Asking the wrong questions (2017)(ben-evans.com)
ben-evans.com
Asking the wrong questions (2017)
https://www.ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2017/01/11/wrongquestions
141 comments
It’s a little unrelated but I always thought it was odd that people looked to things like science fiction for glimpses into possible futures rather than into the more social and political genres such as cyberpunk.
Because cyberpunk basically got everything right. Unfortunately.
Because cyberpunk basically got everything right. Unfortunately.
Not only from the cyberpunk movement, but also from history and the classics! Societies should rethink formal education entirely and focus on connecting the dots between different sciences and activities.
I'll play the contrarian here regarding the article: it's likely that many people did actually predict the future, but they lacked the platform to broadcast their message.
I'll play the contrarian here regarding the article: it's likely that many people did actually predict the future, but they lacked the platform to broadcast their message.
Personally I started reading hard SF in the early 70s so it was all I had then for glimpses of the future, and a lot of near-future SF then was based around post-nuclear situations, or robots, or similar, albeit with some superb exceptions from authors such as Roger Zelazny, John Brunner and others.
Cyberpunk didn't really get consolidated as a genre until the 1980s although dystopias had been written about before then. It was in the 80s that the core cyberpunk themes of computer hackers and evil corporations really came together in their current dystopian form.
Cyberpunk didn't really get consolidated as a genre until the 1980s although dystopias had been written about before then. It was in the 80s that the core cyberpunk themes of computer hackers and evil corporations really came together in their current dystopian form.
What examples of getting everything right do you know of?
Not GP, but Cryptonomicon stands out as predicting a lot about markets around cryptography, and the relationship between nations and technology. Stephenson didn't predict Blockchain and Bitcoin specifically, but he got closer than anyone I know of.
More generally, the Gibson style of "independent hackers versus the corporate overlords" seems increasingly accurate.
More generally, the Gibson style of "independent hackers versus the corporate overlords" seems increasingly accurate.
William Gibson - Neuromancer (1984)
Writing in F&SF in 2005, Charles de Lint noted that while Gibson's technological extrapolations had proved imperfect (in particular, his acknowledged failure to anticipate the impact of the cell phone), "Imagining story, the inner workings of his characters' minds, and the world in which it all takes place are all more important."[18]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuromancer#Literary_and_cultu...
Writing in F&SF in 2005, Charles de Lint noted that while Gibson's technological extrapolations had proved imperfect (in particular, his acknowledged failure to anticipate the impact of the cell phone), "Imagining story, the inner workings of his characters' minds, and the world in which it all takes place are all more important."[18]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuromancer#Literary_and_cultu...
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Bruner's "Stand on Zanzibar"from the 60s and "The Shockwave Rider" from the 70s predicted a lot of social trends. Most millennials and younger won't be able to stand them though because of the different cultural norms of those eras embedded into the books
SF has always been about the present time of the writer, and is usually most interesting when it perturbs some element of reality to expose something interesting about the present.
"He wants a glider. Not a problem. There are quite good hang gliders."
Off-topic I know, but 100% this. Modern hang-gliders are amazing: easy to learn, unbelievable glide performance and handling, cheap to buy and learn. The 'whoosh' of energy retention as you pull in and push out has to be felt to be believed.
The same goes for paragliders: their speed and glide makes a mockery of my intuition as a ex-physicist and they fit in a rucksack. I'm a rubbish pilot and I've still managed to fly over a hundred kilometres on a paraglider.
Off-topic I know, but 100% this. Modern hang-gliders are amazing: easy to learn, unbelievable glide performance and handling, cheap to buy and learn. The 'whoosh' of energy retention as you pull in and push out has to be felt to be believed.
The same goes for paragliders: their speed and glide makes a mockery of my intuition as a ex-physicist and they fit in a rucksack. I'm a rubbish pilot and I've still managed to fly over a hundred kilometres on a paraglider.
I'm not sure what the right terminology is, but there are also gliders like this:
https://youtu.be/OpemglwS8XA?feature=shared
Which are a step up from even the most sophisticated "hang glider", assuming that hang glider refers to the kite type thing that you hang underneath and steer with body weight shifting.
I'm pretty sure even the best paragliders aren't anywhere near 40:1 L/D ratios.
https://youtu.be/OpemglwS8XA?feature=shared
Which are a step up from even the most sophisticated "hang glider", assuming that hang glider refers to the kite type thing that you hang underneath and steer with body weight shifting.
I'm pretty sure even the best paragliders aren't anywhere near 40:1 L/D ratios.
Maybe not the exact workings of the modern ad industry, but I'd say that as early as Metropolis and possibly some time before, a feared future of mass production and consumption had entered the public eye. It is fascinating though, how little (ad) space advertising itself was warranted in fictional works till relatively recent (late 70s/early 80s) -- Blade Runner made it look as beautiful as it would be inescapable.
By the time Alien came out, corporate evil was certainly well established. Everything on the space ship had Weyland branding, and the corporation treating its employees as expendable was par for the course.
I'm struggling to come up with an older example of prominent ads in sci fi, but I'm drawing a blank.
I'm struggling to come up with an older example of prominent ads in sci fi, but I'm drawing a blank.
1984 has a fair few advertising concepts IIRC, not least everything was "Victory" branded, and the ubiquitious Big Brother.
"Tuesday is Soylent Green day.."
And not to forget how "colors of the real world only seem really real when you viddy them on screen.."
And not to forget how "colors of the real world only seem really real when you viddy them on screen.."
So what you are saying is... "even the most dystopian Sci-Fi didn't predict modern Silicon Valley led advertising & surveillance capitalism"!
I guess we as a species (and sci-fi writers) underestimate the banality of evil and its cumulative effect. Nearly 25 years ago, I ran a couple of banner ads on my website to help pay for the hosting costs. Back then it didn't cross my mind that such a trivial bit of HTML would eventually lead to surveillance capitalism. I wonder if any sci-fi writers predicted where this could/would lead...
For another glimpse at the feared future of mass production and consumption watch the "Out of the Unknown" series 1 episode "The Midas Plague" from 1965:
https://archive.org/details/come-buttercup-come-daisy
It's episode 12 in the zip file. A lot of the stories for the series came from well known science fiction writers of the time. All four years of the series are on the Internet Archive. The Midas Plague is a comedy, some of the other episodes are truly frightening.
https://archive.org/details/come-buttercup-come-daisy
It's episode 12 in the zip file. A lot of the stories for the series came from well known science fiction writers of the time. All four years of the series are on the Internet Archive. The Midas Plague is a comedy, some of the other episodes are truly frightening.
Philip K. Dick predicted it in Ubik.
Great book, although I'm not sure 'predicted' is the right word. By that logic 'Flow my tears the Policeman said' is a prediction that by 1988 the US would have had a second civil war.
'Prescient', perhaps?
'Prescient', perhaps?
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> Or computing becoming a branch of advertising.
wow. such a succinct way of putting it. ugly too. and probably at least mostly truthful.
wow. such a succinct way of putting it. ugly too. and probably at least mostly truthful.
Plenty of computing happens without any advertising whatsoever.
They just don’t get noticed by the general public or mass culture, this is practically a tautology.
They just don’t get noticed by the general public or mass culture, this is practically a tautology.
Thats odd because I remember people saying "when will Google start ads". Although probably thinking of the Yahoo style slow loading mess.
Or AOL, I remember breakfast TV hosts mentioning AOL keywords a lot
Commercials too. Every TV spot would end with "AOL keyword poptart" or something.
John Varley had pervasive inyourface hologram advertising on his hypercapitalist Pluto, but I don't recall any online ads.
The lenses that we view the questions also change. In the 1950s, people likely imagined that by the 2020s, roads would be rebuilt with technologies like magnets or rails to support self-driving cars. But they didn’t anticipate the inertia in infrastructure development. Our roads remain largely the same, and this stagnation is what we need to band aid with for autonomous vehicles today.
> But they didn’t anticipate the inertia in infrastructure development
On a related note, I think one reason that SF was so uniformly positive about space flight was that if you were writing in the 60s and 70s you would have been looking at almost a century of dramatic improvements in travel including steam trains, submarines, cars, prop planes, jets, and then rockets to the moon. With space shuttles and similar on the drawing board. People just assumed this would continue.
What very few SF writers understood was that all of these exploited chemical energy which is very limited in terms of how much can be lifted out of the Earth's gravity well and how fast you can go once you are up there. Many SF authors arm-waved atomics or nuclear propulsion but these, in the real world, never took off, as it were. Not in any mass transit to the stars sense, at least.
Edit: In reality space travel hit a hard brick wall due to the laws of physics. Most other forms of travel have experienced massive incremental improvements in reliability, efficiency, affordability, etc, but very few cars and and planes and ships actually now go much faster than they did 50 years ago.
On a related note, I think one reason that SF was so uniformly positive about space flight was that if you were writing in the 60s and 70s you would have been looking at almost a century of dramatic improvements in travel including steam trains, submarines, cars, prop planes, jets, and then rockets to the moon. With space shuttles and similar on the drawing board. People just assumed this would continue.
What very few SF writers understood was that all of these exploited chemical energy which is very limited in terms of how much can be lifted out of the Earth's gravity well and how fast you can go once you are up there. Many SF authors arm-waved atomics or nuclear propulsion but these, in the real world, never took off, as it were. Not in any mass transit to the stars sense, at least.
Edit: In reality space travel hit a hard brick wall due to the laws of physics. Most other forms of travel have experienced massive incremental improvements in reliability, efficiency, affordability, etc, but very few cars and and planes and ships actually now go much faster than they did 50 years ago.
Writers in the 60s and 70s were also promoting a space utopia because the space race was a critical Cold War military goal.
We needed scientists to build equipment to spy on the Russians harder than they were spying on us. That meant, among other things, winning the hearts and minds of the kinds of people who would grow up to be scientists.
We needed scientists to build equipment to spy on the Russians harder than they were spying on us. That meant, among other things, winning the hearts and minds of the kinds of people who would grow up to be scientists.
> What very few SF writers understood
"Understood?" They were writing fiction, not instruction manuals.
"Understood?" They were writing fiction, not instruction manuals.
Well yes, of course, but I was trying to point out one of the reasons for their blind-spots with such predictions. Of course, some hard-SF authors (e.g. Arthur C Clarke) did try to make their stories technically plausible, which gives to some superb anachronisms nowadays, e.g. the classic combination of rocket ships whose crew used slide rules for astronavigation.
Science fiction that took place in space weren't necessarily predictions. They were imagining what life in space could be like, whether human or not. I don't see how any of us would benefit if every SF author had "realized" that it was unfeasible and just wrote about earth. There was no blind spot, just it did nobody any good to hamper themselves by things like "well, it'll never happen, no point in imagining it". Fiction would be boring if we always only limited ourselves to being completely realistic and true to our current state of knowledge.
They were writing _science_ fiction. Not all of it has to be realistic, but presumably there's at least attempt to ground things in what would be recognizable to readers as science.
People in the 1950 has just gone through around a bit more of century of industrial revolution. Things were moving fast, everywhere..
Infrastructure like roads were massively built or improved during this timeframe.
Nowadays things are moving fast in technology and some other sector but it's far from being the case for instance with car. They are basically the same 4 wheel petrol engine that we had 80 years ago.
I think its normal back then to guess that everything was going to keep evolving just as fast as it did. They had no way to know that the industrial revolution was ending.
Infrastructure like roads were massively built or improved during this timeframe.
Nowadays things are moving fast in technology and some other sector but it's far from being the case for instance with car. They are basically the same 4 wheel petrol engine that we had 80 years ago.
I think its normal back then to guess that everything was going to keep evolving just as fast as it did. They had no way to know that the industrial revolution was ending.
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> Our roads remain largely the same
Sure? Just maintaining them close to their original quality seems to be a challenge at times. Bridges that are close to coming down are another related issue.
Sure? Just maintaining them close to their original quality seems to be a challenge at times. Bridges that are close to coming down are another related issue.
Imagine dedicated single lane highways between major cities across the world only accessible to self-driving vehicles
People are joking about how this is trains or busses, but I think you hit on something fundamental:
- engine tech is now such that we no longer need one huge engine and lots of passenger to get good efficiency: many small engines works just as well.
- removing the need for everyone to stop where any one person needs to go ("bus stop") improves the experience drastically.
- the one remaining problem is density: cars would have to shrink a lot before they can reach the density of busses or trains.
So perhaps: a single-lane highway only accessible to self-driving vehicles driving in formation and where the vehicles must be below some specified size.
This gives us great last-mile experience, high throughput, and good safety.
- engine tech is now such that we no longer need one huge engine and lots of passenger to get good efficiency: many small engines works just as well.
- removing the need for everyone to stop where any one person needs to go ("bus stop") improves the experience drastically.
- the one remaining problem is density: cars would have to shrink a lot before they can reach the density of busses or trains.
So perhaps: a single-lane highway only accessible to self-driving vehicles driving in formation and where the vehicles must be below some specified size.
This gives us great last-mile experience, high throughput, and good safety.
> we no longer need one huge engine and lots of passenger to get good efficiency
Larger ships and planes are more efficient than smaller ones. Longer trains are more efficient than shorter ones. No matter how efficient your propulsion is, it’s always more efficient when installed in bigger vehicles. Unless we figure out free energy, I don’t think we should stop at any arbitrary “good efficiency”.
Larger ships and planes are more efficient than smaller ones. Longer trains are more efficient than shorter ones. No matter how efficient your propulsion is, it’s always more efficient when installed in bigger vehicles. Unless we figure out free energy, I don’t think we should stop at any arbitrary “good efficiency”.
How will these very shrunken cars be survivable in a crash at highway speeds?
Plus modern crossovers are already very size efficient, A 2024 compact crossover like the Rav4 is pretty much already the smallest possible space that can comfortably accommodate 4 adult men in seated positions and 4 large suitcases.
Plus modern crossovers are already very size efficient, A 2024 compact crossover like the Rav4 is pretty much already the smallest possible space that can comfortably accommodate 4 adult men in seated positions and 4 large suitcases.
Why would they crash at highway speeds? On a highway, they'd be in the dedicated lane. Not on a highway, they wouldn't be going at highway speeds.
The point is an alternative to today's setup, for the majority of people who need to get somewhere. Not a way to mai
The point is an alternative to today's setup, for the majority of people who need to get somewhere. Not a way to mai
Because accidents will happen regardless?
No one can possibly control all variables that would cause a crash.
No one can possibly control all variables that would cause a crash.
> compact crossover like the Rav4
Funny how what you call a smallest-possible compact crossover looks like a huge disgusting waste of space to my European Škoda-driver’s eyes.
The moment a car can be described as a “crossover”, or worse, an SUV, it becomes a waste of space IMO.
Funny how what you call a smallest-possible compact crossover looks like a huge disgusting waste of space to my European Škoda-driver’s eyes.
The moment a car can be described as a “crossover”, or worse, an SUV, it becomes a waste of space IMO.
What’s the smallest vehicle to your ‘Škoda-driver’s eyes’ that can comfortably seat 4 adult men and their large suitcases?
Why would that be any metric for the 99.9% of drivers that need something like that perhapd twice in a decade and shouldn't base their purchasing off that?
Because it’s not a metric for drivers? It’s a metric for the theoretical autonomous highway network mentioned above…
I’m going to be generous and say Škoda Octavia or VW Golf.
Trains?
Trains... but they end up at your house.
I don't want my house to be at the end of a highway ;-)
You’ve given me an idea: tiny houses that move on rails… the trains are the houses!
Those are calles "buses". Though trams can be even better.
They're not. You still have to go to and from the bus stop, and on the bus's schedule rather than yours.
With sufficiently dense urbanisation, and dedicated transit rights of way (heavy rail, light rail, trolley busses, trams, ...), the "getting to and from the bus stop" and "on the busses schedule" problems both disappear. The bus stop is nearer than your car park would be, and the schedule operates with headways of 1--8 minutes such that waits are minimal.
With dedicated rights of way, transit doesn't compete with private or delivery vehicles for road space. Further enhancements give priority signalling to transit vehicles.
Sufficient density also means that services and functions are located nearby: school (for the kids), shopping, entertainment, healthcare, government services, and employment (assuming you still need to go to an office or similar space).
With dedicated rights of way, transit doesn't compete with private or delivery vehicles for road space. Further enhancements give priority signalling to transit vehicles.
Sufficient density also means that services and functions are located nearby: school (for the kids), shopping, entertainment, healthcare, government services, and employment (assuming you still need to go to an office or similar space).
"Sufficiently dense urbanization" has a similar scent to "sufficiently smart compiler". It does exist for some cases, but I'm not going to count on it showing up for me.
The greatest impact on private automobiles hasn't been on commutes, sex lives of teens, or the lore of the road trip. It's been on land-use patterns of urban regions (writ large, think metropolitan statistical areas rather than strictly city limits within the US).
With automobiles, low-density sprawl residential, commercial, industrial, educational, and recreational developments become not only possible but largely inevitable.
The corollary is that to change land-use patterns, it is necessary to change transportation economics.
The other factor is, of course, that there is tremendous inertia in land-use patterns, and urban regions which pre-date automobiles have preserved at least some of their earlier densities. One sees this in the old cities of Europe, of the Eastern US (largely east of the Mississippi, though most notably along the Atlantic Seaboard), and in a very few of the original West Coast US cities such as San Francisco (spatially constrained by its geography) and Seattle (old town regions). Los Angeles and San Diego which both saw explosive growth after about 1920 far less so, likewise for most of the Southern US which grew following both the automobile and air conditioning.
How rapidly this works in reverse, and whether or not low-density cities, towns, and urban regions can reconsolidate is a quite interesting, and critically important, question. I suspect that it may be possible, though we'll see some strange hybrid / transitional land-use patterns initially, and there will likely be much opposition (NIMBY / landowners / pull-up-the-drawbridge types).
We're beginning to see much higher costs of automobiles as EVs hit the roads, leading in part to the increased popularity of electric bicycles and motorcycles (though to a very small extent). Point remains that it's much easier (and cheaper) to electrify small vehicles than large ones. There are congestion tax proposals, enacted in London, on hiatus in New York City. Higher fuel costs can have an impact.
I believe that simply sprinkling majyckal transit pixiey duste over urban sprawl fails miserably. I also agree that changing urban density patterns takes time. However there are existing regions with those patterns, and they may well start to see increasing appeal to those who don't wish to be car-bound. That's already part of the explanation of high housing costs in cities such as SF and NYC (though that's another complex matter and is hardly specific to those cities).
But my point remains that density and transit go together like bees and honey, utterly addressing your initial objection.
With automobiles, low-density sprawl residential, commercial, industrial, educational, and recreational developments become not only possible but largely inevitable.
The corollary is that to change land-use patterns, it is necessary to change transportation economics.
The other factor is, of course, that there is tremendous inertia in land-use patterns, and urban regions which pre-date automobiles have preserved at least some of their earlier densities. One sees this in the old cities of Europe, of the Eastern US (largely east of the Mississippi, though most notably along the Atlantic Seaboard), and in a very few of the original West Coast US cities such as San Francisco (spatially constrained by its geography) and Seattle (old town regions). Los Angeles and San Diego which both saw explosive growth after about 1920 far less so, likewise for most of the Southern US which grew following both the automobile and air conditioning.
How rapidly this works in reverse, and whether or not low-density cities, towns, and urban regions can reconsolidate is a quite interesting, and critically important, question. I suspect that it may be possible, though we'll see some strange hybrid / transitional land-use patterns initially, and there will likely be much opposition (NIMBY / landowners / pull-up-the-drawbridge types).
We're beginning to see much higher costs of automobiles as EVs hit the roads, leading in part to the increased popularity of electric bicycles and motorcycles (though to a very small extent). Point remains that it's much easier (and cheaper) to electrify small vehicles than large ones. There are congestion tax proposals, enacted in London, on hiatus in New York City. Higher fuel costs can have an impact.
I believe that simply sprinkling majyckal transit pixiey duste over urban sprawl fails miserably. I also agree that changing urban density patterns takes time. However there are existing regions with those patterns, and they may well start to see increasing appeal to those who don't wish to be car-bound. That's already part of the explanation of high housing costs in cities such as SF and NYC (though that's another complex matter and is hardly specific to those cities).
But my point remains that density and transit go together like bees and honey, utterly addressing your initial objection.
Possible future scenarios, even highly plausible ones, do not "utterly address" my immediate practical objection about where many of us actually live. And I still don't think busses will ever be a perfect substitute for having your own vehicle. Indeed, per your arguments, if I'm ever living in "sufficiently dense urbanization" I very much expect to rely on an ebike or somesuch.
I'm strongly in favour of e-bikes, they're a highly appropriate solution.
They don't suit all needs, however. The elderly, young, disabled, or ill, for example. There are circumstances in which transit fits needs better, particularly for longer-distance or high-volume commutes. Bikes need less parking space than cars, but still require parking. Bike-share or similar solutions only partially address this given high-demand peaks and low-demand troughs. Weather and geography work against bikes in many places, electrified or not.
Low-headway rail, trams, and busses are still one of the most effective means of moving large numbers of people and baggage over intermediate distances.
And again, all of these benefit from density.
They don't suit all needs, however. The elderly, young, disabled, or ill, for example. There are circumstances in which transit fits needs better, particularly for longer-distance or high-volume commutes. Bikes need less parking space than cars, but still require parking. Bike-share or similar solutions only partially address this given high-demand peaks and low-demand troughs. Weather and geography work against bikes in many places, electrified or not.
Low-headway rail, trams, and busses are still one of the most effective means of moving large numbers of people and baggage over intermediate distances.
And again, all of these benefit from density.
I couldn't agree more. This is essentially a solved problem, we just choose not to implement the solution. To everyone's detriment.
Yeah, but then imagine if we took all these separate vehicles and stuck them together to increase efficiency. And now we could regularly send such vehicle groups, making travel predictable for everyone.
Wait...
Wait...
But that means the government controls my movement! Oh no!
(It totally doesn't control it via the network of public roads... /s)
(It totally doesn't control it via the network of public roads... /s)
It's a bit like some people were complaining about the "Covid dictatorship" at the time. Apparently seeing only what's right in front of their noses, not all the other government actions and policies that are on a spectrum from less to more important than Covid policies and which happen for worse to better reasons as well. At least that's how I think one "notices" a sudden dictatorship of democratically elected parties.
I find the kind of responses you’re getting wildly ironic, given the article.
Everything else aside, I’m impressed his grandfather was born in 1896. My most recent ancestor whose grandparent was born before 1900 was my grandmother, and she died 25 years ago. Some families have much longer generations than mine. I already knew we aren’t a hearty stock, but this difference seems ridiculous.
My grandmother was born in 1901 and passed away in 1995. It was an amazing span of years to be alive, in terms of progress.
She saw computers go from room-size to PCs. She saw the birth of aviation and people walk on the moon. She saw electrification and indoor plumbing. She saw cars go from rare toys for the super rich to commonplace.
She saw computers go from room-size to PCs. She saw the birth of aviation and people walk on the moon. She saw electrification and indoor plumbing. She saw cars go from rare toys for the super rich to commonplace.
Not to mention old enough to witness two world wars and the Cold War. I wonder what could we have learned from her about how human nature flows from one conflict to another…
She was remarkably untouched by the world wars, as she lived her entire life in the USA, and my grandfather was in college and was not drafted into WW1, and was too old for WWII (Nor did she have any sons).
In fact, WWII was probably a positive for her. She worked as a "Rosie the Riviter" building P40 at the Curtiss plant in Buffalo, NY.
In fact, WWII was probably a positive for her. She worked as a "Rosie the Riviter" building P40 at the Curtiss plant in Buffalo, NY.
It’s not how long they live, for the most part, but how early/late they have kids.
Also depends on how old you are ... if you're 80, a grandparent born in 1890 isn't particularly impressive.
It easily happens when two generations in sequence father a child in their 40s. That happens more frequently than you’d think.
My father (still alive) has a grandparent born in the 19th century. I should go find out exactly when, thank you.
I’m 47. My dad’s mom, who I knew well, was born in 1910. Her father was born in 1857, before the Civil War. I always thought the span on that side was fascinating.
My grandfather was born in 1895, AMA ;)
(2017)
"A Logic Named Joe" is a fascinating story, which has also been discussed on HN occasionally.
"A Logic Named Joe" is a fascinating story, which has also been discussed on HN occasionally.
For reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Logic_Named_Joe
This could also be just asking the wrong people.
The predictions we have left are from industry expert or pretty successful people. Fundamentally they fit well in their current world and aren't envisioning social or technical shifts that will completely change the world as they know it.
This is most apparent in the telephone and international fax part, where they see the future of networking through telephone, and not some other technology making it obsolete. We'd have had a different prediction asking AM amateurs how they see the world of telephone communication in 50~100 years (might not have been correct either, but would have been different)
The predictions we have left are from industry expert or pretty successful people. Fundamentally they fit well in their current world and aren't envisioning social or technical shifts that will completely change the world as they know it.
This is most apparent in the telephone and international fax part, where they see the future of networking through telephone, and not some other technology making it obsolete. We'd have had a different prediction asking AM amateurs how they see the world of telephone communication in 50~100 years (might not have been correct either, but would have been different)
"plenty of people have pointed out that vintage scifi is full of rocketships but all the pilots are men. 1950s scifi shows 1950s society, but with robots. Meanwhile, the interstellar liners have paper tickets, that you queue up to buy. With fundamental technology change, we don't so much get our predictions wrong as make predictions about the wrong things. (And, of course, we now have neither trolleys nor personal gliders.) "
Yes, Asimov's Foundation has people smoking, reading physical newspapers and using physical money, lining up for customs when arriving to Trantor. No women until later on in the series (in his defense, he may have not talked to many women at the age he wrote the first novels).
There was movable sidewalks and other transportation devices though.
Yes, Asimov's Foundation has people smoking, reading physical newspapers and using physical money, lining up for customs when arriving to Trantor. No women until later on in the series (in his defense, he may have not talked to many women at the age he wrote the first novels).
There was movable sidewalks and other transportation devices though.
Yes, Asimov's Foundation has people smoking, reading physical newspapers and using physical money, lining up for customs when arriving to Trantor. No women until later on in the series (in his defense, he may have not talked to many women at the age he wrote the first novels).
The stories also have to be marketable to contemporary audiences. There may have been brilliant sci-fi at the time about strong, health-minded female protagonists, but I doubt it would have risen to popularity in 1950s society, and thus would have been forgotten.
You can see the effects today with some of the backlash against certain Disney IP.
I don't think sci-fi is a good predictor because of both the author's bias and society's (i.e. the The Market's) bias against topics that upset it.
The stories also have to be marketable to contemporary audiences. There may have been brilliant sci-fi at the time about strong, health-minded female protagonists, but I doubt it would have risen to popularity in 1950s society, and thus would have been forgotten.
You can see the effects today with some of the backlash against certain Disney IP.
I don't think sci-fi is a good predictor because of both the author's bias and society's (i.e. the The Market's) bias against topics that upset it.
A similar point can be made for the physical newspaper aspect; not every author is trying to impart accelerando-esque future shock on their readers. And presumably there isn't infinite market demand for that either. All different aspects of selection bias.
Just yesterday I had a "what's coming" discussion with a couple older (non technical) folk. They thought flying cars and fusion power were coming soon.
I contrasted saying that the energy equation for flying cars doesn't work, not to mention the penalty for mechanical failure. (I mentioned helicopters, they mentioned autonomous drones.)
Fusion power is famously "10 years away" but I maintain its simply too capital intensive. If I have 10 billion to invest do I want to make a stunningly complicated fusion power plant, (which will produce power 10 years after the project starts) or do I just buy a bunch of desert, a mountain of solar panels and enough wire to connect it to the grid? Staffed by some cleaners and electricians. Where the worst that can happen is it goes offline. With no moving parts, no sun-like pressures or temperatures.
And yet back in the 50s "free" energy and flying cars were "imminent".
I contrasted saying that the energy equation for flying cars doesn't work, not to mention the penalty for mechanical failure. (I mentioned helicopters, they mentioned autonomous drones.)
Fusion power is famously "10 years away" but I maintain its simply too capital intensive. If I have 10 billion to invest do I want to make a stunningly complicated fusion power plant, (which will produce power 10 years after the project starts) or do I just buy a bunch of desert, a mountain of solar panels and enough wire to connect it to the grid? Staffed by some cleaners and electricians. Where the worst that can happen is it goes offline. With no moving parts, no sun-like pressures or temperatures.
And yet back in the 50s "free" energy and flying cars were "imminent".
We had fusion power 35 years ago[1], but "The Science"(TM) says it can't possibly work, so it doesn't. Instead we're forced to receive fusion energy via sunny days and big photovoltaic panels.
I've recently come to believe this stuff (cheap energy) was figured out in the 1950s, but they quickly realized that it would enable anyone to make a "gadget" that would make the "super" look like a firecracker, and put a very, very strong lid on the whole thing.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_fusion
I've recently come to believe this stuff (cheap energy) was figured out in the 1950s, but they quickly realized that it would enable anyone to make a "gadget" that would make the "super" look like a firecracker, and put a very, very strong lid on the whole thing.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_fusion
With the increasing adoption of AI into people's workflows I think this is something that's really important to be thinking about. AI is a paradigm shifting technology whether you like it or not.
Or is "AI" just a kind of a fax machine (from the post) which Big Tech is trying to morph into something profitable (e.g. loading it up with ads/commercial responses "optimised" just for you)
The question is "What if AI is a platform like the smart phone?" and then "What are the apps that make multi-billion dollar businesses?".
What ifs are quite bad questions to predict anything.
Also, AI is not. A platform like the smartphone needs building blocks and distribution systems for those apps.
Whatever you build with the current llm is not an app, is an interface to a black box you have absolutely no control over.
A black box that, on top of that, people can access directly with a chat interface.
I don’t think that’s a sustainable way to build a platform, nor it is a good idea to build a business on top of such a liability that you can't control in any possible way.
>Whatever you build with the current llm is not an app, is an interface to a black box you have absolutely no control over. A black box that, on top of that, people can access directly with a chat interface.
so that means there are no apps built on top of search?
An app in this context is something that allows you to do something much quicker than trying to putter around and figure out what prompt to use.
There are apps that are essentially interfaces with a few frills on top.
However I do agree that based on the platform the apps you get will not be multi million dollar apps, they will be more like browser plugins. Low value propositions that does not make you rich, but maybe does well enough that you can spend your time on it.
so that means there are no apps built on top of search?
An app in this context is something that allows you to do something much quicker than trying to putter around and figure out what prompt to use.
There are apps that are essentially interfaces with a few frills on top.
However I do agree that based on the platform the apps you get will not be multi million dollar apps, they will be more like browser plugins. Low value propositions that does not make you rich, but maybe does well enough that you can spend your time on it.
LLMs are like the capacitive touchscreen that the iPhone introduced. A novel way to interface with computers. It’s being hyped like it’s the iPhone itself. But it’s really just one piece of it.
It also feels kind of garbage at some major tasks we actually want to use it for - just like typing text on a capacitive touchscreen.
Yes, exactly. Which is why I still think LLMs are here to stay (in local-only form, none of these hosted solutions). We worked around capacitive touchscreen's limitations and quirks. But the hype and valuations around LLMs at the moment is about as ridiculous as if we were to hype whatever company was behind the iPhone's touchscreen back in 2007. And now these touchscreens can be bought by anyone off Aliexpress.
Maybe like the Pentium back in the day?
Or they're like the 3D TV screen. Something revolutionary and awesome which eventually fades into irrelevance.
LLMs don’t feel like a transformative piece of tech. It’s more like the CD changer system you can install in the trunk of your car - “oh yeah that’s cool” but still CDs and sometimes it would lock up.
That's to be expected. We are not plugging anything to it.
Try to do that with a capacitive screen.
Try to do that with a capacitive screen.
Isn't this the sort of "wrong question" the author is talking about? If you're stuck thinking in the frame of smartphones, you're going to ask about apps and not the more interesting ways AI can generate revenue?
The author is asking the wrong questions by judging what was present 53 years ago and giving unkind subjective opinions about experts with limited knowledge of the time because their predictions were also true.
Today's expert can't be 100% correct if someone from 2017, 53 years in the future says they are asking the wrong questions.
The world is changing very fast in modern times.
Today's expert can't be 100% correct if someone from 2017, 53 years in the future says they are asking the wrong questions.
The world is changing very fast in modern times.
[deleted]
We're obsessed with flying cars, and hang gliders, and drones, and space travel, because gravity sucks.
I often daydream about what life would be like if we could just regulate gravity at will, just at the individual level, so we can modulate our own weight, up to 0 -- or even negative.
I often daydream about what life would be like if we could just regulate gravity at will, just at the individual level, so we can modulate our own weight, up to 0 -- or even negative.
> modulate our own weight, up to 0 -- or even negative.
Wolff's law suggests that if you set your own weight to zero or negative, your bones would become fragile
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolff%27s_law
Wolff's law suggests that if you set your own weight to zero or negative, your bones would become fragile
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolff%27s_law
Only if you do it long term. Astronauts survive months of microgravity. A couple hours or even days would be easy to compensate for.
>There's no prediction for when everyone on earth would have a pocket computer connected to all the world's knowledge (2020-2025).
It strikes me as tragic that the connection to all of the worlds knowledge has an end date like that, but it seems to be the trajectory we're on. Google's gone to shit, the Internet Archive is going away. Censorship is on the extreme uptick.
I think we should add "Napster - Connected to all of the world's music" (1999-2002)
It strikes me as tragic that the connection to all of the worlds knowledge has an end date like that, but it seems to be the trajectory we're on. Google's gone to shit, the Internet Archive is going away. Censorship is on the extreme uptick.
I think we should add "Napster - Connected to all of the world's music" (1999-2002)
I do wish the writer would stop justifying the relevance of their experiment by saying “a human would conclude that their time was being wasted long before the LLM”.
This is a fallacy.
A better analogy would be a human who has been forced to answer a series of questions at gunpoint.
At this point it becomes more obvious that the LLM is not “falling short” in some way.
This is a fallacy.
A better analogy would be a human who has been forced to answer a series of questions at gunpoint.
At this point it becomes more obvious that the LLM is not “falling short” in some way.
I think this is an important lens to look through especially about predictions of AI. It is likely we will have downstream effects/platforms/interfaces that most of us can't even think about right now.
> And yet, despite predicting half of our world, as a father in the 1950s he could not imagine why his daughter - my mother - wanted to work.
In fairness, typically people imagined a utopian future where nobody worked. The strategic goal, never yet realised although AI might finally manage it, is to push people out of the workforce rather than in to it. Signing your daughter up to be a wage slave may be an improvement on the 1950s it isn't really the sort of thing that makes a good long term goal.
In fairness, typically people imagined a utopian future where nobody worked. The strategic goal, never yet realised although AI might finally manage it, is to push people out of the workforce rather than in to it. Signing your daughter up to be a wage slave may be an improvement on the 1950s it isn't really the sort of thing that makes a good long term goal.
Working is so much more than being a “wage slave”.
Women had to work anyway, except that it was isolated, lonely and without respect. Try to spend your (entire) existence cooking, cleaning and looking after kids while having a good set of brains. It will destroy your soul.
Being an educated “wage slave” is a massive improvement. Work in any way shape or form cannot be avoided. Not because it is physically necessary, but because of who and what we are.
Women had to work anyway, except that it was isolated, lonely and without respect. Try to spend your (entire) existence cooking, cleaning and looking after kids while having a good set of brains. It will destroy your soul.
Being an educated “wage slave” is a massive improvement. Work in any way shape or form cannot be avoided. Not because it is physically necessary, but because of who and what we are.
While I agree with the first part of your post, I disagree with your second part, there are a few rich people who don't need to work..
> Work in any way shape or form cannot be avoided. Not because it is physically necessary, but because of who and what we are
> Work in any way shape or form cannot be avoided. Not because it is physically necessary, but because of who and what we are
> there are a few rich people who don't need to work
There are a huge number of land owners and trust fund kids who will never have to work. Focusing on a tiny minority does nobody any good.
There are a huge number of land owners and trust fund kids who will never have to work. Focusing on a tiny minority does nobody any good.
The actual problem is not "destroys your soul", but rather the fact that women working for home have no financial autonomy; they depended on their husband entirely. Divorce was worse than losing your job.
"Nobody works" is a bit naive, indeed. "Nobody has to work, but can if they want" is a bit more realistic, but I believe a not-so-bad possible future is "nobody has to work, but you have to compete with others to get the job you want". Capitalism and workers would have to stop being 19th century husband and wife, though.
This could be helped by the challenge ahead of us: managing the stabilization of world population count. We've been talking about the necessity to do that for years, just like climate change - and just like climate change it will eventually happen, inducing slow changes in our societies.
"Nobody works" is a bit naive, indeed. "Nobody has to work, but can if they want" is a bit more realistic, but I believe a not-so-bad possible future is "nobody has to work, but you have to compete with others to get the job you want". Capitalism and workers would have to stop being 19th century husband and wife, though.
This could be helped by the challenge ahead of us: managing the stabilization of world population count. We've been talking about the necessity to do that for years, just like climate change - and just like climate change it will eventually happen, inducing slow changes in our societies.
World population is rising, but most prosperous countries have falling birth rates and are either shrinking, or barely kept from shrinking by immigration.
This is a problem. It means many more people are born into poverty and a life where they will barely scrape by, whilst the people with any kind of access to effective production get fewer, and spend more time taking care of dependents than on improving the lives of others.
We don't just need to drop birth rates in poor countries (by reducing child mortality, and increasing prosperity). We also need to increase birth rates in the prosperous countries.
This is a problem. It means many more people are born into poverty and a life where they will barely scrape by, whilst the people with any kind of access to effective production get fewer, and spend more time taking care of dependents than on improving the lives of others.
We don't just need to drop birth rates in poor countries (by reducing child mortality, and increasing prosperity). We also need to increase birth rates in the prosperous countries.
>In fairness, typically people imagined a utopian future where nobody worked.
pretty much all Sci-Fi of that time imagined a future with jobs, perhaps that was because the center of power had shifted to the U.S, perhaps it was just because they did not imagine Utopias or Dystopias that much, but rather just worlds with some additional technical advancements and generally 1 big problem/opportunity brought on by the advancement.
The earlier writers were more apt to imagine Utopias.
pretty much all Sci-Fi of that time imagined a future with jobs, perhaps that was because the center of power had shifted to the U.S, perhaps it was just because they did not imagine Utopias or Dystopias that much, but rather just worlds with some additional technical advancements and generally 1 big problem/opportunity brought on by the advancement.
The earlier writers were more apt to imagine Utopias.
> perhaps that was because the center of power had shifted to the U.S
How does that follow? For as long as we can remember or we have written records for, we've had jobs. So it's natural to assume that a million years in the future, if we still inhabit roughly similar form as we do now, we'd have something resembling jobs (for a multitude of reasons). What does envisioning a future with jobs have to do with the US?
How does that follow? For as long as we can remember or we have written records for, we've had jobs. So it's natural to assume that a million years in the future, if we still inhabit roughly similar form as we do now, we'd have something resembling jobs (for a multitude of reasons). What does envisioning a future with jobs have to do with the US?
that perhaps U.S culture valued work more than say European cultures as being a good thing in itself.
Perhaps European writers envisioned a future where the life of the upper classes was available to everyone - a life of leisure, a utopia without work.
Whereas the American's envisioned a future in which there was always work because there was an ever expanding frontier (space) that needed conquering.
Perhaps European writers envisioned a future where the life of the upper classes was available to everyone - a life of leisure, a utopia without work.
Whereas the American's envisioned a future in which there was always work because there was an ever expanding frontier (space) that needed conquering.
> Perhaps European writers envisioned a future where the life of the upper classes was available to everyone - a life of leisure, a utopia without work.
Perhaps? I'm not aware of many European writers who categorically only wrote books like that.
And there are plenty of US writers who wrote about future societies about a life of leisure and a utopia without work. Most of the science fiction I've read isn't even particularly about jobs or work. Characters having work to do is often only tangential to what they're trying to accomplish - who would listen to Elijah Bailey and why would he bother doing what he was doing if he wasn't a detective?
> Whereas the American's envisioned a future in which there was always work because there was an ever expanding frontier (space) that needed conquering.
Europe conquered much of the known world before the US was even a thing. WW2 was started by the country I'm from because we felt like we had to conquer all of Europe. Meanwhile Japan was in the middle of conquering much of Asia, brutally.
Perhaps? I'm not aware of many European writers who categorically only wrote books like that.
And there are plenty of US writers who wrote about future societies about a life of leisure and a utopia without work. Most of the science fiction I've read isn't even particularly about jobs or work. Characters having work to do is often only tangential to what they're trying to accomplish - who would listen to Elijah Bailey and why would he bother doing what he was doing if he wasn't a detective?
> Whereas the American's envisioned a future in which there was always work because there was an ever expanding frontier (space) that needed conquering.
Europe conquered much of the known world before the US was even a thing. WW2 was started by the country I'm from because we felt like we had to conquer all of Europe. Meanwhile Japan was in the middle of conquering much of Asia, brutally.
He didn’t object to jobs. He objected to a woman having a job.
He objected to a woman wanting to have a job.
Something I've been thinking about, and then I noticed this essay.
>Something I've been thinking about, and then I noticed this essay.
Probably Baader–Meinhof
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency_illusion
Probably Baader–Meinhof
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency_illusion
It's an interesting claim, but it appears to just baldly assert that the frequency is an illusion. It sounds perfectly plausible to me that something should start cropping up just after you learn about it. For example I started thinking about LLMs not so long ago and then I just started seeing papers about them everywhere. Is that a frequency illusion, or did I just learn about an interesting new technology at a time when lots of people had things to say about it?
Well... I believe that the illusion is a real thing, but a lot of people started talked about it also may be a real thing, and they could happen at the same time. But there is one more piece of the puzzle: probability to learn something raises when people start talking about it. And when it happens to someone there is one more person to talk about it, so it is a chain reaction. So if you learned something recently on Internet, and now you see people talking about it everywhere, then it is probable that the most of people talking are like you, who just learned about the thing recently.
> And yet, despite predicting half of our world, as a father in the 1950s he could not imagine why his daughter - my mother - wanted to work.
As written out, it is suggested that it is a lack of imagination.
I think a better narrative is just that it is work, and who would vulontarily have to work if they don't have to.
This is the more compassionate narrative.
As written out, it is suggested that it is a lack of imagination.
I think a better narrative is just that it is work, and who would vulontarily have to work if they don't have to.
This is the more compassionate narrative.
I have a Young Adult fiction example supporting this which I read 14 years ago.
J.K. Rowling has Hermione going to forbidden library to read dangerous books. But J.K. Rowling couldn't think of searching books like Google search does. On the other hand, J.K. Rowling could think of time turner i.e. a time travel device. Considering physical laws, time travel is impossible but google search is possible. Still JKR couldn't think of google search.
J.K. Rowling has Hermione going to forbidden library to read dangerous books. But J.K. Rowling couldn't think of searching books like Google search does. On the other hand, J.K. Rowling could think of time turner i.e. a time travel device. Considering physical laws, time travel is impossible but google search is possible. Still JKR couldn't think of google search.
I don't know. That's kind of like saying J.K. Rowling couldn't think of just shooting the bad guys with guns.
It is said most of the premises of modern movies and television would dissolve if people just resolved their misunderstandings by a phone call.
Also, plenty of women worked. In 1950, women were 32% of the work force (in the US), earned 60% of what men earned and had little room for advancement (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_the_United_States_lab...). So either his grandfather was simply completely unaware of how many women actually held jobs even then or he wondered why they'd want to work the same terrible jobs men do, because they certainly didn't do it for fun.
>and computerised taxation (except in the USA).
I don't understand this. Does he not think the IRS uses computers?
I don't understand this. Does he not think the IRS uses computers?
Their primary user interface is the paper form. Finally being rectified in 2024, forty+ years after same country invented the internet and thirty+ after the web.
No, potentially malicious, rent-seeking “e-file” third-parties aren’t good enough.
No, potentially malicious, rent-seeking “e-file” third-parties aren’t good enough.
Americans generally still have to compile and file tax returns. In other countries that is often entirely automated.
Missing 2017 in the title.
Science fiction (novels, short stories, or by the 1950s films, and 1960s telvision) doesn't have a primary goal of predicting the future but rather of selling entertainment. To the extent it is speculative, it's almost always discussing contemporary circumstances sufficiently distant setting (in time and space) to be able to comment on it in a way which both minimises social censure and reaction and gives a potential for a fresh perspective (in the best cases). Of course, much of it is simply, or at least largely, escapist space opera / space westerns (Buck Rogers, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica (original series). And yes, some of the escapist content does have real science or predictive value.
But in balance it's an exceedingly poor prospecting ground for hard-nosed, realistic, and/or accurate predictions. For much the same reason that most space ships are laid our horizontally, with gravity working on the frontal rather than coronal plane is that sets built on Earth are far more easily built and filmed that way, SF addresses its creations, narrative, and audience-appeal needs over any putative scientific or prophetic accuracy.
And sure, there are notable counterexamples.
E.M. Forster's The Machine Stops is frighteningly accurate in a world much like that of the 2010s / 2020s.
Arthur C. Clark in some works hits on some remarkably accurate depictions of at least parts of a future world. Imperial Earth envisions both handheld computers and a culture obsessed with recording every passing moment in a way that's nearly selfie-culture (though he seems to have missed influencers). 2001: A Space Odyssey predicts tablet computers and video telephony with reasonable accuracy (though all but completely ignores their social implications).
Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game presages blogging to some degree (though generally overstating its influence, as Randall Munroe spoofed: <https://www.xkcd.com/635/>).
And there's a whole slew of dystopian SF which has materialised in some form or another, from Ray Bradbury ("The Veldt"), Philip K. Dick (too many to mention), William Gibson, Neal Stephenson, etc., etc., etc. I and others suspect that's to some extent less prophetic than direct stimulus, with contemporary techbros aping their favourite adolescent sci-fi universes without asking "are we the baddies?" or whether they should.
But if you want hard predictions about the future, it's probably better to look to the literature which specifically and seriously attempts to do this, outside of a fictional context.
One such book is Alvin Toffler's Future Shock, now 54 years old.[1]
I'd read that, for the first time, on its 50th anniversary. I was struck by much, and found it on balance to have stood the test of time quite well, and much better than is typical for the genre. As to accuracy, there seem to be three general cases:
- Specific proponents of specific technologies virtually always overestimated the acceptance and impact of those technologies. The notable exception is, of course, information technology, though even for it the specific ways in which it has and hasn't advanced is worth close study.
- Virtually all of the social dynamic predictions seem laughably modest today --- developments in racial, gender, and sexual equality and acceptance, amongst others. Though on reflection this isn't so much that the predictions were bold, but that they've come to pass. We are on the far side of the singularity for these changes, for the most part. What was written in the context of a world in which these changes lay in the future reads much differently now that the inflection points are in the past. At the same time, it's also clear that such changes need not be permanent, and that perhaps such dynamics tend more towards cyclical patterns or pendulum swings, with greater and lesser liberalisation at different points in time.
- Much of the psychological and sociological concerns over advancing technology, faster paces of change, and an ever-growing onslaught of information seem to me to have been extraordinarily prescient, and largely born out. The disruptive effects, both on a personal psychological level and on a collective sociological one, appear to be profound, and we're still in the midst of discovering just how much so.
In thinking about how technological change manifests, I've come up with an ontology of the types of technological mechanisms which operate: fuels, materials, information (receipt, processing, storage, transmission), networks, systems, process knowledge, causal knowledge, power transmission and transformation, and hygiene (dealing with unintended consequences).[2]
Much of the Industrial Revolution (~1800 -- 1950 or so) was fundamentally grounded in new fuels (coal, petroleum, natural gas) and power transmission and transformation (particularly electricity and magnetism), with strong secondary effects through improved and expanded materials (Bessemer steel, aluminium, plastics), communications (telegraph, telephone, radio, television) and recording (rapid print advancements, photography, phonography, film). Since 1950, it's been information technology which seems to have been in the forefront, making some profound advances (overall processing and storage capacities) whilst remaining stubbornly stagnant in others (forecasting, meaningful automation and controls). Networks and systems have been primary secondary effects.
Hygiene is the ninth factor I'd come upon, and falls out of the recognition that all technologies have both intended and unintended effects. As technologies increase in complexity, I strongly suspect the latter dominate, exacting something of a drag on overall progress.
The element that's missing from my typology is the interaction between technology and society as a whole. I don't have much to say on that at the moment, though I feel it's quite significant. I'm noting that lapse for the moment.
________________________________
Notes:
1. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_Shock> <https://archive.org/details/isbn_0553132644>
2. I've written on this a few times at HN and elsewhere, searching Algolia for "tech ontology" or "technological ontology" should turn up some references. I'm increasingly feeling that the idea probably needs a book-length treatment discussing each mechanism, how it applies (some of the mappings I make may strike some as obscure, e.g., that knowledge is in some ways a network function, as expressed in the phrase "web of knowledge"), and what the capacities and limitations of each mechanism are.
But in balance it's an exceedingly poor prospecting ground for hard-nosed, realistic, and/or accurate predictions. For much the same reason that most space ships are laid our horizontally, with gravity working on the frontal rather than coronal plane is that sets built on Earth are far more easily built and filmed that way, SF addresses its creations, narrative, and audience-appeal needs over any putative scientific or prophetic accuracy.
And sure, there are notable counterexamples.
E.M. Forster's The Machine Stops is frighteningly accurate in a world much like that of the 2010s / 2020s.
Arthur C. Clark in some works hits on some remarkably accurate depictions of at least parts of a future world. Imperial Earth envisions both handheld computers and a culture obsessed with recording every passing moment in a way that's nearly selfie-culture (though he seems to have missed influencers). 2001: A Space Odyssey predicts tablet computers and video telephony with reasonable accuracy (though all but completely ignores their social implications).
Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game presages blogging to some degree (though generally overstating its influence, as Randall Munroe spoofed: <https://www.xkcd.com/635/>).
And there's a whole slew of dystopian SF which has materialised in some form or another, from Ray Bradbury ("The Veldt"), Philip K. Dick (too many to mention), William Gibson, Neal Stephenson, etc., etc., etc. I and others suspect that's to some extent less prophetic than direct stimulus, with contemporary techbros aping their favourite adolescent sci-fi universes without asking "are we the baddies?" or whether they should.
But if you want hard predictions about the future, it's probably better to look to the literature which specifically and seriously attempts to do this, outside of a fictional context.
One such book is Alvin Toffler's Future Shock, now 54 years old.[1]
I'd read that, for the first time, on its 50th anniversary. I was struck by much, and found it on balance to have stood the test of time quite well, and much better than is typical for the genre. As to accuracy, there seem to be three general cases:
- Specific proponents of specific technologies virtually always overestimated the acceptance and impact of those technologies. The notable exception is, of course, information technology, though even for it the specific ways in which it has and hasn't advanced is worth close study.
- Virtually all of the social dynamic predictions seem laughably modest today --- developments in racial, gender, and sexual equality and acceptance, amongst others. Though on reflection this isn't so much that the predictions were bold, but that they've come to pass. We are on the far side of the singularity for these changes, for the most part. What was written in the context of a world in which these changes lay in the future reads much differently now that the inflection points are in the past. At the same time, it's also clear that such changes need not be permanent, and that perhaps such dynamics tend more towards cyclical patterns or pendulum swings, with greater and lesser liberalisation at different points in time.
- Much of the psychological and sociological concerns over advancing technology, faster paces of change, and an ever-growing onslaught of information seem to me to have been extraordinarily prescient, and largely born out. The disruptive effects, both on a personal psychological level and on a collective sociological one, appear to be profound, and we're still in the midst of discovering just how much so.
In thinking about how technological change manifests, I've come up with an ontology of the types of technological mechanisms which operate: fuels, materials, information (receipt, processing, storage, transmission), networks, systems, process knowledge, causal knowledge, power transmission and transformation, and hygiene (dealing with unintended consequences).[2]
Much of the Industrial Revolution (~1800 -- 1950 or so) was fundamentally grounded in new fuels (coal, petroleum, natural gas) and power transmission and transformation (particularly electricity and magnetism), with strong secondary effects through improved and expanded materials (Bessemer steel, aluminium, plastics), communications (telegraph, telephone, radio, television) and recording (rapid print advancements, photography, phonography, film). Since 1950, it's been information technology which seems to have been in the forefront, making some profound advances (overall processing and storage capacities) whilst remaining stubbornly stagnant in others (forecasting, meaningful automation and controls). Networks and systems have been primary secondary effects.
Hygiene is the ninth factor I'd come upon, and falls out of the recognition that all technologies have both intended and unintended effects. As technologies increase in complexity, I strongly suspect the latter dominate, exacting something of a drag on overall progress.
The element that's missing from my typology is the interaction between technology and society as a whole. I don't have much to say on that at the moment, though I feel it's quite significant. I'm noting that lapse for the moment.
________________________________
Notes:
1. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_Shock> <https://archive.org/details/isbn_0553132644>
2. I've written on this a few times at HN and elsewhere, searching Algolia for "tech ontology" or "technological ontology" should turn up some references. I'm increasingly feeling that the idea probably needs a book-length treatment discussing each mechanism, how it applies (some of the mappings I make may strike some as obscure, e.g., that knowledge is in some ways a network function, as expressed in the phrase "web of knowledge"), and what the capacities and limitations of each mechanism are.
Very few saw a world dominated by giant advertising firms. Or computing becoming a branch of advertising. Even in science fiction. There was Fowler Schocken Associates, in The Space Merchants (1952). The company behind the simulated world in Simulacron-3 (1964) builds it so they can do market testing and opinion polls. As late as "AI" (2001), the tie between search and ads hadn't appeared. In "AI", the "Dr. Know" search service is an expensive pay service.