Fictional technology

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Fictional technology is proposed or described in many different contexts for many different reasons:

Examples of such fictional technologies are:

Many technologies were fictional for a long time before they became real. Examples are:

There are also technologies that have been proven to work beyond question, but currently are not practical given the alternatives, i.e., there is a more appropriate technology for that purpose:

  • General purpose robots (only economically feasible with rather drastic energy and material subsidy, or in extremely hazardous applications that, arguably, no one should really be doing at all). However, note that specialized robots are widely used in industrial production.
  • death ray (easier to kill people in other ways)
  • jet pack (while rocket packs are useful in space, jets are only useful in the atmosphere where there are better ways to get around than strapping this on your back)
  • artificial intelligence (any intellectual task that can be reduced to instructions and the sensory data inputs provided is in theory automatable, but the human effort to do so is frequently not worth the gains made)
  • antimatter weapon (with current technology, antimatter cannot be produced in sufficient quantities to be used as weapons)

Proposals for further development of these are thus more and more likely to be seen as fictional, misleading or amusing. Robot toys for instance have become popular. One could argue that the atomic bomb, given the consequences of its use, also belongs in this category.

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