Prediciting future technologies.

[aandred]

On the other thread I mentioned Roger Bacon, who anticipated existence of airplanes more than 700 years ago.

This reminded me of a conclusion I came to some time ago and I thought I might share.

In my opinion people througout the ages had little difficulty predicting actual technological advances. However, the psychological and social effects of applying said advances in everyday life, almost universally escaped them.

A perfect example: last year I read a 1960s futurology book by some Romanian scientist (can't recall the name unfortunately). While the guy was able to more or less correctly predict existence and properties of the internet (among other things), he thought that global computer network, giving instant access to the sum knowledge and culture of mankind will somehow elevate its users... He fantasized we will all learn higher math and listen to classical music (and, of course, communism will universally prevail ). Not a word about torrents, porn, forum trolling or "this weird part of youtube again"...

So, the bottom line is: we can predict fusion drives, nanotechnology, organic computers and whatnot, but that still does not give us a slightest hint about how will the future look like.

Any thoughts on the matter? Pros? Cons?

[magnemoe]

Some, first how fast an technology come in use is dependent on development cost and how much payback you get. Payback does not have to be profit but also usefulness. Development of fast planes stopped up as it is very expensive and has limited usefulnesses, military stopped being interested then missiles could shoot down high flying fast planes, better to go stealthy and low, civilian use is limited because of the high cost, it would only atract they who currently fly first class. Only other use is space launches where you need an very large and fast plane who again is to expensive and you have no use for the steps getting where.

Technologies who will advance fast is things who don't cost to much to develop and is useful from the start. Microprocessors is one example, mobile phones another.

Fusion is interesting as its the opposite, hard to do but the payoff once you get something working is large to extreme. First is power generation, rocket engines is secondary and also a bit different, an rocket engine does not have to produce lots of energy just high isp who is easier.

Nanotech is one of the useful from first step technology, everything from surface treatment to processors, later you improve the technology. My guess is that later use will be sensors, chips who manipulate small stuff like dna and thin things like displays and variable surface properties, let you set reflectivity and absorption on an surface. Unlike fusion lots of this will be consumer products.

Organic computers has one downside, they have to be better than existing ones to be useful this is hard, upside is that they just has to be better in one area to become interesting. This is true for many types of technology. Notice that nothing has been able to replace standard computer ram, ssd and flash can compete with standard harddrives on everything but price/GB, in the start they had only the small size, robustness and low power use benefit.

[Fuzzy Dunlop]

I always thought Star Treck (both the original and the next generation) was wierdly good at predicting the future. Automatic doors, mobile phones (especially flip phones), touchscreens, tablets etc.

[Kerbface]

Yeah, sometimes scifi gets lucky and gets things really right. Other times, not so much and it's sometimes even really obvious things like flat screens. I think 2001 was the only movie I've seen before the 90's with flatscreens. Wait, Star Wars might have too, I can't quite remember. But things like Alien, Bladerunner, Back to the Future etc. failed to predict some kind of compact, flat screen and thought we'd all be using cathode ray tubes, but still thought we'd have space colonies, biomachines, hoverboards and interstellar flight.

[Jokurr]

Michio Kaku is a theoretical physicist who has written some fascinating books on what the future might look like. I highly recommend his book Physics of the Future

[Kryten]

But things like Alien, Bladerunner, Back to the Future etc. failed to predict some kind of compact, flat screen and thought we'd all be using cathode ray tubes...

Isn't that likely a stylistic choice in at least some of those? Especially Blade Runner; sleek, thin screens might have been a good prediction, but they simply wouldn't have looked right in that context.

[Kerbface]

Isn't that likely a stylistic choice in at least some of those? Especially Blade Runner; sleek, thin screens might have been a good prediction, but they simply wouldn't have looked right in that context.

You could be right. Bladerunner is a very stylised movie. I don't think flat screens would have looked bad, though. Lots of stylised stuff has been made since with flat screens.

But another thing could just be that it's easier to use a regular TV than to put a projector into your set (which I believe is how flat screens were done back then).

[Eric S]

True story: It was once predicted that there would be no more than one million automobiles at a time in the US. The reasoning was sound, but forgot to take the way the future changes into account. The reasoning was because they estimated that not more than one million people would want to become chauffeurs, and at that time, operating an automobile was more of a job than something you just did to support what you normally otherwise did.

Did they learn from that? Nope, "they" (whoever they are) also predicted a seriously smaller market for computers of all types.

Even as straight forward as cars are to drive now, they're still improving. We've got autoparking cars, and there are states already considering licensing Google's self-driving car.

[PaleoGamer]

There are plenty of people who really should have known better who made some spectacularly failed predictions.

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." - Thomas Watson, president of IBM, 1943

"Television won't be able to hold on to any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night." - Darryl Zanuck, executive at 20th Century Fox, 1946

"Nuclear-powered vacuum cleaners will probably be a reality within ten years." - Alex Lewyt, president of Lewyt vacuum company, 1955

"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." - Ken Olsen, founder of Digital Equipment Corporation, 1977

"Almost all of the many predictions now being made about 1996 hinge on the Internet's continuing exponential growth. But I predict the Internet will soon go spectacularly supernova and in 1996 catastrophically collapse." - Robert Metcalfe, founder of 3Com, 1995

"Apple is already dead." - Nathan Myhrvold, former Microsoft CTO, 1997

"Two years from now, spam will be solved." - Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, 2004

Worst tech predictions of all time

And that article is 5 years old. There's probably a better one by now.

[Thaniel]

Startrek predicted PADD's (or tablets as they are more commonly known as today) allready back in 1966. I'd say that qualifies as being flat screens and relatively strong computing power in a handheld device.

And to keep with the thread, they portrayed it used as a slate with access to data/drawings. Wich they where right to guess, since that is only a few things of what they can do today.

The use of PADD's in startrek did evolve over the years, and only a few years before they where available in stores, they theoretisized that they might be used to control parts of larger starships like dedicated control stations.

Predicting that larger vessels can have subsystems controlled from handheld tablets isn't what I'd call far-fetched today.

Edited May 23, 2013 by Thaniel

[Fuzzy Dunlop]

Yeah, sometimes scifi gets lucky and gets things really right. Other times, not so much and it's sometimes even really obvious things like flat screens. I think 2001 was the only movie I've seen before the 90's with flatscreens. Wait, Star Wars might have too, I can't quite remember. But things like Alien, Bladerunner, Back to the Future etc. failed to predict some kind of compact, flat screen and thought we'd all be using cathode ray tubes, but still thought we'd have space colonies, biomachines, hoverboards and interstellar flight.

It's quite hard to do flat screens until they acctually exist in real life, 2001 used a really cool, but very fiddley, projection technique. But most films don't have 2001's effects unit...

[Kerbface]

It's quite hard to do flat screens until they acctually exist in real life, 2001 used a really cool, but very fiddley, projection technique. But most films don't have 2001's effects unit...

Oh, I thought it would simply be a matter of hiding a projector somewhere on set or doing a rear projection. I thought the reason it was a challenge in 2001 was because they had to set the projectors up to work while the set was spinning.