President Obama reveals himself as the most powerful 'Star Trek' fan on Earth

President Barack Obama has made his interest in science fiction known in the past, but in a new interview about very real, very serious aspects of our future, the outgoing president reveals that he's far more of a Trekkie than anyone suspected. SEE ALSO: NASA is run by a bunch of'Star Trek' nerds, and this photo proves it In an interview meant to promote Wednesday's science and technology event (the Frontiers Conference) at the White House, Obama sat down with MIT Media Lab chief Joi Ito and the editor of Wired to talk about the future of technology. The chat touches on everything from artificial intelligence to the future of human labor in the face of automation. But the real fun starts early when the president starts dropping sci-fi names in the same breath as real government policy. "When I first got here I always imagined the Situation Room would be this supercool thing, like Tom Cruise in Minority Report, where he'd be moving around stuff," says Obama. "It's not like that, at all." "We've all got a little bit of Spock and a little bit of Kirk and ... maybe some Klingon in us, right?" -- Obama Then, on the topic of artificial intelligence, he turns to a fan favorite, The Matrix.