AM+A.SciFi+HCI.eBook.17Aug12 - Aaron Marcus and Associates, Inc.

Aaron Marcus, The Past 100 Years of the Future, Page 4
Abstract
During the past hundred years, science-fiction (sci-fi) films and, later, videos, have, of
necessity, had to depict detailed views of human-computer interaction (HCI) of the
future, or alternate pasts/presents, in order to convey a compelling scene and,
sometimes, in order move forward the plot. This publication explores some of the
themes that emerge from examining this body of work. The l is simple: HCI
professionals can learn something from sci-fi media, and sci-fi media-producers can
learn more from HCI professionals in order to show smarter views of the future.
Article Text:
Sci-Fi and HCI: 
Past, Present, and Future
“Greeting HCI/CHIons of the Planet Earth. I bring you a message of great import. May
the Schwartz be with you in your quest for knowledge of excellent user experiences….”
So might the opening of the Academy Awards of 2014 for Human-Computer Interaction
(HCI) in movies and videos begin…but such is not the case...In the meantime, please
join with me in this romp through time, space, fiction, and reality.
Movies and video programs of traditional broadcast media over the past hundered years
have made extensive use of computer-human interaction in telling science-fiction stories
that envision the future or alternate worlds of the past or present. In the following
publication, I present a personal and roughly chronological essay. This survey provides
examples of HCI included within movies and videos that I presented in my keynote
address at the Mensch und Komputer Conference 2011 in Chemnitz, Germany. I am
indebted to Prof. Dr. Maximilian Eibl and to Dr. Arne Berger for their invitation to present
the results of my study (see the online video cited in the Bibliography).
I provide an early warning: This text is not an academic treatise, but more like a
travelogue of past futures. Besides informing and entertaining you, I hope it will inspire
PhD students worldwide and others to explore further the topics mentioned. My
comments are a compendium of insights gained from viewing many of these works with
an eye trained for decades to notice the details that inspire, frustrate, and inform us as
user-experience (UX) and user-interface (UI) or human-computer interaction (HCI)
design professionals.
How old is science-fiction story-telling? Depending on how you define this genre, one
can go back to visions of the future that date at least from the time of Roger Bacon,
noted philosopher and scholar, who in 1260 CE/AD commented that someday…
“Machines may be made by which the largest ships, with only one man steering them,
will be moved faster than if they were filled with rowers; wagons may be built which will
move with incredible speed and without the aid of beasts; flying machines can be
constructed in which a man…may beat the air with wings like a bird…machines will
make it possible to go to the bottom of seas and rivers.”
 [De secretis operibus, c. 4. ed.
Cit. 533; cf. L. Thorndike, History of Magic and Expermental Science, ii (1929), 654-5; F.
Boll, “Technische Träume des Mittelalters”, Die Umschau, xxi (1917, 678-80, all cited in
White, Lynn, Jr. (1962). Medieval Technology and Social Change. London: Oxford, p.
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