[Joe Hoffman]

There is a facile pessimistic answer, but everyone already thought of it so I’ll give the optimistic answer instead.

This is a temporary condition, caused by the tremendous expansion of productive capacity in the world’s economy.  Because so few of us are needed to grow food and build houses now, we have a lot more scholars than we used to, and we can explore questions so specialized that only three people care about them. (The researcher, their major professor, and Reviewer 1.) Soon, though, reading academic publications will primarily be the job of Artificial Intelligences. They’ll be the numerous readers we all currently wish we had.

The next generation of researchers will work with an AI at their sides that has complete familiarity with all related research. Finding the lacunae in our understanding, filling them from other fields, and developing a higher level of abstraction will become possible. Asking the over-arching questions that the manifesto describes will be the primary job of all researchers (not just us Old Ones) as soon as it’s no longer necessary to spend three decades coming up to speed.

[Joe Hoffman]

This may sound weird, but the only SF work I can think of in which a map drives the action is Starman Jones. Maps are a much bigger deal in fantasy.

[Author]

Posts