Isaac Asimov's 50-Year-Old Prediction For 2014 Is Viral and Wrong 385
Daniel_Stuckey writes "The media is currently praising Isaac Asimov's vision for 2014, which he articulated in a New York Times opinion piece in 1964. The sci-fi writer imagined visiting the 2014 World Fair, and the global culture and economy the exhibits might reflect. NPR called his many predictions, which range from cordless smart telephones, to robots running our leisure society, to machine-cooked 'automeals,' 'right on.' Business Insider called the forecast 'spot on.' The Huffington Post called the projections 'eerily accurate.' The only thing is, they're not. Taken as a whole, Asimov's vision for 2014 is wildly off. It's more that 'Genius predicted the future 50 years ago' makes for a great article hook. Asimov does hit a couple pretty close to home: He got pretty close to guessing the world population (6.5 billion); he anticipated automated cars ('vehicles with 'robot brains'"); and he seems to have described the current smartphone/tablet craze ('sight-sound' telephones that 'can be used not only to see the people you call but also for studying documents and photographs and reading passages from books.') But he also thought we'd have a colony on the moon, be living under a global population control regime, eating at multi-flavored algae bars, and letting machines prepare us personalized meals. Most divergent of all, he believed that increasing automatization of labor would spawn not inequality or joblessness, but spiritual malaise."
Link to Asimov's actual article (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Link to Asimov's actual article (Score:4, Interesting)
On reading the original I think it is amazingly accurate.
Thanks for the link.
Re:Link to Asimov's actual article (Score:4, Informative)
On reading the original I think it is amazingly accurate.
To me, it didn't seem that accurate in terms of the number of correct predictions. The overall flavor of his predictions seems reasonable, however. After all, he predicted flying cars of a type, and they are still not here. I want my flying car!
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Ok, here ya go [controller.com]. Not too old, very good shape and only $408,000!
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Larry Niven, among others. Jack Williamson. I think a few others. I can't remember any that were set in the near future, though. Not before it started happening.
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Re:Link to Asimov's actual article (Score:5, Interesting)
The science and technology are amazingly accurate, the social and cultural changes are not even close; and really the social and cultural issues are far more important. A guaranteed income, mass joblessness, and and strict population controls would all have much, much larger effects on the world we live in than video conferencing and drones on Mars.
Re:Link to Asimov's actual article (Score:4, Insightful)
If only we could explain what causes this upheaval of the status quo that lead to social and cultural issues. Surely it's the not automation taking jobs while still supplying a net gain in resources! That would never explain why the masses have shit jobs, yet the nation can still support the dole.
A guaranteed income,
Welfare, housing assistance, charity. It's rough, but the basics are provided for if you go out and get them.
mass joblessness,
Underemployment. College grads are flipping burgers.
and strict population controls
China did it. But yeah, it's really not a problem for first-worlders. Asimov didn't see that coming.
would all have much, much larger effects on the world we live in
You're using the term "would have" like these things didn't come to pass.
bullshit (Score:4, Insightful)
Just as with Nostradamus, bible, etc. "predictions" they kinda sorta came true if you squint at them the right way. And there are enough true believers to parrot praise in unison. However, a more objective look reveals that these "predictions" are way off.
A guaranteed income,
Welfare, housing assistance, charity. It's rough, but the basics are provided for if you go out and get them.
That is NOT guaranteed income [wikipedia.org]. Welfare (in US at least) has existed since 1935, so that's hardly a prediction.
mass joblessness,
Underemployment. College grads are flipping burgers.
Not to the level that was predicted, and certainly not to the level afforded by guaranteed income.
and strict population controls
China did it. But yeah, it's really not a problem for first-worlders. Asimov didn't see that coming.
Precisely. *One* country has a problem with overpopulation. And their solution is NOT strict population controls, but economic disincentives for families that have more than one child (so it costs more, but rich families can afford it).
would all have much, much larger effects on the world we live in
You're using the term "would have" like these things didn't come to pass.
Because it fucking didn't. Quit trying to see things that are not there.
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and strict population controls
China did it. But yeah, it's really not a problem for first-worlders. Asimov didn't see that coming.
Precisely. *One* country has a problem with overpopulation. And their solution is NOT strict population controls, but economic disincentives for families that have more than one child (so it costs more, but rich families can afford it).
You might want to read up a little more on that. China was forcibly aborting fetuses, and probably still are. I don't call that an "economic disincentive". See? http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/story/2012-07-25/China-forced-abortions/56465974/1 [usatoday.com]
So if kidnapping women and injecting them with chemicals to kill their unborn fetus isn't "strict", I'd hate to see how bedtime is enforced in your house.
Re:Link to Asimov's actual article (Score:4, Interesting)
Welfare, housing assistance, charity. It's rough, but the basics are provided for if you go out and get them.
Knowing a number of extremely poor people, this isn't even remotely true. Especially not of late, when we have the national and state governments cutting back so severely on various programs to help the poor. I have one friend, for example, who has precisely zero normal income (due to various family issues and an untreated disability). Yet she has an incredibly hard time getting any sort of aid, because she has no proof of income!
This is why we need an unconditional basic income, instead of all these stupid programs. The very large number of conditions set on the various programs to help the poor end up guaranteeing that many extremely poor people get left out, if only because they have a hard time supplying the paperwork to prove that they qualify. Poor people also very frequently have a hard time traveling any significant distance, meaning that if they live in rural America, traveling to the various government offices to apply for aid becomes a significant burden. Some of the required documents (e.g. birth certificate) also come along with charges that are difficult to cover.
There is no good reason for this. Nobody deserves to be left destitute on the street, so we should just guarantee a base level of income so that nobody has to. Get your Social Security card, and get your monthly check, end of story (paid for with a moderate hike in income taxes). That way almost nobody will fall through the cracks.
And the most awesome thing about a guaranteed basic income that is high enough: if it is high enough that not working becomes a viable option, then it will break the stranglehold that employers have over their employees. Employers will actually have to provide decent working conditions and/or pay, or they will quickly find themselves without employees.
Re: Link to Asimov's actual article (Score:3, Insightful)
If my employees can receive a check for not working that is higher than what I am willing to pay them to work (or, probably even lower than, because who would work a full time job if you're only going to make a few bucks more than if you didn't work), what is my incentive to maintain my business at all?
Rather than pay my employees more so I can stay in business, but make less money myself, I too could simply not work and make a decent wage.
Your logic is horribly flawed.
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what is my incentive to maintain my business at all?
That's a good question. What _is_ your incentive to maintain your business at all? If you can't think of why you should maintain it in a hypothetical world with a basic income, why should you be able to think of a reason to maintain it in the world we currently live in? Why don't you just get a minimum wage job flipping burgers?
Re: Link to Asimov's actual article (Score:5, Interesting)
Your business is obviously not providing much, if any, added value if you can't make it profitable without an endless supply of desperate people to exploit. It would be an awesome boost to economy to have such living dead enterprises go under and release the resources they've tie up for the use of actually profitable ones.
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From businesses able and willing to pay their employees enough and treat them well enough that they can get them to work for them without needing the threat of dying in a ditch as a stick. Mr. Peyna can't do so, thus either whatever he's selling is simply not valuable enough to make a buck without being subsidized by other's misery, or he's simply a lousy businessman. Either way, his continued business represents
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But stay-at-home parents have not returned to traditional home chores - sewing clothes and scrubbing them clean on river rocks, tending crops, grinding meal, gathering water and firewood, tending to or butchering animals, churning butter, beating rugs and so on. In
Re:Link to Asimov's actual article (Score:4, Interesting)
The science and technology are amazingly accurate, the social and cultural changes are not even close; and really the social and cultural issues are far more important. A guaranteed income, mass joblessness, and and strict population controls would all have much, much larger effects on the world we live in than video conferencing and drones on Mars.
It figures. In his writing, the scientific concepts were pretty mind-blowing, but the characters were flat as pancakes and the dialog was abysmal. He struck me as a writer who understands technology a lot better than its effects on people, and he didn't seem to be in tune with how people interact.
Re:Link to Asimov's actual article (Score:4, Interesting)
The science and technology are amazingly accurate, the social and cultural changes are not even close; and really the social and cultural issues are far more important. A guaranteed income, mass joblessness, and and strict population controls would all have much, much larger effects on the world we live in than video conferencing and drones on Mars.
It figures. In his writing, the scientific concepts were pretty mind-blowing, but the characters were flat as pancakes and the dialog was abysmal. He struck me as a writer who understands technology a lot better than its effects on people, and he didn't seem to be in tune with how people interact.
You're right, he was clueless about people. As part of his security entourage at a couple of Star Trek cons in NY (don't ask), I spent plenty of time talking with him and observing. Very nice guy (he wrote me a personalized limerick about having two penises!), but not very perceptive about people.
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to be fair, he wasn't so far off on population control - China's only just relaxed its one-child policy. A lot of Africa's kids still get "controlled" by natural causes, and a lot of western society's kids simply don't get born like they used to because of the financial or social constraints many in the West subject themselves to (ie rich and middle class families are not having many kids because they can't afford it, or couldn't support children in their oh-so-important careers).
I guess the societal chang
Re:Link to Asimov's actual article (Score:4, Insightful)
- Access to affordable birth control. In third world countries, birth control isn't always affordable or easy to come by.
These predictions were made in 1964. "The pill" had just become available for birth control use in the United States a few years previous, but only in some states and only to married women... it wasn't generally available to any woman who wanted it in all states until the early 70's. Maybe it was because he was a male, but not realizing the impact this would have on the (developed) world seems to be one of his bigger oversights.
Where is Mobile? (Score:3, Insightful)
The science and technology are amazingly accurate
I must have been reading a different article. The one I read had working Fusion reactors, cars that float above the ground, Cubic TVs, windowless underground houses, no electic cords, colonies on the moon and automatic cooking machines in every kitchen.
But the article has absolutely no mention of mobile devices which seems, to me, to be a massive failure of foresight.
Re:Link to Asimov's actual article (Score:5, Funny)
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Asimov did predict that alpha particles would have the potential to disrupt computer memory back in 1952.....
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Summary is wrong (Score:5, Interesting)
But he also thought we'd have a colony on the moon, be living under a global population control regime, eating at multi-flavored algae bars, and letting machines prepare us personalized meals
multi-flavor algae: Sodium alginate is a major food additive. many flavors.
global population control regime:
china we all know about:
uzbekistan: forced sterilization or IUD.
india: more than two children and you can't particiapte in many elective offices
iran: manadatory contraception to obtain marriage lic.
USA: ask Sarah Palin what she thinks of Title X
Israel: ordered sterilizations.
Auomated custom meal preparation robots:
http://www.psfk.com/2012/11/burger-making-robot.html#!rgOyn [psfk.com]
Automated labor sparks malaise:
Foxcon suicide fences. no layoffs just repetitive work that machines won't do.
Re:Summary is wrong (Score:5, Interesting)
Automated custom meal preparation robots
Go to your local supermarket and really look around. How much of the foods you see purchase there were made exclusively by human hands?
There is a huge amount of automation in the food industry. It just scales better further up the supply chain.
Re:Summary is wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
Generally the increased automation we see is not of the Rosey the Robot (Jetsons) style, but embedded and back-end automation and semi-AI that incrementally improves. Automation and AI are sneaking in the back door such that they are not so visible to the everyday person in the way most futurists predicted, even though they seem to be having some of the impacts they predicted, such as joblessness.
I beg to differ (Score:5, Insightful)
Most divergent of all, he believed that increasing automatization of labor would spawn not inequality or joblessness, but spiritual malaise.
How is this different from what we have now, I insist and ask ?
Re:I beg to differ (Score:5, Interesting)
There is a lot less influence from religion and a far greater part of social contact is indirectly, through devices.
Our current spiritual "average" situation may wel look like malaise to somebody living in 1964.
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On the other hand, the global population control regime is only slightly less efficient than he predicted.
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China went to strong population control in 1978, most other non-African countries seem to be achieving a measure of growth reduction without strong direct policies:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_population_control [wikipedia.org]
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If we accept the premise that we are in a period of "spiritual malaise" (not that I necessarily know how to measure such a thing, or even that I agree we're in such a period), I still wouldn't agree that "automatization of labor" is the cause. A cell phone or a tablet is not a labor saving device as much as it is a communications and information delivery device, and I don't see that a Facebook relationship enhances or detracts from spirituality. Maybe you can't follow your favorite deity on Twitter, but y
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Re:I beg to differ (Score:5, Insightful)
Keep in mind Asimov was an avowed atheist, and his description of "spiritual malaise" referred more to human nature, and less to going to church.
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+5
The premise is that spirituality is not directly coupled with religion or God, but that spirituality (e.g. soul, faith, belief, intuition, love, higher thought) is a fundamental human characteristic that defines our existence (i.e. consciousness).
"Spiritual malaise" would mean a lack of or lessening of human consciousness.
Re:I beg to differ (Score:4, Interesting)
What he said in his books was that he was essentially since late childhood, but he was pretty scared of admitting it in public. Atheists have made amazing progress in social acceptability since 1980, and a lot of people who hate on "new atheists" don't understand that people feared for their lives and careers, and couldn't talk in public at all.
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Pastors often have their congregation "turn off" all their electronics in order to better hear God.
If the god is so impotent that mere personal electronics can cause him not to be heard, he might not be worth listening to.
If I were to create a god, I'd make him a bit less dependent on what we do and don't.
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There is a lot less influence from religion and a far greater part of social contact is indirectly, through devices. Our current spiritual "average" situation may wel look like malaise to somebody living in 1964.
There is a lot less influence from religion than 50 years ago. Really? In the US we still have Christian extremists trying to smother evolution. Religion currently plays a significant role in US politics, with the Republican party in particular actively courting the conservative Christian vote. Views on abortion have stayed more or less static over the last 40 or 50 years, but at least attitudes to homosexuality are moving in the right direction. We also, of course, have the rise of militant Islam on the w
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In the US we still have Christian extremists trying to smother evolution.
They've been trying since the mid-19th century and they haven't gotten any more effective.
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When meeting people for lunch, this is something I have started to see. Spirituality just isn't there. Usually they care more if you are driving a BMW better than a 3 series than anything cultural, spiritual, or even religious. Materialism is now the biggest religion and spiritual path.
This is a common complaint of spiritualists and theologians through human history. People are inherently materialist and status-seeking. I wager you're either paying more attention to the issue than you used to, or you're moving into a new group of people which happens to be more materialist. But I suppose it could also happen from a break down in society level cooperation.
Of course, mindless materialism can't last. It ends up becoming a petri dish for fascism. The last time we had a global culture similar to this was pre-World War 1, and "The Guns of August" is a good detailing of what can happen... and in the age of the Internet, going from a sleepy materialistic philosophy to armies clashing all around the globe wouldn't be happening in a month, it could happen within days, especially if something happens and a skirmish happens due to disputed islands.
While you're not the first person to make this observation, I think the real similarities are merely that there is a period of peace wit
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> How is this different from what we have now, I insist and ask ?
It's not. Just read Slashdot and you will see plenty of malaise.
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this.
signed, ennui guy.
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How is this different from what we have now, I insist and ask ?
Only the rich can afford ennui in america.
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Cite! Not site or sight, cite! Like a citation.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/cite [thefreedictionary.com]
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Most divergent of all, he believed that increasing automatization of labor would spawn not inequality or joblessness, but spiritual malaise.
How is this different from what we have now, I insist and ask ?
It wasn't caused by automation.
Re:I beg to differ (Score:4, Interesting)
Wasn't it? Brooding over existential issues is a pastime largely confined to the better off (it's hard to worry about the meaning of life when you're more worried about getting enough food to eat). It could be argued that by increasing affluence enough that large segments of the population are secure enough to be having these sorts of issues, automation did cause the malaise.
Re:I beg to differ (Score:5, Informative)
This is a myth that's repeatedly been debunked. US industrial output has grown steadily since the 1960's, it's only industrial employment that has been dropping:
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/02/us-manufacturing-is-not-dead.html [fivethirtyeight.com]
Manufacturing jobs are not going over sees, they're disappearing completely. Much like we once went from a society where most people were involved in agriculture to one where a few percent can produce more food than the rest of society can consume, we're now in similar process in manufacturing.
Re:I beg to differ (Score:4, Interesting)
Asimov thought we'd automate everything and everyone would basically have access to everything they really desired. He thought everyone living like kings and never having to work would make everyone a bit depressed and dissatisfied with their lives.
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Most divergent of all, he believed that increasing automatization of labor would spawn not inequality or joblessness, but spiritual malaise.
How is this different from what we have now, I insist and ask ?
The 60s were different in that they were one of the few times when there wasn't increasing inequality/joblesness - people married young and could hold on to a job for 50 years - which is the outlier, not the historical norm. Just look at the 19th century by comparison. For a bit more discussion, see here [nytimes.com].
Re:I beg to differ (Score:5, Insightful)
Most divergent of all, he believed that increasing automatization of labor would spawn not inequality or joblessness, but spiritual malaise.
How is this different from what we have now, I insist and ask ?
The 60s were different in that they were one of the few times when there wasn't increasing inequality/joblesness - people married young and could hold on to a job for 50 years - which is the outlier, not the historical norm. Just look at the 19th century by comparison. For a bit more discussion, see here [nytimes.com].
Having lived through that period, there was a general feeling that we could do anything: stop wars, have civil rights, go to the moon, end poverty by sharing as taught in the bible^W the Whole Earth Catalog. It was a dream, but a pretty good one. Even though the war in Iraq was as unjust and pointless as Vietnam, there was a lot less marching and rock-throwing. People seem to not believe that they can change things. I would call that a malaise.
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Even though the war in Iraq was as unjust and pointless as Vietnam, there was a lot less marching and rock-throwing.
Most people felt no personal investment in Iraq, because it was volunteers and foreigners dying. There was a draft in Vietnam, making it personal to a lot more people who feared being called up, or their loved ones being called up. That's the difference, not society.
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And I'd say that the war in Iraq had far less of a point than Vietnam. I believe that good people bought into containing the spread of communism, and felt that war was the only way to do so. For Iraq, I've found no narrative that makes sense, other than raw exercise of presidential power in furtherance of corporate interests.
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Biggest oops (Score:5, Funny)
He keeps thinking there will be a 2014 World's Fair.
Re:Biggest oops (Score:5, Informative)
This post is incredibly biased. (Score:2, Insightful)
>Most divergent of all, he believed that increasing automatization of labor would spawn not inequality or joblessness, but spiritual malaise.
Lol what? Automatization is to blame? What sort retard actually believes this? SURELY it's not god-awful policies, allowing corporations and banks to get out of control, or any of that sort of "serious" business. It's OBVIOUSLY improvements of our working conditions and the ability to produce more.
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The same sort that would make up the word automatization instead of just saying automation.
Not bad (Score:5, Insightful)
... mankind will suffer badly from the disease of boredom, a disease spreading more widely each year and growing in intensity. This will have serious mental, emotional and sociological consequences, and I dare say that psychiatry will be far and away the most important medical specialty in 2014. The lucky few who can be involved in creative work of any sort will be the true elite of mankind, for they alone will do more than serve a machine.
But what he failed to grasp was that the mindset of people in general changes. So if we're all bored, all we'll do is invent shit like facebook, and call it 'an integrated part of our society'. But he knew that 'passing time' isn't just some thing to do. This guy was a genius to conclude that robots would be doing a lot of the labor that men used to do, and since the people would be so great in numbers, they'd get bored to such an extent that would cause them mental repercussions. This is beyond what anyone would have been able to experience up to the 60's, in my opinion.
His Smartphone prediction was incredible but... (Score:4, Funny)
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he failed to predict they would have rounded corners, which everyone knows is the true genius of the smartphone.
He actually wanted to say they had rounded corners - but his lawyers advised him against that. It was something to do about a time travel machine, a patent application and being sued or some such.
He's no Hari Seldon (Score:3)
But most SF authors also predicted a future of humanoid robots.
The tech boom is micro, not macro (Score:2)
It seems like most sci-fi predictions were based on the big ticket items when the real marvels are in nano technology. Of course, most writers/theorists probably didn't foresee a surge in the "ownership society" attitude of citizenry.
grits, plasma, what's the difference?! (Score:2)
Move over Natalie : Raquel Welch, tiny and miniaturized, in a skin-tight diving suit [google.com].
Fantastic!
I wouldn't say he was wrong (Score:3)
To me it seems he was too optimistic. He got the technology part pretty well. What he underestimated was the dickishness of the average human:
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Even the areas where he was kind of right also touched on things that aren't really all that different between then and now. On the one hand, his idea of automated meals didn't quite pan out but they already had TV dinners back then anyways.
Plus there is still this annoying air gap between the freezer and the stove and ZERO inter-device integration.
Even if I wanted a TV dinner warm and ready when I step into the house, there would still be that air gap and integration problem.
Actually... (Score:2, Insightful)
The current result of automated labor is spiritual malaise... Because that's an inexorable product of it having brought radical inequality and joblessness since our culture bases one's personal value upon one's wealth.
We do have algae in our beverages [nakedjuice.com], China did undertake a massive population control regime, and I'm not sure what you'd called TV dinners if not "machine-created meals". Granted, they aren't personalized and prepared on the spot as he might perhaps have envisioned, but I'm more than willing to
All that diveregent? Really? (Score:5, Interesting)
"eating at multi-flavored algae bars" (Score:5, Funny)
Algae Bars (Score:2)
multi-flavored algae bars (Score:3)
Ever been to Whole Foods?
Tofu, Quinoa, Quorn, Seitan, Tempeh, ...
I predict the future (Score:2)
In the future we will have more of the things we want, and less of the annoyances we don't want... due to technology. I'm a visionary! Oh wait, that's common sense.
Why so negative? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, "spot on" is obviously stretching it, but considering the time scale I think he did really well - I doubt anyone today would be able to predict 2064 equally well. Some good examples from the original article:
State of robotics: "Robots will neither be common nor very good in 2014, but they will be in existence."
State of space exploration: "By 2014, only unmanned ships will have landed on Mars, though a manned expedition will be in the works."
Smartphones: "Communications will become sight-sound and you will see as well as hear the person you telephone. The screen can be used not only to see the people you call but also for studying documents and photographs and reading passages from books."
Fiberoptics for data transmission: "Laser beams will have to be led through plastic pipes, to avoid material and atmospheric interference."
Flatscreens: "As for television, wall screens will have replaced the ordinary set."
Slightly too optimistic on the proliferation of programming skills, but remarkable considering the state of computers in 1964: "All the high-school students will be taught the fundamentals of computer technology will become proficient in binary arithmetic and will be trained to perfection in the use of the computer languages that will have developed out of those like the contemporary "Fortran""
Spritual Malaise is exactly where we are (Score:5, Insightful)
If "spiritual malaise" doesn't describe 21st century America, then I don't know what does.
Not that inaccurate. (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know about Asimov being that inaccurate. Keep in mind that a lot of what he is describing are exhibits at the 2014 World's fair. These would still be futuristic things even in 2014, but technologically possible. Many of the things he describes are devices or systems that are technically possible, but still not quite reasonable from an economic perspective. Obviously he is way off on some things, but that just goes to show how difficult it is to predict future developments.
No, we was right (Score:3, Interesting)
We are living under a global population control regime. It's called world finance. The borders are only there to push up the profit margins.
Asimov's essay is being misunderstood. (Score:3)
When I was at the 1964 World's Fair, AT&T was showing off their "picturephone" which did everything he described for his 2014 prediction: "Communications will become sight-sound and you will see as well as hear the person you telephone. The screen can be used not only to see the people you call but also for studying documents and photographs and reading passages from books." So how is that even a precient prediction when it was already at the Fair? Further, it hardly is a prediction of smartphones - there's nothing in this prediction that suggests the pervasive use of a wireless, portable, battery-powered device that performs computation and gaming along with communication - let alone the rounded corners that others joked about here.
The next sentence, predicting synchronous satellites, is also hardly precient given that "Unisphere," the symbol of the 1964 World's Fair, was a 12-story stainless steel globe with satellites circling it. I also note that the "Unisphere," a twelve-story stainless steel globe, was produced by and celebrated the glory days of U.S. Steel, which began in the 1960's to dramatically change its focus and after several reorganizations, now produces substantially less steel than it did in 1964. For me, the most glaring part of his mis-predictions were the heavy reliance on I.B.M., General Motors, and General Electric, presenting the assumption that these lumbering giants of the 1960's were going to be the vanguard of corporations in 2014.
Really, I see the first part of his essay as describing what the World's Fair itself was predicting about the future. The exhibits were presenting the view that these futuristic ideas were safely in the hands of large corporations, who were well-positioned to serve all the consumer's needs. The second part, starting with the Equitable Life sign projecting the future population growth, is his attempt to show that all will not be so rosy. However, while his total may have been about right, he missed that growth in the US will have slowed down, so we don't have the solid city from DC to Boston that he projected. His estimate of the pervasiveness of automation is surely off-the-mark as there's still plenty of physical drudgery being performed by humanity rather than robots, and so forth. His estimates of industrial and food production are similar to the "Club of Rome" predictions and don't really match up with where we are in 2014. The second part of his essay more accurately predicts his own science-fiction stories than today's reality, though we may be all the poorer for not having lived up to his stories.
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Bullshit. Make 30 non-trivial predictions, let's see if you get even 10 right.
Asimov was a smart dude, and he did a lot better at predicting 50 years away than most "technologists"/"futurists" would today.
Re:And your predictions? (Score:5, Funny)
Asimov was a smart dude, and he did a lot better at predicting 50 years away than most "technologists"/"futurists" would today.
Well, it's rather simple to see the future when you're the founder of psychohistory. Duh.
Re:And your predictions? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's easy to win on predictions - just make sure your predictions are obvious. Throw in a "robot controlled car" or two to make people think and so you don't get 100% and you're golden. Hence
- People will continue to be stupid.
- There will be wars still.
- Computers will become cheaper, more powerful, more "invisible" and thus more ubiquitous.
- We'll send more stuff out of the atmosphere, and it won't just be the US doing so.
- We'll make advances in personal medicine in (pick any particular area here, say, genetics, or mental health).
- etc. etc. etc.
Read Asimov's predictions: the more specific you are, the less accurate you will be. Multi-flavoured algae is a sci-fi staple, one up from a magic meal-pill. Automated cars? We could have had them back in the 40's, it depends on your definition of automated (hint: When was the first autopilot invented? - go looking for the answer on the BBC TV show "QI"). Video phones? People have been predicting them since before TV existed. World population? Just extrapolate the curve and you won't go far wrong. The rest is all stuff that could easily have happened, we just didn't happen to go in those directions.
The problem with predicting the future isn't in being right. It's in being USEFUL in being right. None of the above predictions are helpful to anyone, even if you could GUARANTEE they would be correct. Which, even Asimov, who had a pretty good grasp of what the future could be, couldn't be better than about 20%.
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Multi-flavoured algae is a sci-fi staple, one up from a magic meal-pill.
Well, to be honest, algae and yeast food was Asimov's pet peeve of sorts. And I still think that it's not such a bad idea. [wikipedia.org]
Automated cars? We could have had them back in the 40's, it depends on your definition of automated (hint: When was the first autopilot invented? - go looking for the answer on the BBC TV show "QI")
QI? Is that the show where they seriously claimed that Earth had two moons? BTW, have you noticed how simple an autopilot is, compared to self-driving cars? The need for situational awareness for an airplane autopilot is ridiculously low compared to driving.
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I'm not so sure about situational awareness. There a lot of things that airplane pilots, auto and human, have to worry about which are much simpler or don't exist for cars. There are 3 translational plus 3 rotational degrees of freedom rather than 1 plus 1. For example, a car pilot has simply no concern whatsoever about pitch, and sh
Re:And your predictions? (Score:5, Funny)
Seeing your gripe at Asimov's article I am very curious... What are your predictions for 2064?
The Year of Linux on the Desktop?
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Seeing your gripe at Asimov's article I am very curious... What are your predictions for 2064?
The Year of Linux on the Desktop?
Nah; Microsoft will have been acquired by Taco Bell by that time... which will then have split up to become a bunch of Baby Bells. One of those Baby Bells will rename itself Microsoft, and split off to only handle the multi-flavoured algae part of the industry, consuming their only competitor, Algae Tastes & Technologies. Their most popular menu item will be the Zune, available in regular, large, and X-Box.
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Asimov was brilliant and certainly did better in these predictions than many could have done, but he got more wrong than right. A headline like "Genius predicted a few things but was mostly wrong" just does not make good copy.
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Re:And your predictions? (Score:4, Funny)
We'll hit global peak oil [wikipedia.org] sometime in there. It's not like all the cars will stop running tomarrow. It's more like oil will get so expensive that people start taking the bus, train, bike. You know, like it did in 2007. That squeeze popped the housing bubble, everyone got poor, had to use the bus anyway, and oil prices returned to sane levels. Plus everyone started digging into any sort of oil potential when it was looking like $100/barrel was coming. Yay improperly damped systems. And while the US might have hit peak oil a while ago, global peak oil is certainly a ways out. 50 years sounds optimistic.
If things don't change that could break globalization. It'll be a hard lesson to people that they can buy a shirt for $0.50 cents in Bangladesh, sell it here for $10, and still lose money. But of course things will change. Maybe the slow boats will switch the nuclear. Who knows. Maybe solar powered lighter-than-air hydrogen-based sky truckers will save the day.
The battlefield for the first-world nations will be vastly more automated. A tipping point will come when they want their machines to operate without satellite coverage and a greater degree or autonomy will be introduced. That or mobile connectivity will reign supreme next to air superiority.
Well see a continued gradual improvement in robotics. What they can do NOW is amazing. Give it 50 years and I imagine they'll be novelty competitors in the Olympics. Even in 50 years, it won't be cost effective to have a personal android maid. That's called a roomba. It doesn't do windows.
More and more jobs will be automated. Like factory jobs, then clerical jobs, the office worker and low-end technical jobs will fade. Like how we no longer have mail rooms at the office, we will no longer have HR departments. Problem with your paycheck? log in and fill out the complaint form.
China will suffer setbacks and undergo more change. Everyone knows China is coming online and turning into a super-power. But I think they'll have to go through some growing pains before they rival the USA. They'll develop a middle class. They'll clean up their factory lands. They'll have to decide what "legal" actually means. India is lagging behind China but will have the opportunity to during these stumbles. Europe will continue to consolidate into a single power. Africa will still be a clusterfuck.
Like how we dealt with black's rights, and women's right and are now dealing with gay's rights, I see we'll deal with the rights of artificial beings. AI's in university servers. They'll break that Turing test in the court room and we'll see how it goes. Mostly though, AI and computers will be still be tools. Google's overmind might know more about you than you do and have the omniscience of a god, but it won't have any over-arcing goals other than fetching you pictures of cats on the Internet.
We'll have to deal with our bodies and DNA being open to public scrutiny to anyone with a buck. Hello GATAGA.
People will still be greedy selfish assholes most of the time, but the exceptions will make it all worth it.
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Once someone invents a sexbot, all progress will grind to a halt. As a matter of fact, I think that's why intelligent species never progress to interstellar travel. Once they have the sexbot, they never leave the house.
Nah, that's a brief stumbling block. Eventually most species figure out that you can put a sexbot on a space ship, and interstellar travel is appealing again. That's also why we don't see aliens all over the place - they just have great technology to insure a little privacy when it's most needed.
Re:And your predictions? (Score:4, Insightful)
You overestimate sex.
Once you can get it freely and any time you want, it eventually decays into just another thing you do for pleasure, or even just to satisfy another nature's urge.
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http://vimeo.com/12915013 [vimeo.com]
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Nah, it'll be drouds. Why filter your pleasure through the limited bandwidth and range of your physical senses?
Re:Only Art (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't be so dismissive of recipes.
The 2nd thing that the printing press was used for was recipes.
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I think that's more commonly attributed to Ray Bradbury. I don't actually consider Bradbury a science-fiction writer, but mine is apparently a minority view.
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So, just like the Star Trek universe then?
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OK I rtfa
mankind will suffer badly from the disease of boredom, a disease spreading more widely each year and growing in intensity. This will have serious mental, emotional and sociological consequences, and I dare say that psychiatry will be far and away the most important medical specialty in 2014. The lucky few who can be involved in creative work of any sort will be the true elite of mankind, for they alone will do more than serve a machine - Asimov
I think he is wrong as tools and automation do not limit the ability to do creative work but open up new ways of being creative. If not having tools enhance ones happiness and well being then the stone age would have been the most spiritual era of mankind.
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His phone description describes my iPhone nicely, although I rarely use the video phone capability. (Robot cars were a touch premature, but just a touch.)
As far as the Moonbase is concerned, there seems to have been a distinct lack of thinking what the places would be good for in sixties science fiction, or, alternately, great optimism in how easy spaceflight was going to be. I'm calling that a technological prediction failure.
You may be right on the technical side in that most scifi authors had us using a much more efficient/powerful fuel than RP-1/LOX (usually abbreviated to "atomic powered" or some such) but I submit that with Saturn 5 - level technology we could have had a colony on the moon, and that it would have only gotten easier as new materials and new technologies were developed. I think it's more true that we didn't really have a good enough reason to be there. Which, I submit is at least partly sociological.
Now tha