One can't but wonder at the vision, skill and technical understanding of the author Arthur C Clarke, who lived in Sri Lanka for most of his life and where the famous novels "Space Odessey 2001" was written along with the sequels.
A lot of what he wrote and may be inferred is already true- 50 years after he wrote it. I thought it may be instructive to skim through some of his writings and state of realization today. The result is astounding. Arthur C Clarke would be justifiably very proud! Check this out, and as befitting the topic, AI has been used to good effect! Without the use of AI, it's very likely it would have taken me a day or more to compile this, or more, with results not as complete as I got!
One of the striking passages in Space Odessey 2001, his seminal work, refers to the four genetically altered chimpanzees on board the space craft. These had been so genetically altered to be docile, low- maintenance, high energy servants, freeing up the humans on board for higher-level work. This is one of the radical ideas I think in his book, which hasn't yet come true. But we see the glimmerings of it: cloning and DNA spicing are known now. In Space Odessey 3001, Clarke actually writes about Velociraptors being modified to an extent that the joke is that if you leave a Velociraptor with a child, the Velociraptor is more likely to be hurt than the child! See the underlying assumption of Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park and its sequels, in one of which scientists actually make the dinosaurs docile enough to market them as companions!
Was Clarke so far out?
If we were to break it up into decades, what he wrote between 1960 and 1975 all came true- satellites and all. The next decade, while directionally he was right, he may be overestimated the speed at which his tech would be real. Nevertheless, there's no doubt he was one of the visionaries of his age!
If you haven't read his books, do so : you will realize quickly enough the truth of the matter!
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