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Filling up valuable relax-time on the weekend, Simone and I watched Minority Report - a movie that has, over time, floated up near the top of my list of Favourite Spielberg Flicks. The Phillip K. Dick short story is really quite difficult to follow, and I’m impressed they were able to simplify the plot while extending it out to a feature length film. Look to “Paycheck” to see an excellent example of failing to extend a short story to feature-length.

Five years after the movie (and six years following 9/11), there are some near-futuristic elements that seem right around the corner. 

The transit system of cars driving themselves got a boost last week when the DARPA  Awards held the first Urban Competition.  The first few years of the DARPA awards required that cars, trucks, and even a motorbike try to drive themselves through a desert course. The first few years, no vehicle was able to make it, but eventually one did.

This year, the competition involved driving 60 miles in under 6 hours, avoiding collisions with other robotic drivers as well as human drivers, through an urban setting.  No less than three teams managed to complete the challenge in under 6 hours, and a total of eight were able to complete the course. Self-driving cars likely won’t be in the 2009 lineup at your local GM dealer, but it will certainly arrive before 2055 (when the events in the movie take place).

Driving up to, and parking in a garage on the same floor as your condo is already something being built into some ultra-rich apartments in Manhatten. Right now, it’s for the ultra-rich, but once upon a time, cars were for the ultra-rich. By 2055 it may become a common feature.

RFID tags have started being implanted in some employees, depending on where you work. The state of California has ruled it unconstitutional to force someone to have an RFID tag implanted, and I believe there’s something similar in Canada (although I can’t find reference to it). RFID tags can be read from a distance. While this is more low-tech than the cornea scans used in Minority Report, it still works the same.

Access to secure areas, police identification, and even targeted advertising by billboards can all be accomplished with RFID implants. There are conveniences allowed to those who give up a piece of their privacy. The “Powers That Be” can really get this done by getting parents to have one inserted into their kids. Growing up with the convenience that comes with an RFID tag solves the Convenience vs. Privacy issue in no more than one generation.

There’s already a cell phone out there that lets parents track their kids online using the embedded GPS. I’m sure that a 12 year old would be happy to have the leash extended for the value of being one of the first kids in your grade to get a cell phone. They will grow up comfortable with a perpetual watching eye.

Don’t believe me?  Why do you use credit/debit cards? It’s more convenient then cash. But you can’t think that the credit card companies and banks never take advantage and sell your buying habits, do you? You’ve just given up a small piece of your privacy for convenience. It doesn’t feel like much, but it’s still been done.

How about security? A lot of the “suspect your neighbour” rhetoric had died down in Canada and mainstream media since the initial reaction after 9/11, but I was still surprised by the shear quantity of “Report Anyone Suspicious” posters littering New York City six years later. I have to admit I was a little saddened by the fact they’re still not in a state of mind where they can trust.

Even now, they’re looking at installing cameras on all busses and streetcars in Toronto. It improves security for the drivers and the riders, but again you’ve given up a small part of your privacy for security.

I’m sorry if this is turning a little “Big Brother”, but that’s really a major thematic element of Minority Report. The difference between 1949 and “Nineteen Eighty-Four” may have seemed drastic, so naturally we would never let any government invoke “Thought Police”.  However, if it came as a pilot project, then was implemented on a test area, then was voted by the public to go national after resounding success, then such a transition is feasible and frightfully real.

So much of Minority Report was near-future, but still “Futuristic” in 2002. In just five years since the movie came out, a lot has happened to bring 2055 towards the present. The movie feels even more chilling now than it did then.

At least we can hope for a Spielberg Happy Ending^©.