Have you noticed that there’s a certain cycle of “technological dangers” that for a while are probably going to end life as we know it — then something else comes along and the first one is mostly forgotten. Nuclear winter was one, nanotechnology was another, and the current existential threat and generator of countless essays and news stories is, of course, artificial intelligence.
I think there might be something else involved, too. The existential threat has to have a good brand. You know, a catchy name; something the audience can really grab onto. “Artificial intelligence” was coined in the mid-1950s. “Nanotechnology” was (probably) coined by Norio Taniguchi in 1974, and popularized by Eric Drexler in a 1986 book. “Nuclear winter” was probably coined by science fiction writers, maybe as early as 1947. And remember when “genetic engineering” was the Big Bad Wolf? That one was also coined by a science fiction writer: John Stewart Williamson, who was born April 19, 1908.
Williamson was born in the US, in the Arizona Territory (it became the State of Arizona later, in 1912). He lived a very rural life. In 1915 his family moved to the state of New Mexico, and traveled in a covered wagon drawn by horses, just like settlers of the American west decades earlier. The land wasn’t arable enough for farming, so they started a cattle ranch (which I believe is still there and still owned by the family).
Williamson loved science fiction stories, and sold his first one (The Metal Man) to the Amazing Stories magazine when he was 20. He published his work as “Jack Williamson.” By about 1930 he was an established author, although he didn’t make much money from his writing. That began to change around 1950, when a review of one of his books in the New York Times brought him an offer from the paper to write (but not draw) a science-fiction comic strip, Beyond Mars.
To supplement his writing income, Williamson taught writing at Eastern New Mexico University, where he had graduated with bachelors and masters degrees in English. He was affiliated with the school for practically his entire adult life, and now the Jack Williamson Science Fiction Library is housed there. He also created a trust to fund the school’s literary magazine, and founded the Jack Williamson Lectureship Series, featuring various authors as guest lecturers.
Williamson was probably the first to use the term “genetic engineering,” sometime in the late 1940s. He also coined “terraforming,” which hasn’t yet taken a turn as an existential threat we should worry about, but is something mentioned recently in regard to turning Mars into a habitable place.
Williamson kept writing and teaching well into his 90s (he lived to be 98), and by that time he was recognized as the “Dean of Science Fiction.” He won all the awards the genre has, several more than once. His writing career lasted almost eight decades, and his bibliography is enormous. And just wait, either “terraforming” or “psionics” (another word he coined) is sure to be what we’ll be expected to worry about before long.
