I have learned a lot about thinking about the future through reading (and to a much lesser degree writing) science fiction. Science fiction, particularly “hard science fiction”, is principally about extrapolating the future from current scientific knowledge. It cultivates in its practitioners an awareness of potential avenues for future development. To write good hard science fiction one must be aware of the state of current science, and the ways in which such science could be expressed in technologies and how such technologies might affect individuals and societies.

Sometimes such predictions can be wildly inaccurate: we can all recall the optimistic predictions of Pan Am operated “space clipper” making regular commercial flights to orbital space stations and the moon by 2001 in the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey, the hoverboards and home fax machines of the 1989 film Back To The Future Part II, or the use of “tape” as a storage medium in the works of C.J. Cherryh and Philip K. Dick written in the 1960s and 1980s.

Yet even these predictive failures can be educational: they highlight the limitations of extrapolation from past knowledge and remind us to be cautious of our ability to forecast the future. Moreover, the longer the time horizon of one’s predictions, the more likely it is to be wrong. There is simply more time for unexpected events to occur and disrupt the vision of the future you have envisioned; predictions about the future are quintessentially fragile, in the language of Nassim Taleb. A technology investor ought to be cautious in his or her ability to make predictions, and learning how other intelligent people have failed to foresee critical developments can do much to teach humility.

Beyond teaching humility about predictive prowesses and the limitations of extrapolation, reading science fiction and, more crucially thinking about what one is reading, helps to build a framework for understanding the future. When I think of the future, I envision it through the lens of multiple possible futures that have been informed, in part, by the near future science fiction that I have read. This openness to possibilities is, in my view, a crucial skill for a technology investor. One needs to be able to understand where technology might take us, and how that technology might spill over into cultural norms and individual behaviors.

For example, I find the Mechanism mentioned in Alastair Reynolds’ Blue Remembered Earth to be particularly interesting because of its conception of what pervasive surveillance and machine intelligence might create. Do I believe that this vision will become a reality? Perhaps not, but it allows me to synthesize developments in a variety of fields into a coherent picture and suggests areas that I might be interested in considering for investment purposes or that might disrupt industries in which I am already invested.

Similarly, the intricate worldbuilding of Neal Stephenson’s The Diamond Age offers a compelling vision of what developments in artificial intelligence and nanotechnology can wrought on human society. Stephenson is a imaginative genius, and his imagination is likely to inspire a generation of engineers to build the products he describes. (I note, parenthetically, that I am not the only person to see this, Peter Thiel has also mentioned Stephenson’s The Diamond Age as a source of inspiration for engineers building new products.)

Finally, reading science fiction is entertaining. And what is life without a measure of entertainment?