Futurology

I don't think I disagree with you about any point in particular.

The author of the article tries to make a case that these billionaires are stupid (and likely fascists) for chasing ideas from science fiction. For the finishing touch, he torpedoes his own credibility by saying science fiction writers like him are untalented pandering hacks who just recycle ideas and material. They don't know anything about science or bring new ideas to the table.

But there is a problem: SF authors such as myself are popular entertainers who work to amuse an audience that is trained on what to expect by previous generations of science-fiction authors. We are not trying to accurately predict possible futures but to earn a living: any foresight is strictly coincidental. We recycle the existing material—and the result is influenced heavily by the biases of earlier writers and readers. The genre operates a lot like a large language model that is trained using a body of text heavily contaminated by previous LLMs; it tends to emit material like that of its predecessors. Most SF is small-c conservative insofar as it reflects the history of the field rather than trying to break ground or question received wisdom.

Science fiction, therefore, does not develop in accordance with the scientific method. It develops by popular entertainers trying to attract a bigger audience by pandering to them.

I don't know Mr. Stross beyond this article. However, this strikes me very much like what Paul Krugman said about the internet. I think this sort of stuff comes from people who lack vision and can't imagine the potential of ideas.