Can we turn a science fiction thought experiment into an actual experiment?

Isaac Asimov once said "a good science-fiction story should be able to predict not the automobile but the traffic jam." Science Fiction (Sci-Fi) is never merely about technology. Rather, it is about the impact of technology on the human condition.

If Sci-Fi is a thought experiment about future tech and future humans, Science Fiction Science (Sci-Fi-Sci) turns it into a lab experiment. Sci-Fi-Sci uses experimental methods to simulate future technologies and collect quantitative measures of the attitudes and behaviours of participants assigned to controlled variations of the future.

The Sci-Fi-Sci method complements more qualitative work from hard Sci-Fi, expert panels and futures studies. This project aims to promote the Sci-Fi-Sci method by raising a flag for a community to rally around, and to promote it among funders and policy-makers. The project also aims to develop rigorous methods for Sci-Fi-Sci, from guidelines to identify suitable questions for Sci-Fi-Sci, to better uncertainty reporting to avoid pseudo-precision in policy debates. Finally, we apply the Sci-Fi-Sci method to various imminent technologies, with a focus on Artificial Intelligence (see related projects, such as the Moral Machine and Human-Machine Cooperation)