Blade Runner 2025?

On the occasion of Leiden University's anniversary and its theme "Ahead of the Times", Benjamyn I. Scott, Öykü Kurtpınar, and Evert-Jan van Leeuwen explore both the promise and the price of that vision: the legal challenges of advanced air mobility and the environmental cost of tech expansion.

High Hopes and Higher Hurdles: Unpacking Key Regulatory Challenges Facing Advanced Air Mobility
Dr. Benjamyn I. Scott, Assistant Professor, Institute of Air and Space Law, Leiden University
Öykü Kurtpınar LLM, Ph.D. candidate, Institute of Air and Space Law, Leiden University

Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) promises to bridge urban and rural spaces, enhance regional connectivity, and optimise low-level airspace use. More than a new aircraft class, AAM represents a transformative ecosystem featuring electric or hybrid propulsion, vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) abilities, and automated or unmanned systems. These aircraft are seen as environmentally friendly, efficient and structurally innovative through composite materials, enabling seamless travel. However, existing regulations, unsuited to AAM’s unique traits, may limit its deployment. Against this backdrop, this lecture will highlight several pressing regulatory issues that demand urgent attention if AAM is to be scaled safely, sustainably and equitably.

From the Sky to the Scrapheap: Environmental Responsibility in Chen Qiufan’s Waste Tide
Dr. Evert-Jan van Leeuwen, University Lecturer in English Language, Literature and Culture, LUCAS, Leiden University

It’s an inconvenient truth for Western society, but the IT-sector is a bigger polluter than the aviation industry. There’s a strong argument that flying taxis are pushing us toward the extreme rainfall and heat shown in Blade Runner - and without us getting behind the wheel, so we are not to blame: how convenient! But the flying taxi is just one example of how we use technology to avoid taking responsibility for the harmful effects of “progress”. In the Netherlands we see little of the electronic waste and modern slavery that accompanies technological “innovation”, but in China these problems are already visible. In his novel Waste Tide (2013), science fiction author Chen Qiufan shows what the future might look like if we continue down this road. In this lecture, Evert-Jan van Leeuwen reads Qiufan’s novel alongside philosopher Kenneth Shockley’s reflections on responsibility for environmental harm. What does Waste Tide reveal about neocolonial and class dynamics of e-waste? Who pays the price for “progress”, and who bears responsibility for what we fail to do?