Brian David Johnson

Science fiction prototyping and security education: cultivating contextual and societal thinking in computer security education and beyond

Computer security courses typically cover a breadth of technical topics, including threat modeling, applied cryptography, software security, and Web security. The technical artifacts of computer systems - and their associated computer security risks and defenses - do not exist in isolation, however; rather, these systems interact intimately with the needs, beliefs, and values of people. This is especially true as computers become more pervasive, embedding themselves not only into laptops, desktops, and the Web, but also into our cars, medical devices, and toys. Therefore, in addition to the standard technical material, we argue that students would benefit from developing a mindset focused on the broader societal and contextual issues surrounding computer security systems and risks. We used science fiction (SF) prototyping to facilitate such societal and contextual thinking in a recent undergraduate computer security course. We report on our approach and experiences here, as well as our recommendations for future computer security and other computer science courses.

An action-based behavior model for persuasive telehealth

Technological advances in telehealth systems are primarily focused on sensing, monitoring and analysis. Intervention, behavior alternation and in general affecting change could use additional research and technology development. Many people, especially the elderly, are resistant to change. Such resistance diminishes the impact factor of telehealth systems. Persuasion technology and mechanisms are urgently needed to counter this resistance to change and promote healthy lifestyle. In this paper, we propose an action- based behavior model to enable persuasion. We also review existing technologies we believe are most suitable for enabling persuasive telehealth. We present our ongoing work in the domain of behavior alteration for obese and diabetic individuals.

Entertainment in the Age of Big Data

Everybody loves a good story. People all over the world seek out and crave entertainment. This will not change in the coming age of big data and cloud computing. But stories are more than just a distraction from the big problems of the world we are all supposed to be solving. Stories are (computationally) one of the most challenging problems facing our computers. Humans are hardcoded for story. Our computers are not. Or not yet. Through our research we examine a future of entertainment where increasing computational power allows us to be genuinely connected to a truly digital world. We argue that a genuinely digital and connected future opens the door for a new kind of storytelling, and ultimately, a new way of managing and interacting with the massive data sets collected and shared by humans.

Secret Science Fiction

Science fiction prototypes let us explore the futures we want to live in, but, more importantly, they help us explore the futures we want to avoid. The Web extra at http://youtu.be/W8zNDErnq_o is a video segment in which author Brian David Johnson expands on his Science Fiction Prototyping column, in which he discusses how the world of secret science fiction, the science fiction stories you will never be allowed to read. In this podcast, Johnson dives deeper into this world in an extended conversation with Ari Popper, founder and CEO of SciFutures, a company that uses science fiction to explore innovation for Fortune 500 companies.

Utopia Rising

Utopian science fiction prototypes might not actually be about the world that we want to live in, but rather the people we want to be. The Web extra at http://vimeo.com/81120151 is a video segment in which author Brian David Johnson joins Geek Speaks panelists Cory Doctorow and Henry Jenkins to discuss the roles that science fiction has played, for better or worse, in shaping the ways we think about innovation and confront the challenges of designing for the future.

When Science Fiction and Science Fact Meet

Using science fiction based on science fact to prototype the human, cultural, ethical, and legal implications of early-stage research and technology allows us to envision possible futures, and to explore their effects so that we can then build them.

From NASA

The IDEAS event, hosted by Autodesk, brought together a collection of scientists, astronauts, engineers, science fiction authors, and thinkers to use science fiction prototyping and determine what design should imagine.

Jimmy: The Robot That Changed It All

Science fiction prototypes are a great tool for bringing research to life, and they do a much better job of communicating the science and vision of the work than the rather dry treatment of an academic text.

Violence, death and robots: going to extremes with science fiction prototypes

Brain Machines, the story that follows this introduction, was the second in the series of Dr. Simon Egerton robot stories. Brain Machines was also a further development of the science fiction prototype. These conceptual tools took current scientific writings and used a fictional world to examine various implications of the theory as well as the situations they might bring about. It was science fiction based science fact; specifically emerging scientific theory from computer science, robotics and neuroscience. The scientific theories at play in Brain Machines come from two recent works. The first is a chapter from Michael Brooks’ exceptional book 13 Things That Don’t Make Sense. Chapter eleven is entitled, Free Will—Your decisions are not your own. In it, Brooks does a brisk work of moving though a history of free will experimentation and the latest advances in neuroscience research. Ultimately, he shows that science is proving that humans really don’t have free will but that ‘‘for all practical proposes, it makes sense to retain the illusion. Human consciousness, our sense of self and intention, may be nothing more than a by-product of being enormously complex machines that are our bigbrained bodies, but it is a useful one, enabling us to deal with a complex environment.’’ (1). The second work is a paper from Italian astrophysicist Paola A. Zizzi called I, Quantum Robot: Quantum Mind control on a Quantum Computer. In the paper, Zizzi explores using quantum metathought and metalanguage as a way to control robots or computers that could become self-aware. Simply put, metathought is ‘‘the mental process of thinking about our own thought...the process of thinking about thinking.’’ (2) Zizzi uses metalanguage to keep a robot from attaining free will. ‘‘With opportune boundary conditions, an apparently self-aware quantum robot reaches a level of thought. In this case, the robot can still be controlled by a metalanguage which prevents him to reach the level of metathought.’’ (3) The goal of Zizzi’s theory is to keep a robot from attaining free will.

Making in the 21st Century [Guest editor's introduction]

In this special issue, we peer into the Maker Movement and explore its potential impact on engineering and technology.