Robots will neither be common nor very good in 2014, but they will be in existence. They're good but not common.
Depends on what you mean. Dish washing robots are OK and common.
Isaac Asimov's predictions for what the world will be like in 2014
41–50 of 175 posts
Re: Isaac Asimov's predictions for what the world will be like in 2014
#42Where's my flying car?!? I was promised a flying car and I want it right now!
Re: Isaac Asimov's predictions for what the world will be like in 2014
#43Round-up: ✗ EL panels (not yet) ✗ Smart glass (unless you own a ferrari) ✓ Frozen meals + programmable microwave ✓ Lame robots ✓ 3D movies ✗ Fusion power plants ✗ Radioactive batteries ✓ Solar power ✓ Self-driving cars (in progress) ✗ Moving sidewalks (do airport conveyors count?) ✓ Video calls ✓ Mobile data, sharing, e-books ✓ Global mobile phone network ✗ Moon colonies (double fail since he just takes them for gran…
On some of the missing ones: 1. We have at least one fusion plant I know of, the UK Joint Torus, which I know have been operating for decades. It just consumes more power than it generates. But Asimov suggests one or two, which is strikingly accurate. 2. We could probably make radio-decay batteries (maybe not AA size, but car batteries running on Thorium or some such, albeit an extremely expensive containment for som…
They used to use radioisotope powered batteries in cardiac pacemakers up until the mid 80s.
Re: Isaac Asimov's predictions for what the world will be like in 2014
#44> At the New York World's Fair of 2014, General Motors' "Futurama" may well display vistas of underground cities complete with light- forced vegetable gardens. Amazing prediction! Well, he got the GM part wrong, but indeed, there was a series called "Futurama" and it DID display "vistas of underground cities" (New New York)!
Not complete underground cities, but there are plenty underground marijuana light-forced gardens out there... Even with panels that change colors (some growers use different wavelengths for vegetative and flowering stages). :-)
Re: Isaac Asimov's predictions for what the world will be like in 2014
#45Round-up: ✗ EL panels (not yet) ✗ Smart glass (unless you own a ferrari) ✓ Frozen meals + programmable microwave ✓ Lame robots ✓ 3D movies ✗ Fusion power plants ✗ Radioactive batteries ✓ Solar power ✓ Self-driving cars (in progress) ✗ Moving sidewalks (do airport conveyors count?) ✓ Video calls ✓ Mobile data, sharing, e-books ✓ Global mobile phone network ✗ Moon colonies (double fail since he just takes them for gran…
EL panels: those exist, you're probably staring at one right now, it's behind your LCD. LED lighting is also fairly common these days. It's certainly possible for exactly what is described to be installed in a house, it's just not particularly desired.
Adjustable transmissivity glass is a reality but not yet practical enough for it to be ubiquitous.
Radioactive batteries very much do exist, they are called RTGs, and they have given great benefit to spacecraft and other equipment. They power the Curiosity rover, for example. However, they are too impractical and too expensive to be used for ordinary household equipment. This would be true even without the radiation problems of RTGs, which are, of course, significant.
We should have moon colonies by now and ironically the Apollo program is probably the most at fault for that. In order to make it happen a lot of political capital was expended, creating a particular political situation which has become a permanent institution within NASA manned spaceflight (specifically, billions of federal dollars flowing into a few very specific congressional districts which has continued through Apollo and Shuttle programs and now SLS/Orion). If NASA had instead concentrated on a slower program which built up long-lived infrastructure and optimized toward lowering launch costs and increasing capabilities then we would easily have cities (or at least towns) in orbit and moonbases, and Mars bases.
Re: Isaac Asimov's predictions for what the world will be like in 2014
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
On some of the missing ones: 1. We have at least one fusion plant I know of, the UK Joint Torus, which I know have been operating for decades. It just consumes more power than it generates. But Asimov suggests one or two, which is strikingly accurate. 2. We could probably make radio-decay batteries (maybe not AA size, but car batteries running on Thorium or some such, albeit an extremely expensive containment for som…
On 2, NASA does use radioactive decay batteries on the rovers, but it's still 'space tech' :) > where productivity is magnitudes higher Overall, yes. Per worker? Hell no. Half or more of current jobs are pushing paper and doing meaningless bureaucratic work. Related article from last week: www.strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/
> > where productivity is magnitudes higher
> Overall, yes. Per worker? Hell no. Half or more of current jobs are pushing paper and doing meaningless bureaucratic work.
Actually, productivity per worker has grown for most developed countries. The Bureau of Labor Statistics has a wealth of information on the subject: http://www.bls.gov/fls/intl_gdp_capita_gdp_hour.htm
Of note is chart 6, which shows GDP per hour worked has grown, albeit slowly, for most developed countries; and table 2a, which shows real GDP per employed person has more than doubled since 1960 for the US, and in some developed countries like Japan, increased 6-7x.
Re: Isaac Asimov's predictions for what the world will be like in 2014
#47I'd be curious to know if anyone has ever written one of these types of predictions, at any period in history predicting another period 50+ years out, and not had a large percentage of big misses.
George Orwell, William Gibson, Star Trek writers.
Re: Isaac Asimov's predictions for what the world will be like in 2014
#48Round-up: ✗ EL panels (not yet) ✗ Smart glass (unless you own a ferrari) ✓ Frozen meals + programmable microwave ✓ Lame robots ✓ 3D movies ✗ Fusion power plants ✗ Radioactive batteries ✓ Solar power ✓ Self-driving cars (in progress) ✗ Moving sidewalks (do airport conveyors count?) ✓ Video calls ✓ Mobile data, sharing, e-books ✓ Global mobile phone network ✗ Moon colonies (double fail since he just takes them for gran…
On some of the missing ones: 1. We have at least one fusion plant I know of, the UK Joint Torus, which I know have been operating for decades. It just consumes more power than it generates. But Asimov suggests one or two, which is strikingly accurate. 2. We could probably make radio-decay batteries (maybe not AA size, but car batteries running on Thorium or some such, albeit an extremely expensive containment for som…
Like with the prescient Ladies' Home Journal predictions, much of what hasn't happened isn't so much that we couldn't do it, but that we can do it and find it uninteresting or inconvenient after all (like moon colonies: doable, just not much point given the cost involved vs benefits).
Re: Isaac Asimov's predictions for what the world will be like in 2014
#49Round-up: ✗ EL panels (not yet) ✗ Smart glass (unless you own a ferrari) ✓ Frozen meals + programmable microwave ✓ Lame robots ✓ 3D movies ✗ Fusion power plants ✗ Radioactive batteries ✓ Solar power ✓ Self-driving cars (in progress) ✗ Moving sidewalks (do airport conveyors count?) ✓ Video calls ✓ Mobile data, sharing, e-books ✓ Global mobile phone network ✗ Moon colonies (double fail since he just takes them for gran…
I would be willing to consider the International Space Station an equivalent of the Moon colonies, as it serves much the same purpose; research and training, but is more convenient.
Re: Isaac Asimov's predictions for what the world will be like in 2014
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
On some of the missing ones: 1. We have at least one fusion plant I know of, the UK Joint Torus, which I know have been operating for decades. It just consumes more power than it generates. But Asimov suggests one or two, which is strikingly accurate. 2. We could probably make radio-decay batteries (maybe not AA size, but car batteries running on Thorium or some such, albeit an extremely expensive containment for som…
On 2, NASA does use radioactive decay batteries on the rovers, but it's still 'space tech' :) > where productivity is magnitudes higher Overall, yes. Per worker? Hell no. Half or more of current jobs are pushing paper and doing meaningless bureaucratic work. Related article from last week: www.strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/
Light bouys[1] also use radioisotope generators.
1. http://www.uspowerboating.com/Assets/TrainingDept/Powerboat+...
