When The Future Becomes The Present

Nilofer Merchant

Ramsey Seikaly

"Many economists and technologists believe we’re coming into the machine age, where humans will compete with technology for jobs and ability to create value. I think they are partially right. In Star Trek, machines enabled humans to be more social. See the world through this lens, and you realize all of this technology combined with human ingenuity can be brought together to drive towards something new — a world where all people count."
                                                                                                                    Nilofer Merchant 

Los Angeles - The reality between science fiction and fact has become so blurred that the boundaries that had separated the two disciplines into their respective autonomous realms, have inexorably been increasingly blending thanks to the spectacular advancements in technology over the last decade.  

What seemed 10, 15 years ago as purely a Star Wars special effects showcase, concocted by the dream wizards up in San Marin County at the Skywalker Ranch, code for George Lucas' Industrial Light and Magic, is fast becoming today's reality.

I recently came across a TED lecture on that  very subject .  No not George and his special effects masters but how in this case Star Trek, the 60's pop sci-fie that birthed the Trekkie franchise, that incidentally continues to this very day, that much of the technology fantasized and propped on  both  the television series and their subsequent movie franchises, is becoming a reality.  

The future ladies and gentlemen has arrived and isn't planning on leaving any time soon.  

Nilofer Merchant, a former tech executive who’s now a two-time book author, gave a presentation as to what that future might bring in the next 30 years.  The title of her talk on TED...HOW STAR TREK WILL FINALLY COME TRUE.   


Check out the clip below and follow her at her blog, Yes & Know, or on Twitter @nilofer.

---