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Isaac Asimov Predicts in 1964 What the World Will Look Like in 2014

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Re: Isaac Asimov Predicts in 1964 What the World Will Look Like in 2014

#91

Post by sytelus »

sillysaurus2 wrote: post #7

Note that this article is a lightweight edit of Asimov's original piece: http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/03/23/lifetimes/asi-v-fair.h... In particular, the article is edited to only show you reasonable predictions, rather than all his predictions. I thought his mistakes were just as interesting, because they give us a window into what life was like in 1964. Asimov predicted that moon colonies would be common by now,…

This is depressing. I can imagine if I was living in 1964, all these predictions would look very reasonable to come true in 50 years. That's a long time considering it took only 10 years to go to moon from pretty much nothing. Little would I know that world would quickly change so that (1) governments focuses on defense cutting down on science and space (2) corporations focuses on increasing profits and shareholder value cutting down on risky technological bets.

World has produced lot more in terms of GDP than in 60s but our investment in science, research and technology bets haven't gone up in proportion. Looking forward to trends for next 50 years this only seem to getting worse. Governments are pretty much either bankrupt or would spend most of its resources for retirees or defense. Corporations would get even more vicious due to never ending expectation of that 10% increase in revenue each quarter. Most of these produces of human being would ultimately benefit few people to get even more rich instead of advancing science and technology. Those advances would eventually come through but the pace of it has been slown down so much that what is possible in 50 years would now be achieved in 200 years.

Re: Isaac Asimov Predicts in 1964 What the World Will Look Like in 2014

#92

Post by pavlov »

polymathist wrote: post #34
11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is a prediction: Over the next 50 years, mental health will become the primary affliction of humanity. The more discontinuity we have with the world we are evolved to inhabit, the less relevant we become to the world, the more mental health problems will loom in our lives. Suppressed by medications of all manor, perhaps. But an affliction nonetheless.

My prediction is that advances in neurology in the next 50 years will make our current understanding of mental health look like homeopathy. It is very difficult today to accurately diagnose people with mental diseases like ADD or depression when we don't understand how the brain works on that level of detail. My understanding is that it still depends largely on interview-style questions about what the person is feeli…

I don't know, it seems to me that such an "emotion scanner" is a long way off.

Today we still don't understand pain, the most basic neurological response, very much at all. Millions of people suffer from fibromyalgia, chronic pain whose exact cause is unknown. We don't even know if fibromyalgia is primarily of mental origin. If we can't measure pain and trace its origins, how are we ever going to get a quantifiable, actionable answer to "how do you feel"?

Maybe there will be a breakthrough that will solve these problems in one swoop -- sort of like the emergence of digital computing solved humanity's communications challenges almost as a convenient byproduct.

Re: Isaac Asimov Predicts in 1964 What the World Will Look Like in 2014

#93

Post by aquadrop »

Tloewald wrote: post #63
tcbawo wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a conversation with some friends earlier this week regarding the reduction of labor due to automation and artificial intelligence. What happens to our society when our Walmarts and McDonalds stop needing a significant human workforce? My friend, who is a teacher, suggested that his field might be exempt from the trend. But, I imagine the purpose and methods of education will be radically different in the next f…

The question is, if walmart and macdonalds sre run by robots, who will their customers be? At some point we'll need to decide whether we're happy to be a society comprising a few shareholders in Mom's Friemdly Robot Company living in an fortified compound and a vast multitude of impoverished rabble foraging in the surrounding landfill.

Maybe the idea of shareholders and companies will vanish completely. I'm talking about the time when(if) working will not be required from the human being. When automation will be so widespread, that even occasional work from those who want to do something will be enough to sustain the system. Anyone would have access to any food they want. Anyone can go anywhere. There will be millions of free empty houses all around the world waiting for someone to check in (and all your stuff, or furniture you want will be there in couple of hours). So, there's plenty resources for everyone and nobody have to work. I wonder if it's possible and what will happen then.

Re: Isaac Asimov Predicts in 1964 What the World Will Look Like in 2014

#94

Post by icebraining »

hatu wrote: post #89
DonGateley wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You must live in a museum. :-)

Maybe your oven has a touchscreen and apps on it but it basically still heats your food by converting electricity to heat.

Nope, mine uses electricity to radiate microwaves.

Re: Isaac Asimov Predicts in 1964 What the World Will Look Like in 2014

#95

Post by morgante »

huxley wrote: post #44
ahomescu1 wrote: post #39

I found this one funny: “Ordinary agriculture will keep up with great difficulty and there will be ‘farms’ turning to the more efficient micro-organisms. Processed yeast and algae products will be available in a variety of flavors.” Reminds me of Soylent Green (wasn't the original Soylent in the movie supposed to be processed algae?)

Not in the movie, in the book ('Make Room! Make Room!') by Harry Harrison which inspired the movie

Slightly off topic, but it's fascinating to me that we're not seeing any of the major effects of overpopulation that Harrison imagined despite having surpassed the numbers in his book. Maybe the Green Revolution? Or the realization that not everyone in the world has to live in New York City.

Re: Isaac Asimov Predicts in 1964 What the World Will Look Like in 2014

#96

Post by vidarh »

barrkel wrote: post #25
sillysaurus2 wrote: post #7

Note that this article is a lightweight edit of Asimov's original piece: http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/03/23/lifetimes/asi-v-fair.h... In particular, the article is edited to only show you reasonable predictions, rather than all his predictions. I thought his mistakes were just as interesting, because they give us a window into what life was like in 1964. Asimov predicted that moon colonies would be common by now,…

I'm of the opinion that SF is a poor place to look for predictions about the future, and that it is primarily about the present it's written in, a playground for changing the fundamental assumptions of that mundane present. But this one interests me: Mankind will therefore have become largely a race of machine tenders. I think, by and large, this is true in western society. We, here on this site, mostly tend to machi…

> But this one interests me: Mankind will therefore have become largely a race of machine tenders.

But that is not a new prediction. Socialism for example came about in the mid 1800's on the basis of an optimistic view of what would be possible thanks to the industrial revolution - the idea that machines could put us in a position able to eradicate poverty - but also pessimism about how it would turn workers into cogs in a machine.

This latter view came to shape a a lot of thinking and art for decades. In the cinema there are many obvious examples, such as Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927) to Charlie Chaplins "Modern Times" (1936).

The latter makes it literal: Chaplin goes crazy due to the monotonous, high speed work and horrible treatment (including being used as a guinea pig for a machine designed to feed the workers lunch more efficiently). He starts seeing everything, such as buttons, as machine parts and nuts and bolts, and keeps trying to fasten them.

Eventually he gets pulled into the machine he is tending to and is shown as being moved along by the giant cogs.

Re: Isaac Asimov Predicts in 1964 What the World Will Look Like in 2014

#97

Post by vidarh »

Tloewald wrote: post #63
tcbawo wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a conversation with some friends earlier this week regarding the reduction of labor due to automation and artificial intelligence. What happens to our society when our Walmarts and McDonalds stop needing a significant human workforce? My friend, who is a teacher, suggested that his field might be exempt from the trend. But, I imagine the purpose and methods of education will be radically different in the next f…

The question is, if walmart and macdonalds sre run by robots, who will their customers be? At some point we'll need to decide whether we're happy to be a society comprising a few shareholders in Mom's Friemdly Robot Company living in an fortified compound and a vast multitude of impoverished rabble foraging in the surrounding landfill.

You've basically restated the core of the marxist idea of the basis for the socialist revolution.

Re: Isaac Asimov Predicts in 1964 What the World Will Look Like in 2014

#98

Post by corin_ »

BrandonMarc wrote: post #84
Tloewald wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is, if walmart and macdonalds sre run by robots, who will their customers be? At some point we'll need to decide whether we're happy to be a society comprising a few shareholders in Mom's Friemdly Robot Company living in an fortified compound and a vast multitude of impoverished rabble foraging in the surrounding landfill.

"Having to decide" assumes we'll be given a choice in the first place. Technological advances have a mind of their own, as it were, and simply deciding not to be affected by them is not a strategy. Over a century ago, stop signs and traffic lights were optional for some locations / situations / vehicles, and traveling long distance without using roads was permissible. Now, whether you choose to use a car or not, you…

Society did decide about traffic laws, just not you as an individual.

Re: Isaac Asimov Predicts in 1964 What the World Will Look Like in 2014

#100

Post by simonh »

caprad wrote: post #61
sillysaurus2 wrote: post #7

Note that this article is a lightweight edit of Asimov's original piece: http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/03/23/lifetimes/asi-v-fair.h... In particular, the article is edited to only show you reasonable predictions, rather than all his predictions. I thought his mistakes were just as interesting, because they give us a window into what life was like in 1964. Asimov predicted that moon colonies would be common by now,…

> Asimov predicted that moon colonies would be common by now, for example. The overoptimism may have been due to the rate of technological growth leading up to 1964. I think it is more likely a sad indication of how we have moved away from spending money on space exploration, and instead spending it elsewhere. We certainly could have moon bases if we had continued spending and researching into space.

I am sure that's true, but the problem is that the costs of space exploration haven't gone down the way that e.g. the costs of air travel have gone down over the same period. That, combined with the fact that none of the expected advantages of manufacturing and research in space have panned out means that it turns out there's not much for people on a Moon base to usefully do and it's a lot more expensive than expected for them to do it.

If SpaceX actually does manage to crack efficient rocket re-useability that will certainly help with the cost side of things. The potential there is really exciting, but since there are plenty of uninhabited bare rocks on Earth for people to establish colonies on if they want to, it's still hard to see why they'd choose to do so on the Moon.

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