Scientists Are Secretly Testing Unthinkable Technologies Years Before They Exist
By Elizabeth Rayne | Published August 14, 2025
In an intriguing blend of science and science fiction, researchers are pioneering a novel approach to understanding the social and ethical impacts of future technologies before such innovations become reality. This emerging field, dubbed “science fiction science” or “sci-fi-sci,” could redefine how society anticipates and adapts to groundbreaking technological developments.
Predicting the Future Through the Scientific Method
Imagine having the ability to foresee the repercussions of technologies like autonomous vehicles, artificial intelligence advancements, or genetic engineering before they become commonplace. This is precisely the ambition behind sci-fi-sci—a method aiming to apply the rigorous scientific method not only to technologies presently in use but to those still in the early developmental or even speculative stages.
The concept comes from a collaborative effort among scientists Iyad Rahwan of Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Azim Shariff from the University of British Columbia in Canada, and Jean-Francois Bonnefon of the Toulouse School of Economics in France. Their goal is to proactively reveal potential societal, behavioral, and ethical consequences of emerging technologies, enabling developers, policymakers, and consumers to make informed decisions early on.
“Predicting the social and behavioral impact of future technologies, before they are achieved, would allow us to guide their development and regulation before these impacts get entrenched,” the researchers wrote in a recent study posted on the preprint server arXiv. They propose conducting controlled, experimental simulations where participants virtually interact with hypothetical future technologies, allowing researchers to quantitatively measure attitudes and behaviors associated with these innovations.
Learning From the Past: Social Media as a Case Study
The team highlights social media as an example of a technology whose extensive consequences might have been predicted with such an approach. Social media’s rise triggered widespread effects on self-esteem, privacy, and ethics, which many only fully grasped after massive adoption.
Had scientists been able to simulate the social dynamics and behavioral responses to social media’s design earlier, society might have taken a more cautious approach. The dystopian scenarios portrayed in popular media—such as the "Nosedive" episode from Black Mirror, where social media influences people’s social rankings and opportunities through pervasive “social credit scores”—reflect the potential downsides when technology outpaces thoughtful regulation.
From Fiction to Near Reality: Social Credit and Beyond
Today, technologies reminiscent of these dystopian ideas are inching closer to real-world applications. The app Gage, for example, records employees’ social credit scores based on coworker ratings and virtual accolades, and its scores are transferable across jobs. Critics warn this algorithmic reputation system risks unfairly penalizing individuals, particularly neurodivergent employees who may communicate differently from societal norms.
The researchers identify social credit systems—especially at scale—and other nascent technologies such as autonomous cars, embryo genetic screening, and ectogenesis (artificial wombs) as ripe for such preemptive study. These innovations have been known to spur ethical debates, with some already prompting legislative caution; for instance, the European Union is considering bans on AI-driven social credit monitoring systems that track behavior in real time.
The Challenge of Studying Future Humans With Future Tech
Studying how future individuals might interact with technologies that do not yet exist presents unique challenges to behavioral scientists, requiring unconventional experimental frameworks. Virtual reality and other immersive tools may offer platforms for these simulations, though whether such methods can fully capture the complexities and societal ripple effects remains to be seen.
“The behavior of future humans interacting with future technology in a future social world raises unusual challenges for behavioral scientists, which call for unconventional methods,” the researchers note.
The Road Ahead
While this blend of scientific inquiry and speculative projection currently sounds like science fiction itself, the ambitions of Rahwan, Shariff, and Bonnefon represent a promising frontier in responsible innovation. By better anticipating how new technologies may change the way we live, work, and relate to one another, society could steer developments toward positive outcomes and avoid dystopian pitfalls.
For now, sci-fi-sci remains an experimental concept, but its implications could profoundly influence the pace and ethics of technological progress in the coming decades.
Elizabeth Rayne is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in Popular Mechanics, Ars Technica, SYFY WIRE, and Space.com. She lives near New York City with her parrot, Lestat.
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