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William Gibson perfectly predicts the future of Working from Home
Gibson’s latest novel, Agency, features protagonist Verity Jane, assigned as a beta tester to some new AI technology. It’s 2017 in the VC-funded heyday of San Francisco. Gibson describes baristas, gig workers delivering packages, and customers paying for coffee with PayPal. Verity herself is couch surfing, recently having her own 15 minutes of fame after a failed relationship with a prolific inventor and tech tycoon. Sound familiar? Well, there are a few important details that differ from reality. The US President is a woman, and the political climate is primarily focused on uprisings in the Middle East. Yes, this book was released in 2020. What is going on here?
Gibson has created a stub, an alternate future that branched away from the main trunk of reality. Apparently, the reality we inhabit is beyond hope. The citizens of our timeline in the year 2138 have made it their life’s work to save these other stubs from our terrible fate. How do they do this? They communicate with these alternate past stubs using prototype drones which allow them to converse in real-time with the inhabitants of these long-ago alternate realities.
According to Gibson, our timeline 118 years into the future is inhabited by many fantastical characters: a detective inspector who dresses in Victorian Steampunk, androids prized for…
