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Tyler Cowen

We Are Living in a Science Fiction Novel

Digital currency? Ransomware? China on Mars? They’ve all been anticipated in books and serials.

China on Mars: Not science fiction, though this is an artist’s rendering.

China on Mars: Not science fiction, though this is an artist’s rendering.

Source: Chinese State Administration of Science, Technology, and Industry for National Defense/Xinhua/AP

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I have been reading science fiction for half a century, having spent my childhood consuming it in various forms. Now, for the first time in my life, I feel like I am living in a science fiction serial.

The break point was China’s landing of an exploratory vehicle on Mars. It’s not just the mere fact of it, as China was one of the world’s poorest countries until relatively recently. It’s that the vehicle contains a remarkable assemblage of software and artificial intelligence devices, not to mention lasers and ground-penetrating radar.