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A Look Back At Kurzweil's Predictions For 2009
marciot writes "It's interesting to look back at Ray Kurzweil's predictions for 2009 from a decade ago. He was dead on in predicting the ubiquity of portable computers, wireless, the emergence of digital objects, and the rise of privacy concerns. He was a little optimistic in certain areas, predicting the demise of rotating storage and the ubiquity of digital paper a bit earlier than it appears it will actually happen. On the topic of human-computer speech interfaces, though, he seems to be way off." And of course Kurzweil missed 9/11 and the fallout from that. His predictions might have been nearer the mark absent the war on terror.
His prediction on civil liberties might not have been so true if 9/11 never happened.
Anonymous Coward
Kurzweil has a really good handle on where hardware will be, but not software. What I believe this means is that drives the creation of software is not how quickly it can be developed, but whether there's demand for it.
Demand and innovation are a lot trickier to predict than advances in speed and minitiaturization of electronics hardware, so what we envisioned we thought our future selves might want in 2009 isn't actually quite what it turns out we actually wanted.
Kurzweil thinks speech interface is where it's at, but the world gives us Twitter and Facebook.
Kurzweil wants to use technology to make us immortal or give rise to machines that supercede humankind and take the next evolutionary step as a technological rather than biological one. Meanwhile, people want to make money, get laid, watch stupid video clips, listen to music, and act like their opinion is the best thing there's ever been.
So... Where'll we be in the future? Watch Idiocracy.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
The following will happen in the next 10 years:
1. Some Terrorist group will blow something up.
2. That people will continue to argue whether Linux is superior to Windows (and vicea versa) on an ideological basis and continue to ignore individual situations/circumstances where their opposing OS would make a better choice.
3. That people will still buy (or not buy) Mac's based on a fashion over function idea (despite the fact the actual Mac offering isn't too bad functionally).
4. That people will make a bunch of random predictions, and several of these will pan out as predicted, and the people will say "Oh Wow!!!", (and then post the original predictions to Slashdot).
A Man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties -- Albert Einstein
Kurzweil may not be as far off on the human-computer speech interfaces as you may first think. It's currently focused in a narrow domain right now: automated telephone systems, which are are all pretty much voice activated these days.
...the emergency of digital objects...
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
And of course he missed the Spanish Inquisition. Possibly he didn't expect that.
Most of his predictions that he got right were brain-dead obvious in 1999 - we already had portable computers coming into common use, and cellphones everywhere. This trend was pretty clearly going to continue. Hell, the Gameboy was proof enough that we were about to see a generation who grew up with portable computing. "Body LANs" don't exist in any meaningful form. People at best are wearing the utility belt of gadgets, some of which might talk Bluetooth to each other.
The rest? Wireless? Please. Bluetooth and Wi-Fi were just coming into fruition around that time, and obviously wireless use was going to come into play. Again, cellphones paved the way for this. Beyond that though... I still see millions of wired speakers, mice, keyboards, dvd players, you name it. I still don't see wireless as being the most common form of network access, hell any network admin worth his salt will rant about the general poor performance of Wi-Fi. Wireless printers and displays never really came about (I do find it amusing that he says "occasional keyboard" - the most obvious use of a low-bandwidth wireless interface). His vision of ubiquitous wireless access never came about - the best we have is the cellphone networks, which again, we already had 10 years ago.
Digital books, movies, music? Napster was already out by then. The entertainment industry did its best to stop this from happening and it's only been in the past year or three that it's even been practical (from a legal perspective).
Eyeglass displays have existed for a long, long time and never achieved much success.
A trillion calculations per second on a home computer, eh?
Anyway, just seems a bit underwhelming. He got so much completely wrong.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
Style improvement and automatic editing software is widely used to improve the quality of writing."
So close, and yet so, so far...
Most all the predictions I read in this article have roughly the same problem - it still assumes technology is much more ubiquitous than it is in the real world. I'd say he was probably off by a five to ten years in many of those predictions. Let's see:
Computers: Personal computers are available in a wide range of sizes and shapes, and are commonly embedded in clothing and jewelry such as wristwatches, rings, earrings, and other body ornaments... The majority of text is created using continuous speech recognition (CSR) dictation software.
Getting there, but we're not quite at the point of wearing computers in common objects. Keyboard and mouse are still king.
Education: Students of all ages typically have a computer of their own, which is a thin tabletlike device weighing under a pound with a very high resolution display suitable for reading... Intelligent courseware has emerged as a common means of learning.
Closer, but education still seems largely clueless about how to effectively use computers. Intelligent teaching software is making strides, but still really can't be called "intelligent" by any stretch of the imagination.
Communication: "Telephone" communication is primarily wireless, and routinely includes high-resolution moving images... Virtually all communication is digital and encrypted, with public keys available to government authorities.
Technologists always want that video phone, and the market continually says "no thanks, voice is good enough". In fact, it's gone backwards a bit, with text messaging being rather popular.
Business and Economics: Intelligent assistants which combine continuous speech recognition, natural-language understanding, problem solving, and animated personalities routinely assist with finding information, answering questions, and conducting transactions... Most purchases of books, musical "albums," videos, games, and other forms of software do not involve any physical object.
Again, the overestimation of natural interfaces. And as of right now, a large percentage of software (especially games) is still attached to a physical disk, although digital downloads are gaining Steam... (sorry)
Politics and Society: Privacy has emerged as a primary political issue. The virtually constant use of electronic communication technologies is leaving a highly detailed trail of every person's every move.... There is a growing neo-Luddite movement...
This one's pretty close regarding privacy concerns. As far as neo-Luddite, I haven't seen any such movement emerge in large numbers. There are some anti-technologists, but it's usually a secondary effect of some other philosophical argument.
The Arts: The high quality of computer screens, and the facilities of computer-assisted visual rendering software, have made the computer screen a medium of choice for visual art.
Another one technologists always get wrong is the idea that people are eager to throw away traditional art mediums. I think Star Trek was closer on this one, about how people will always enjoy timeless "classical" entertainment right alongside their "high-tech" (holodeck) entertainment. The two need not be mutually exclusive.
Etc, etc... I'd say the predictions were generally on the right track, but perhaps just a bit too optimistic in the rate of adoption. Still, overall it was fairly insightful, if somewhat conservative. I'm not sure I could have done nearly as well.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
Excellent post. The worst thing too is that techy Internet pundits always bring up the Idiocracy reference, as if only the Internet could walk in a clean white suit above the supposed muck of the idiot masses.
But of course, they all forget their own idiocratic backyard that includes places like 4chan, /b/, and Encyclopedia Dramatica. Or even places like Boing Boing or Youtube, which is a constant barrage of bite-sized irrelevant data for the ADHD crowd. /.'ers don't need to watch Idiocracy. We are living in an Internet Idiocracy that no one cares to improve because of the lulz. Neil Postman's 'Amusing Ourselves to Death' is THE ultimate predictor of the future. We are going to giggle ourselves to death with LOLcats, and people will argue vehemently that it's morally better than any alternative. Like Postman said, we'll beg to stay entertained.
Did he even get 3?
This one is obvious:
"Individuals primarily use portable computers, which have become dramatically lighter and thinner than the notebook computers of ten years earlier. "
Am I supposed to think that they just get bigger and bigger after 10 years?
"Computers routinely include wireless technology to plug into the ever-present worldwide network, providing reliable, instantly available, very-high-bandwidth communication."
Wrong, we don't have ever-present worldwide network. Even finding 'hot-spots' are hard.
"Communication between components, such as pointing devices, microphones, displays, printers, and the occasional keyboard, uses short-distance wireless technology."
Mouse/keyboard is about it. Display won't be wireless.
"Government agencies, however, continue to have the right to gain access to people's files, which has resulted in the popularity of unbreakable encryption technologies."
Umm, I guess they still have access if they have a warrant.
I don't see your average person using encryption, let alone 'unbreakable' type.
The only thing he got right is the obvious one. They rest are off. Making a 10-year prediction isn't very fun anyway. 20-year or longer predictions are great, especially if they include flying personal transportation.
Er, my phone certainly does have essentially an ever-present connection to the worldwide network. And my phone is a linux machine I would have been proud to have on my desktop 7 years ago.
His predictions might have been nearer the mark absent the war on terror.
Oh I agree. His predictions may have been far more accurate had the future unfolded differently.
The problem is that in deflationary periods incomes drop as well as prices, either by direct cuts in salaries or layoffs followed by new jobs that don't pay as well; otherwise everyone would be rich, by magic, which never happens. Thus my family's outstanding mortgage -- currently a fairly reasonable 120 percent or so of our annual income -- would become more and more of a burden.
You are right. Just because it doesn't look like what we thought it would look like ten years ago, doesn't mean it isn't happening. To the GP, that unbreakable encryption is available if you want it. Since the government does have access without a warrant, or have you ignored the past few years discussion of warrantless wiretaps, it's been quite common. And, you might use it without knowing it, like SSL for banking?
Devices are all capable of talking to each other, via bluetooth or other means. Contactless smart cards fit as the ID protection on a chip, so do RFID passports, even if they aren't as secure as he had hoped. Memory on portable devices has moved away from the rotating platters. Kindle and other e-books are out there, and while I still prefer the contrast of paper and the lack of DRM, they are popular. Telephones do send high res pictures and video, my 'new' cellphone is capable of both. It's only new to me, the model has been out for some time. And his prediction of dating online/ virtual sex, I think it nicely sums up all the problems of Second Life. As for people preferring to interact with female AI, he's right. Wasn't there an article here about more people choosing the female workout instructor in Wii Fit?
For his predictions of art, I've seen a lot of the things he dreamed up. People are making music with Guitar Hero 'toys', and cooking up strange new instruments with accelerometers. He didn't get it all right, but he was close.
Computers routinely include wireless technology to plug into the ever-present worldwide network, providing reliable, instantly available, very-high-bandwidth communication.
Wrong, we don't have ever-present worldwide network. Even finding 'hot-spots' are hard.
I beg to differ. Two weeks ago today, I stood on a beach in Australia — at Hat Head, which, for the curious, is a small and fairly unremarkable seaside town in New South Wales, about 500 km from the nearest large city — where I had no trouble using my Swedish mobile phone/SIM to
Now... You were saying something about the lack of world-wide wireless connectivity...? :)
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Gracchus: Fear and wonder, a powerful combination.
Gaius: You really think people are going to be seduced by that?
Gracchus: I think he knows what Rome is. Rome is the mob. Conjure magic for them and they'll be distracted. Take away their freedom and still they'll roar. The beating heart of Rome is not the marble of the senate, it's the sand of the coliseum. He'll bring them death - and they will love him for it.
-gladiator
I think Kurzweil is desperate for Singularity to happen sooner because frankly he just doesn't want to die.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Contrast that to today. In Western societies (at least) just about everyone from the bottom of the barrel to the top has plenty of free time -- when they're not scarfing down cheap caloric loads taht would stagger their forebearers -- to surf 4Chan and Something Awful, and play videogames. Yep, when freed from want, it turns out most people go for entertainment.
To which I can only say two things. First -- what the fuck do you expect, we're APES. It's not like there's some special nobility gene waiting to be turned on the second we have computers. And second -- who cares? People who want to do interesting things can still do interesting things (see: universities, make magazine, the people who provide content for the unwashed masses on you tube, the open source movement etc.).
Dude, I think I can see my house from here.
25 years ago?
It is 1985. Life is a constant struggle for survival. There is no fast food*, there are no sweets or snacks*, and there are only four television channels. Modems only work at 300 baud and home computers only have 16 colour displays, so the proles are forced to watch their porn on VHS tapes, played by machines that don't even support stereo sound. If they can't afford "a video", they'll have to buy it on the now-obsolete form of media known as "paper". Truly primitive times. It's a wonder we managed to keep our caves warm.
* except for almost all of the brands you see today
The tao of democracy: the government you can vote for is not the real government.
Tech things from the past decade that he COMPLETELY misses in his book:
Kurzweil, in his long term view, predicted a world where technology starts to change us, and we are replaced with computers. He envisioned conflict over this - people fighting about whether computer rights, the meaning of "human," etc. But there hasn't been much conflict, because computers haven't changed us. Human needs are still the driving force between technological change, and as long as this is the case, technology will continue to satisfy our basic needs - to help us do the same things we *already do* faster and better, rather than suddenly giving me a taste for wireless jewelry.
Don't listen to the naysayers, it's only January...