Addressing the New Realities of Sci-Fi

I've been thinking a bit recently on sci-fi settings as they are and the realities of the most probable futures as dictated by today's science and technology. The biggest disconnect I've found exists in the realm of automation. At this point, with our present ability to send completely automated probes across interplanetary distances, how probable is it that there will ever be a culture built around human-powered space travel?

Dune at least posited an explanation for the incredible twist that occurred in the advancement of technology: a war against intelligent machines. Barring that, what could cause a culture that is inexorably moving towards full automation turn from that goal?

Asking that question is, to my mind, important. Otherwise, the setting might engender the same sort of quaintness that old TV shows and movies do that show a future already outmoded, like the original imagined tricorder in the reality of the iPhone. Particularly when the setting uses a future Earth as the basis, one has to ask the question: why didn't future Earth follow the path that present Earth is clearly moving towards?

One answer is the aforementioned human-machine war. Another answer could come from a religious angle: a new religion (or a reformulation of an old religion) might posit that man must always be at the center of all things and thus must command machines locally and not from a distance. Obviously, if such a religious feeling arose, we must again ask ourselves why it did so.

Of course, it's possible that a sci-fi setting might not involve space travel adventures at all. Maybe the mechanics of space travel are handled completely by automated intelligences. In that case, interesting avenues open up for characters involved in exploration or warfare which is indirect rather than direct, fighting a war by sabotaging A.I. control centers a system removed from the combat zone.

In such a setting, a soldiery might be the least desired skill set. Engineering, intelligence and counter-intelligence, and science might be king.

We're a long way from Flash Gordon but most settings still fall back on the space opera mold. It's time to break that mold. By breaking it, we might find how rich in possibilities a more modern view holds, not less but different than the old models we've used for so long.