Star Trek either inspired or predicted many of the astonishing developments we live with today, says Lewis Liu

I’m a huge Star Trek nerd, having watched since I was a kid. I’m not alone amongst tech founders – sci-fi remains a core inspiration for us. Elon Musk famously cites the late British sci-fi novelist Iain M Banks as an influence. Apple’s iPad was directly inspired by Star Trek’s PADD.

What’s remarkable is how much Star Trek predicted correctly on tech trends. Technologies the show predicted would take hundreds of years, like touchscreens, video conferencing and mobile communicators, arrived in just 30-50 years. In fact, the mobile revolution was directly inspired by the handheld communicator from the Star Trek: Original Series in the 1960s.

But today’s LLMs are unlocking concepts that seemed even more distant. Here are three related Star Trek ideas that are suddenly becoming real, and the implications are profound.

Ubiquitous voice interfaces

My boys cannot imagine a world without voice interfaces. They talk to Siri, change music with voice commands, ask the car computer trivial questions. Voice is as natural to them as keyboards were for millennials and touchscreens for Gen Z.

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In Star Trek, this was standard. The crew gave simple commands by voice, “Computer, tea, Earl........

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