Science Fiction: The Cloudy Crystal Ball
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/science-fiction-the-cloudy-crystal-ball/
Sixteen years ago, long before the ascent of Facebook and Twitter, I published a science fiction story anticipating the rise of fake news. In “Born Under the Sign of Bonanza,” a shadowy Center for Memetics Research deliberately releases false ideas into the world and carefully tracks their spread through the internet, television, and other news media. How did I manage to foresee the rise of social media, the ease with which falsehoods would spread on the internet, and the deliberate dissemination of lies for nefarious purposes? The answer is simple: I didn’t.
Science fiction is famous for its successful predictions. In Jules Verne’s 1865 novel From the Earth to the Moon, the first mission to the moon is organized by Americans, launched from Florida, and crewed by three men. Numerous science fiction writers predicted nuclear power, and Cleve Cartmill published a story in early 1944 outlining the atomic bomb, resulting in a visit by a federal agent to the offices of Astounding Science Fiction.