{"id":2713,"date":"2017-06-21T13:56:43","date_gmt":"2017-06-21T13:56:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/futureconditional\/?p=2713"},"modified":"2017-06-21T13:56:43","modified_gmt":"2017-06-21T13:56:43","slug":"the-story-behind-the-story-sparrowfall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/futureconditional\/2017\/06\/21\/the-story-behind-the-story-sparrowfall\/","title":{"rendered":"The story behind the story: Sparrowfall"},"content":{"rendered":"

The story Sparrowfall<\/em><\/a> marks a welcome return to Futures<\/a> for Robert Dawson, whose last Futures\u00a0tale offered a chilling view of the future of advertising<\/a>. This time, he\u2019s looking at another application of technology \u2014 and how it may or may not help. Here he talks about the ideas behind the tale \u2014 as ever, it pays to read the story first<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Writing Sparrowfall<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

I wrote this story to explore the limitations of \u2018intelligent\u2019 systems. A self-driving car may have reflexes faster than a Formula 1 driver, and never be tired or tipsy \u2014\u00a0but can it predict when a child\u2019s football will roll into the street and its owner follow?<\/span><\/p>\n

In the same way, it\u2019s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that a habitat, whether city or space ship, with ubiquitous sensory devices, machines to act on its behalf, and enough computing power to coordinate them all, \u00a0would almost be its own tutelary deity. The title (echoing Matthew 10:29) and the apple-picker at the beginning of the story are, of course, meant to encourage the reader to consider this idea. <\/span><\/p>\n

But the city, although giving a superficial appearance of omniscience and programmed to be benevolent, or at least helpful, is limited in its powers. It has not been designed to respond to all emergencies, and its programmers have deliberately required it to respect the free will of all the inhabitants. It wasn\u2019t built to be a god, and it can\u2019t save the woman from herself.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The story Sparrowfall marks a welcome return to Futures for Robert Dawson, whose last Futures\u00a0tale offered a chilling view of the future of advertising. This time, he\u2019s looking at another application of technology \u2014 and how it may or may not help. Here he talks about the ideas behind the tale \u2014 as ever, it pays to read the story first.  Read more<\/a> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":281,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science-fiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/futureconditional\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/futureconditional\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/futureconditional\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/futureconditional\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/281"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/futureconditional\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2713"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/futureconditional\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2713\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/futureconditional\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/futureconditional\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/futureconditional\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}