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Living in the Cyberpunk Present

In the last couple of years, we’ve seen:

*The rise of synthetic recreational drugs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_cannabis)
*The rebellion by the public against the multinational banks that have an overabundance of the wealth of the world (http://occupywallst.org/)
*A pocket computer that can have a conversation with you (http://www.apple.com/iphone/features/siri.html)
*The slow decline of the United States as a world power
*The rise of China and India as economic centers of the world
*The second largest company in the world is one that makes computer hardware (http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=largest+market+cap)
*A human had his eye replaced with a camera (http://eyeborgblog.com/)
*Military and police are using focused-energy weapons regularly (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_Denial_System)
*We have cars that drive themselves (http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/10/what-were-driving-at.html)
*Some people have hardware in their bodies that are vulnerable to being hacked (http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/25/us-medtronic-cybersecurity-idUSTRE79O8EP20111025)

We are living the cyberpunk future that William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, and others told us about. Some days it feels like we’re minutes away from being in Blade Runner.

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By griffey

Jason Griffey is the Director of Strategic Initiatives at NISO, where he works to identify new areas of the information ecosystem where standards expertise is useful and needed. Prior to joining NISO in 2019, Jason ran his own technology consulting company for libraries, has been both an Affiliate at metaLAB and a Fellow and Affiliate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, and was an academic librarian in roles ranging from reference and instruction to Head of IT at the University of TN at Chattanooga.

Jason has written extensively on technology and libraries, including multiple books and a series of full-periodical issues on technology topics, most recently AI & Machine Learning in Libraries and Library Spaces and Smart Buildings: Technology, Metrics, and Iterative Design from 2018. His newest book, co-authored with Jeffery Pomerantz, will be published by MIT Press in 2024.

He has spoken internationally on topics such as artificial intelligence & machine learning, the future of technology and libraries, decentralization and the Blockchain, privacy, copyright, and intellectual property. A full list of his publications and presentations can be found on his CV.
He is one of eight winners of the Knight Foundation News Challenge for Libraries for the Measure the Future project (http://measurethefuture.net), an open hardware project designed to provide actionable use metrics for library spaces. He is also the creator and director of The LibraryBox Project (http://librarybox.us), an open source portable digital file distribution system.

Jason can be stalked obsessively online, and spends his free time with his daughter Eliza, reading, obsessing over gadgets, and preparing for the inevitable zombie uprising.

3 replies on “Living in the Cyberpunk Present”

I found your post amusing/frightening, because for over a year now I've been telling people that America (and the world in general) is a dystopian society. Someone actually tried to argue with me, but I disproved his points. I'm just hoping it's a happy ending kind of dystopia.

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