Technology

Like all great science fiction writers, Philip K. Dick inspired a generation to imagine the future. His sci-fi books and short stories, published in the 1950s and 60s, centered on technological advances that didn’t yet exist. There are emotional robots, crime-predicting mutants, manipulated memories and more. Frequently in Dick’s stories, the protagonists struggle with their own sense of humanity and sometimes question reality. Filmmakers, caught up by the dramatic arcs of these personal journeys, created movie blockbusters based on them, such as “Blade Runner,” “Minority Report” and “Total Recall.”

Today, some of the innovations at the heart of Dick’s sci-fi books have been made real. Artificial intelligence, metamaterials, predictive algorithms, genetic engineering, virtual reality and more drive modern society. This March marks the 27th anniversary of Philip K. Dick’s death — and is an opportunity to examine the technologies he imagined and how their contemporary counterparts hold up.