One of the coolest things about science fiction films is the fact that it is a chance to look into the future (or a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away) and provide us with predictions of how technology might look.

If you watch a film like 2001: A Space Odyssey, you’ll see that science fiction films can actually provide an eerily accurate prediction of the technology that is going to become mainstream. For instance, in 2001, we saw the likes of credit cards, video calls, and AI assistants we can control with our voices. All of these would go on to be used in the relatively near future.

So, you can see why it is so interesting to look at what the greatest minds in the world of fiction have predicted. Often, these predictions have some truth in them and can show us what life may be like in the future. Either way, it is fun to speculate.

The Future of Gambling

Gambling is a huge industry and one where a lot of money changes hands. You only have to look at the technological developments that take place in the world of gambling to see that. For example, in recent years, the casino industry has taken some huge shifts toward crypto. Visiting an online casino with Bitcoin and a wide selection of games has become a normal way to play casino games. 10 years ago this was not something many people could even have imagined, proof of how quickly science fiction can become reality.

Films like Blade Runner and the more modern sequel Blade Runner 2049 have a fascinating take on casinos. By the year 2049, Rick Deckard (the protagonist) is living at a fictional casino that has been abandoned. We get to see a scene with holograms of entertainers from the past such as Elvis and Liberace. In the online casino industry, there are a lot of different examples of stars and musicians including Guns ‘N Roses putting their face to casino brands and online games, just like in Blade Runner 2049.

In Battlestar Galactica, characters played a competitive card game called Triad, though the rules weren’t actually explained. That hasn’t stopped fans from working out their own rules and even selling Triad games.

The Future of Transport

Transport is something that impacts all of us and is something often speculated upon in films. Sometimes we see transport that is verging on comical, but who knows what the future is going to hold?

Transport in films is often portrayed as super-fast spacecraft. Often we see tube and tunnel systems not a million miles away from the Hyperloop system that is being developed here on Earth.

Some science fiction filmmakers like to get the actual car brands involved. We’ve seen this in numerous films including the Audi concept car that was made for I, Robot.

In Minority Report, a vehicle was created as a concept car by Lexus. In the film, it had a biometric security system, a structure resistant to crashing, and many more safety functions, plus it would run on fuel cells. Of course, we’ve often seen the fact that we won’t be using fossil fuels in future films and filmmakers are keen to try not to misrepresent how the future will look.

The Future of Biohacking and Body Modification

One of the key themes we see a lot in science fiction is biohacking and even body modification using biological technology. Think of The Matrix and all of the ways that new skills can be quickly uploaded into somebody’s head or the way other sci-fi films deal with themes like medicine and biology.

In the short film Artificial Existence, humans have merged with technology and AI but they have lost a lot of their autonomy in the process. The director, John D. Marshall, explained “I wrote Artificial Existence to explore a version of the future where we have allowed technology to control us and every aspect of our lives, but no one seems to notice or care that their freedom and humanity has been gradually traded away for comfort and convenience.”

A lot of science fiction also predicts things like engineering genetics and making humans stronger through technology, something that we are seeing reflected in real life through vaccines and improvements in medical sciences.

Conclusion

Science fiction is always going to have a hit-and-miss record when it comes to getting things right, but it is one of the most fascinating ways we can check out speculation on the future of the big industries in our lives, from healthcare to entertainment, gambling to transport.

Nobody knows what tomorrow brings but sometimes we see those fascinating films where the director seems to create an incredibly insightful snapshot of a futuristic world and make us all think about what life might be like in decades to come.