We’re still waiting for the jet packs, the apartments in space and the moving sidewalks like in The Jetsons, but science fiction is becoming science fact faster than ever.

Cover story writer John Koenig wasn’t being flippant when he looked to sci-fi for answers about what’s happening with artificial intelligence. The future is uncharted and some of the best visions are coming from fiction, as they always have.

But is our future going to be like 1984, 2001 and Terminator or more benevolent like Her and The Jetsons?

Will love robots replace humans? Will AI androids replace football players and boxers? What will we do when AI can do most of our jobs?

So many questions, so few answers.

But we are seeing shocking fiction become reality right here, right now.

1984 looks like a playbook for the current government, as does Idiocracy.

Sound crazy? Of course, all speculation about the future does. But one thing we’ve learned from the past is that sci-fi writers are often on the cutting edge of uncomfortable truths.

Speaking of surprising futures, have you seen downtown Salinas lately?

It’s filled with new restaurants with live music and TV sports and people walking the streets. It’s come a long way and there’s a lesson there for downtown Santa Cruz planners.

What are the 5,000 new residents going to do? They are going to need entertainment and as we’ve seen in other cities an entertainment district can blossom.

Kansas City, of all places, has a great model in its Westport district, where planners were afraid restaurants and bars wouldn’t survive if they allowed too many. As it turned out, they kept allowing more and more and the area thrived. People came from hundreds of miles to hang out and be entertained.

Speaking of entertainment, check out our story on a new winter music festival starting at Roaring Camp. Santa Cruz proves that we can always have more things to do.

A new production of Cabaret will bring viewers back to a scary time in Germany as Nazis began cracking down on liberal arts. Sound familiar? Check out Mathew Chipman’s preview.

Wishing you the best for the best romantic holiday.

Thanks for reading.

Brad Kava | Editor

PHOTO CONTEST

SKY’S THE LIMIT Taken on an iPhone 14 in Rio Del Mar at Platforms Jan. 29 at 2pm. Photograph by Shane Martines, CA State Lifeguard.

GOOD IDEA

U.S. Senators Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff (both D-Calif.) joined 12 other Western Democratic senators to sound the alarm over threats to the removal of hazardous fuels on U.S. public lands. The Bureau of Land Management recently issued stop-work orders to small businesses and organizations across America carrying out critical hazardous fuel removal projects on high-risk federal lands. Delaying these treatments risks missing out on the right seasonal and weather conditions for safely treating hazardous fuels.

GOOD WORK

Three UCSC professors have teamed up to create a multipart scientific and artistic research study, Art+Fog as a collective.

The goal is to catalyze climate knowledge, foster societal awareness, inspire people to think about fog and share how creative ideas can lead to smart solutions for the future. All of this is done through bridging the arts and sciences to create a groundbreaking solution for a growing lack of water. Their work can be seen at the Seymour Marine Discovery Center.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“Science fiction is the most important literature in the history of the world, because it’s the history of ideas.” —Ray Bradbury