What Minority Report tells us about America in 2016

Minority Report is one of the most prescient science fiction movies ever made. It’s the second most cited piece of science fiction in policy-making circles after George Orwell’s 1984. Steven Spielberg assembled a team of leading futurists and technologists including Kevin Kelly to inform the world the movie takes place in. It’s amazing how much they got right, and what that says about America in 2016.

So when the folks at decipherSciFi asked me to come on the podcast and discuss the movie with them, I was delighted. We dig deep into the future of policing, artificial intelligence, prediction, digital democracy, privacy, and the many, many parallels between Minority Report and the world we live in today. If you want to geek out with us on your commute, give it a listen.

Thanks to Nick Farmer for introducing me to decipherSciFi. Thanks to Kevin Bankston for writing an incredible talk/essay which I pillaged ruthlessly for ideas in this interview. Thanks to Berit Anderson and Brett Horvath who produced an amazing Scout dispatch on the future of policing which nails so many of these issues. Thanks to Brad Feld for his various posts about working with the folks at Oblong Industries who created the incredible user interfaces in the film and now build them for the real world.

Listen to the podcast right here.

Enjoy this interview? Then you’ll probably like my reading recommendations curating amazing books that explore the intersection of technology and culture.