The future, an abstract concept perpetually just beyond our grasp, isn’t being shaped by the collective imagination of humanity. Instead, a compelling argument can be made that its contours are being drawn by a remarkably homogenous and numerically small group of individuals, i.e., the Titans of modern technology. Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Jeff Bezos, Jensen Huang, and others—these names represent a cadre of leaders who, by virtue of their immense wealth, control over cutting-edge technology, and unparalleled influence, exert disproportionate power over the trajectory of global society.
What’s particularly striking isn’t merely their concentrated power, but the shared cultural bedrock of their formative years. Exposed to a common canon of science fiction—from the calculated futures of Isaac Asimov to the gritty realities of cyberpunk and the idealistic visions of Gene Roddenberry—these architects of tomorrow appear to be building the world they once read about or viewed on a screen.
Oxfam consistently highlight that a tiny fraction of the global population holds immense, world-changing capital.
Within the tech sector, this concentration is pronounced. Companies like Amazon, Tesla, SpaceX, OpenAI, and Nvidia command massive market capitalizations and wield influence that rivals nation-states. As of late 2023/early 2024, figures like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jensen Huang consistently rank among the world’s wealthiest, with their fortunes primarily tied to the value of their technology companies.
Bain & Company’s “Technology Report 2024“ states that “value is increasingly concentrated in these sector leaders. Together, the top five tech companies account for 63% of the market capitalization of the top 20 companies in the sector, up from only 53% a decade ago.” This allows these individuals to dictate the allocation of vast resources towards projects ranging from space colonization and ubiquitous AI to advanced robotics and augmented realities.
Furthermore, this group largely shares a similar demographic profile: predominantly male, of a comparable age cohort (often born between the late 1960s and early 1980s), and hailing from, or having extensively operated within, Western, technologically advanced societies. This demographic homogeneity inherently limits the spectrum of experiences and perspectives informing their monumental decisions.
Growing up in the latter half of the 20th century, these individuals were immersed in a science fiction landscape rich with predictions and possibilities.
Elon Musk, for instance, has publicly cited Iain M. Banks’ Culture series as a significant influence, even naming SpaceX drone ships after starships from the books and his Neuralink brain-computer interface after Banks’ “neural lace.” Jeff Bezos has also expressed admiration for Banks’ Culture series, and Mark Zuckerberg’s ambitions for the “metaverse” clearly draw from Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash.
This exposure to a common canon of science fiction provided a powerful, imaginative, but similar, framework. It’s no coincidence that the technological marvels emerging today—from self-driving cars (Musk’s Tesla) and advanced humanoid robots (Boston Dynamics, Tesla Optimus) to ambitious space colonization projects (Musk’s SpaceX, Bezos’s Blue Origin) and the relentless pursuit of artificial general intelligence (Altman’s OpenAI, Huang’s Nvidia)—are direct, tangible fulfillments of these very sci-fi predictions. The fabric of their technological aspirations appears to be a real-world iteration of their childhood dreams.
However, where the problems truly lie, and why we’re likely to make the same mistakes described in the predictive literature, is in the inherent flaws of these very inspirations. Many of the “utopian” or “technologically advanced” futures depicted in classic sci-fi contained significant, often overlooked, dystopian undercurrents.
The spectrum of this literature extends far beyond just Asimov, cyberpunk, and Roddenberry, yet these foundational texts encapsulate themes highly relevant to our current path. Here are some real-life examples of current dystopian implementations, i.e., blasts from the sci-fi past:
Predictive Control: Asimov’s concept of psychohistory posits a mathematical sociology capable of predicting the future of large populations with near-perfect accuracy. While seemingly benevolent, psychohistory essentially removes genuine free will on a societal scale, guiding humanity down a pre-ordained path. The implied authoritarianism isn’t overt tyranny, but a subtle, pervasive control by an elite few (Hari Seldon’s successors) who possess this predictive power.
Today, with the rise of big data analytics, predictive policing, algorithmic governance, and AI-driven decision-making systems, there’s a growing risk of a similar, data-driven “psychohistory” emerging. (As if on cue: “A new report shines light on contracts with tech company Palantir, which could create data profiles of Americans to surveil and harass them.” Then there is the Chinese Social Credit System, already in place.)
Corporate Hegemony and Dehumanization: Authors like William Gibson (Neuromancer), Bruce Sterling (Schismatrix Plus), and Neal Stephenson (Snow Crash) painted futures where megacorporations eclipsed national governments in power. These worlds are characterized by extreme wealth disparity, pervasive surveillance, black markets for data (Dark Web, anyone?), bodily augmentations, and the reduction of human identity to a commodity or a data point.
We see echoes of this today with the unprecedented power of global tech giants, their extensive data collection, and the burgeoning interest in transhumanist technologies that blur the lines between human and machine. The psychological toll of living in a hyper-connected, hyper-surveilled, and commercially optimized world, where even emotions can be algorithmically targeted (e.g., Facebook), is a direct fulfillment of cyberpunk’s anxieties about the erosion of human dignity.
There are many more examples, but you get the point. Dystopia has arrived.
The future is being disproportionately shaped by a small, demographically homogeneous group of tech leaders whose visions are deeply rooted in the science fiction of their youth—visions they are making real. These powerful individuals are replicating the very mistakes in their source materials. The absence of a broad range of perspectives in the design and deployment of these transformative technologies makes them highly likely to continue the construction of a future that, despite its technological marvels, will increasingly include the damage prominent in the dystopian literature that informed them.
And we will all have to live with it.
To avert such an outcome, it is imperative to impose a future-building process that strays from the literature directing the powerful persons who are creating tomorrow.
Or else.
Michael Applebaum, MD, JD, FCLM is a physician and attorney in Chicago, IL.
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