Living the dream

Polish writer and futurologist Stanisław Lem in 1961 wrote the novel ‘Return from the Stars’ in which electronic readers had replaced the printed word: “I spent the afternoon in a bookstore. There were no books in it. None had been printed for nearly half a century. And how I had been looking forward to them, after the micro films that made up the library of the Prometheus! No such luck. It was no longer possible to browse among the shelves, to feel the weight of a volume in hand announcing how much there was to read. Instead the bookstore resembled, an electronic laboratory.” Lem predicted not only today's e-books, but also virtual reality, the creation of Google and the wide usage of robots. Human-like machines are no longer fiction and robotisation is slowly changing our world representing not only an opportunity but a threat with the resulting loss of jobs.

A few years ago an unusual hotel was opened in the Japanese city of Sasebo on the island of Kyushu – it was the world's first hotel to be operated almost entirely by robots. Guests were greeted by a mechanical dinosaur in the reception while a female android receptionist sat at the desk. Guests checked in using a touch pad and would hand their luggage over to robot porters. No keys were issued to the rooms as the doors opened using a facial recognition system. The hotel was supposed to be a model of a better future in which all the work would be done by robots, replacing ‘inefficient’ people. According to the owners of the building, a guest was unlikely to run into one of the ten employees during their stay. Nonetheless there were many friendly robots to chat to throughout the building. Unfortunately, this business model did not prove very successful over the following four years. Indeed it turned out that the robots created more problems than they resolved and recently over half of them have been fired. The electronic concierge had proven unable to answer basic questions, the receptionists had been unable to scan documents and the automated assistant would wake sleeping guests up, believing that their snoring was some sort of question. It also turned out to be ignorant of the local attractions, and the porter robots did not always make it with the luggage to the right room. All this goes to show that for the time being we do not have to worry about robots stealing our jobs on a massive scale.

Fortunately, the digital transformation also has its bright side and even our wildest imaginings are gradually becoming reality. Lem claimed that “Dreams always overcome reality whenever you let them.” And now as a result of technological progress we will soon be able to book into a hotel in orbit around the earth (with the opening planned for 2022). Orion Span has announced plans to place such a hotel 320 km above the ground, where a maximum of six people (including two professional astronauts) will stay on the Aurora space station. It won’t be cheap. A twelve-day sojourn will put you back around PLN 32 mln. Before being blasted off every guest will have to pass a medical and will be given three months of training. The ‘hotel’ will provide its guests with stunning views of the planet with numerous sunrises and sunsets every day as the station will make a complete circle of the Earth in less than 90 minutes. If tourists are ever to grow bored of the views, virtual reality entertainment will be available and they will also be able to take part in scientific experiments, such as researching the effects of microgravity on plant growth.

Technology is changing so fast that we don’t seem quite ready for it. It’s all too easy in the pursuit of progress to forget common sense, like the owners of that Japanese hotel. In his novel ‘Solaris’, Lem wrote: “Man has gone out to explore other worlds and other civilisations without having explored his own inner labyrinth of secret chambers.” ν