Through the portrait of the American writer, a striking documentary returns to the social role of science and the interest of science fiction as a place of exploration of all possibilities.
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Isaac Asimov (1920-1992) is one of those rare writers who have given birth to a universe to the point of influencing the imagination of several generations of readers, or even appearing as a kind of prophet.
Also, the disconcerting form chosen by director Mathias Théry for his portrait, subtitled “the strange will of the father of the robots”, she appears, with hindsight, as particularly timely. Let us summarize the device: thirty years after the death of Asimov, a VHS cassette is found, containing a message from the writer for humans of the XXI e century. This monologue, pronounced by an avatar – quite striking – of the novelist recreated by artificial intelligence from words that he actually made in public, is interspersed with extracts from television interviews.
Readers of the foundation cycle will undoubtedly see a nod to the messages that the central character of the fresco, Hari Seldon, sent over the centuries to his distant heirs, but it is also the pretext for a Very stimulating discussion on the social role of science, and the interest of science fiction as a place of exploration of all possibilities.
predict the future
“I do not envisage my books as prophecies, but as possible scenarios for the history of humanity”, affirms the writer, as if to recall that his goal is not to predict the future . The idea that such a thing is one day possible is on the other hand at the heart of its most successful romantic creation, Foundation, which tells how, in a very distant future, a scientist of genius invents a science called “psycho-history” allowing to predict the future for sure, by the law of large numbers.
Such knowledge would thus allow those who master it to influence the course of events in depth: “It is as if you imagined a troop of galloping horses. You could calculate the precise moment when a small impulse would create a Sudden fear, making them change their direction to take them wherever you want, “explains the author.
Is such a thing possible? Desirable? What would there be individuals and their free will? These ethical questions are the real matter of foundation and also cross the rest of Asimov’s work, in particular its stories of robots.
The American writer was convinced that scientists would have, in the future, a central role in our societies, which would lead for them immense responsibilities: “If young people imagine that scientists, in their advances , negligently produce all kinds of side effects, and wash their hands without feeling concerned, then scientists will become the bad guys in human history. “
The man who did not believe in crazy scholars was not naive, and knew that, without safeguards, science can be dangerous. The best of these, according to him, was the knowledge of the general public.