Science fiction prototyping

Science fiction prototyping (SFP) refers to the idea of using science fiction to describe and explore the implications of futuristic technologies and the social structures enabled by them.

The idea was pioneered by Brian David Johnson who, at the time, was a futurist at Intel working on the challenge his company faced anticipating the market needs for integrated circuits at the end of their 7–10 years design and production cycle. From this context, the roots for Science Fiction Prototyping can be traced back to a paper presented at the Intelligent Environments conference in Seattle in July 2008, "Using Multiple Personas In Service Robots To Improve Exploration Strategies When Mapping New Environments", describing multiple personas and irrational thinking for humanoid robots which inspired Brian David Johnson to write the first Science Fiction Prototype, Nebulous Mechanisms, which went on to become a series of stories that eventually morphed into Intel’s 21st Century Robot project. The first public Science Fiction Prototyping event was Creative Science 2010 (not to be confused with Creation Science), held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on 19 July 2010. This event was also significant as it included the Science Fiction Prototype Tales From a Pod which became the first Science Fiction Prototype to be commercialised (by Immersive Displays Ltd, ImmersaVU). In 2011, a second Science Fiction Prototyping workshop was held in Nottingham (UK), Creative Science 2011, in which Intel made the first documentary about this methodology. Shortly afterwards the Creative Science Foundation was formed as an umbrella organisation to manage Science Fiction Prototyping activity, leading to a proliferation of events and publications; a more detailed account is provided on the Science Fiction Prototyping History web pages.

The core methodology is the use of creative arts as a means to introduce innovations into science, engineering, business and socio-political systems. It doesn’t aim to forecast the future, rather it focuses on inventing or innovating the future by extrapolating forward trends from research or foresight activities (creating new concepts, schemes, services and products). The main (but not exclusive) methodology is the use of science-fiction stories, grounded in existing practice which are written for the explicit purpose of acting as prototypes for people to explore a wide variety of futures. These ‘science fiction prototypes’ (SFPs) can be created by scientists, engineers, business or socio-political professionals to stretch their work or, for example, by writers, film/stage directors, school children and members of the public to influence the work of professionals. In this way these stories act as a way of involving the widest section of the population to help set the research agenda. Johnson advocates the following five step process for writing Science Fiction Prototypes:

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