I’ve read a LOT of science fiction over the last 50 years. Probably started buying paperbacks in 1968 or so when I started at McGill University. I used to shop at the Chapters bookstore on Ste. Catherine.
Recently, it seems that many of the SF themes are becoming reality…
Space flight: In SF, it’s often a brilliant individual that makes commercial spaceflight a thing. Elon Musk’s SpaceX is an echo of Heinlein’s novels.
Moon colonies: It’s being talked of these days by China (and maybe Musk?) Will a moonbase be created in the next 10 years? A possibility.
Mars colonies: Elon Musk is working towards this. Hard to bet against him.
Robots: They’re ubiquitous in manufacturing these days. I read a story recently about a company that provides robots for an hourly wage — $8/hour and up. They set up, program, and maintain these “hourly workers”, competing with minimum-wage humans!
Artificial Intelligence: Neural networks (e.g., GPT-3) are doing amazing things these days. AI researchers predict AGI will be achieved this century, maybe by 2050-2060. Will this result in the feared “singularity”?
Longevity: The SF “prolong” life-extension theme is starting to play out in real-world medical research. Aubrey de Grey says we’re 30 years from achieving life-extension “escape velocity”. (But he’s been saying this for at least 30 years!) Medical researchers have doubled the life-span yeasts, fruit flies, mice, etc. There are drugs in development than might be available in a decade or so.
Nuclear power: The current best strategy about how to address climate change and reduce CO2 is to go nuclear. Today, France (and Japan?) get most of their electricity from nuclear. Switching from internal combustion engines to battery/electric for transport is slowly happening, but we need more electric generation, a LOT more.
Nuclear fusion: There are reactors under construction that should achieve break-even. Many companies involved. Talk of having commercial delivery is a few decades.
My bottom line: I want to see what happens in the next few decades. Should be an interesting couple of decades, if I’m still around and kicking! That’s my plan.