd fall into a deep depression and what time they have left would be robbed. So, I'm content not knowing what tomorrow holds and to live for the day like it was my last. Totally interesting question!

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  11. I think whoever created it would know people would want to steal so they would be very careful about revealing it. Maybe they wouldn't reveal it all. Or, maybe they would try to prevent some of the things the DP predicted, which could prove interesting...

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  12. I'd be just as disinterested as I am in the people ones.

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  13. The people who would use this to make fortunes in the stock market, or to start wars. I hope such a digital psychic is never developed. Alana ramblinwitham.blogspot.com

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  14. It would never be able to predict with 100% accuracy because it would be using statistics and probability. Some things can't be foreseen. Great question though.

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    1. Would it? Or might there be some way to predict the future through other means?

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I appreciate your comments.

I respond to comments* via email, unless your profile email is not enabled. Then, I'll reply in the comment thread. Eventually. Probably.

*Exception: I do not respond to "what if?" comments, but I do read them all. Those questions are open to your interpretation, and I don't wish to limit your imagination by what I thought the question was supposed to be.