Red Dwarf’s really well known for how well it predicted (albeit comedicaly) VR tech, but it did a lot more than that. It heralded a lot of advance in AI that we’re now actually seeing emerge: conversational appliances, narcissistic holograms, forgetful mainframes, and borderline neurotic robot butlers not being the least of them.
The show was set in the 22nd Century, but it’s only 2025 and it’s already coming true. With edge AI powering robotics, smart devices, and real-time vision on the edge, so many of those hilarious sci-fi predictions are fast becoming reality. From Rimmer's hologram (an early take on digital consciousness) to Kryten's helpful, protocol-bound persona (think domestic service robotics with a strong opinion on laundry), Red Dwarf imagined AI not just as powerful, but as delightfully flawed. That might actually be the brilliance of what it predicted over some of its more popularised contemporaries like Star Trek or even The Matrix.
Talkie Toaster, for example, wanted nothing more than to serve toast, to the exclusion of any meaningful conversation. A cautionary tale about narrow-focused AI? Or just a reminder that even helpful systems can miss the point without good design. Holly, the ship's once-advanced AI, boasted an IQ of 6000 but struggled with memory and clarity after three million years alone. Yet despite these quirks, the series showed how AI could run ships, assist (or annoy) crews, and develop personalities all of their own. Whether you wanted (or expected) them to or not.
Today’s platforms enable advanced real-time inferencing for use cases like autonomous robotics, digital healthcare systems, and industrial automation. We're building systems that, like Kryten, can learn, assist, and interact, all in efficient and scalable ways. And also just like the embattled domestic mechanoid found on the Nova 5, they can be trained to alter their behaviour as they grow in new surroundings.
The future of AI may not be quite as dysfunctional as Red Dwarf's cast of characters, but Grant and Naylor weren’t far off in imagining a world where AI exists and works and lives and makes mistakes right along side us.
So happy Gazpacho Soup Day to all you other smeg head fans of the small crimson one, and to those building the next generation of AI!
(By the way. If I ran a poll to name the next Axelera device “Holly”, could I count on your vote before I take it up the ladder to the captain?)
