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The World Fair of 2014 According To Asimov (From 1964)
Esther Schindler writes "If you ever needed evidence that Isaac Asimov was a genius at extrapolating future technology from limited data, you'll enjoy this 1964 article in which he predicts what we'll see at the 2014 world's fair. For instance: "Robots will neither be common nor very good in 2014, but they will be in existence. The I.B.M. exhibit at the present fair has no robots but it is dedicated to computers, which are shown in all their amazing complexity, notably in the task of translating Russian into English. If machines are that smart today, what may not be in the works 50 years hence? It will be such computers, much miniaturized, that will serve as the "brains" of robots. In fact, the I.B.M. building at the 2014 World's Fair may have, as one of its prime exhibits, a robot housemaid*large, clumsy, slow- moving but capable of general picking-up, arranging, cleaning and manipulation of various appliances. It will undoubtedly amuse the fairgoers to scatter debris over the floor in order to see the robot lumberingly remove it and classify it into 'throw away' and 'set aside.' (Robots for gardening work will also have made their appearance.)" It's really fun (and sometimes sigh-inducing) to see where he was accurate and where he wasn't. And, of course, the whole notion that we'd have a world's fair is among the inaccurate predictions."
In the 47 years I have spent on this rock, I have yet to see a futurist reliably predict the future.
Where the fuck is my flying car?
--
BMO
According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_world_expositions there was one in 2012, and there is one planned for 2015, so he was only off by a year. It's not like they were an annual occurrence in his time, either.
Do you really need reason for beer? Wingman Brewers
Of course we have world's fairs. They are called Expos. The Shanghai one was in 2010 and the Aichi one was in 2005. You must be American to be so unaware of what is happening in the world.
classify it into 'throw away' and 'set aside.'
This is the hardest part. We have robots that are quite agile, but classifying objects into 'throw away' and 'set aside' is still extremely difficult.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Considering Asimov did not die until the early nineties, did he ever update or evaluate the progress towards his earlier predictions? I feel he would have revised his belief that, for instance, mankind would be increasingly interested in living in hermetically sealed, controlled bubbles.
This is the hardest part. We have robots that are quite agile, but classifying objects into 'throw away' and 'set aside' is still extremely difficult.
I think there are plenty of other harder parts because I don't care if a robot can do that. Just a simple robot that could dust every item on a shelf would be fantastic. Heck, even if it could just lift any arbitrary item and clean only the shelf it would be fantastic.
The ability to lift and replace arbitrary items on a crowded shelf would seem to be pretty hard all by itself, without any need of classifying them...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The oddest part of the whole thing to me, was the thought that so many people would want to get rid of sunlight to the greatest extent possible.
The opposite has been true, luxury houses all have huge windows. People love natural light indoors, and a lot of money is spent trying to replicate it with artificial lighting...
I wonder if that was a prevailing opinion at the time, or if it was just something Asimov preferred.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
This is one of the reasons I like to read Asimov's work. It's not (completely) wild imagination - there's actually some thought into whether things are reasonable.
My favorite Asimov invention that actually came to be is "Psychohistory": The kinds of big data analysis that we can do today are pretty much exactly what he's talking about. I worked on a project recently about predicting the behavior of Indian terrorist groups like the Lashkar-e-taiba and the Mujahadeen based on the last 20 years of the actions they've done and the things that have happened in their environment. There were some things we were able to predict about future behavior with accuracy as good as 90%."
Asimov predicted 'pocket compiters (I think it was in one of the early foundation books) and when pocket calculators came out in the 70's they were using red LEDs and the 'good doctor' said "look I even got the colors right.
(but 40 years later pocket compiters are using multicolored displays, so much for his predictions.)
Like many SF authors he was obsessed with humanoid style robots, but that hasn't happened even though other robots are around in quantity.
The first law of Robotics doesn't seem to be around either (just the opposite when you think of drones)
Too bad Asimov didn't live long enough to revist his predictions. I'm sure he would have had something interesting to day about the hazards of prediction. Here's hoping that my prediction is as good as the best of his, although we can never know.
Is fun watching folks compete to be best, I have seen it at the Olympic level, but it is useless. And considering the expense, outrageous.
Fairs were a good custom in many ways, particularly World's Fairs. I miss them, and could do entirely without the Oily Pimpics.
Several misses for each hit. A few from TFA:
One thought that occurs to me is that men will continue to withdraw from nature in order to create an environment that will suit them better. By 2014, electroluminescent panels will be in common use. Ceilings and walls will glow softly, and in a variety of colors that will change at the touch of a push button.
Jets of compressed air will also lift land vehicles off the highways, which, among other things, will minimize paving problems. Smooth earth or level lawns will do as well as pavements. Bridges will also be of less importance, since cars will be capable of crossing water on their jets, though local ordinances will discourage the practice.
For short-range travel, moving sidewalks (with benches on either side, standing room in the center) will be making their appearance in downtown sections. They will be raised above the traffic. Traffic will continue (on several levels in some places) only because all parking will be off-street and because at least 80 per cent of truck deliveries will be to certain fixed centers at the city's rim. Compressed air tubes will carry goods and materials over local stretches, and the switching devices that will place specific shipments in specific destinations will be one of the city's marvels.
As for television, wall screens will have replaced the ordinary set; but transparent cubes will be making their appearance in which three-dimensional viewing will be possible. In fact, one popular exhibit at the 2014 World's Fair will be such a 3-D TV, built life-size, in which ballet performances will be seen. The cube will slowly revolve for viewing from all angles.
There will, therefore, be a worldwide propaganda drive in favor of birth control by rational and humane methods and, by 2014, it will undoubtedly have taken serious effect. The rate of increase of population will have slackened*but, I suspect, not sufficiently.
It reads more like a commercial for the 1964 fair than a series of predictions for a future one.
Yeah, and I hear IBM's planning to introduce their "Crushinator" maid robot at it! Two tons of hot robot maid! Ooh yeah!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I would say our cruise missiles and drones are wonderful examples of just how well robots can work right now. And those Google cars driving about are neat as well. Then we have a very sleek drone that sort of looks like a flying saucer that lands itself on an aircraft carrier better than human pilots can. The Navy is also working on large ships which are robotic that can carry and deploy drones in large numbers. Sometimes robots are around us and we just don't think of what they really are.
The saddest part is that he doesn't feel the need to mention the moon colonies except to discuss improved communication with them. Humanities future in space was so obvious that it didn't even need to be stated.
Bite my shiny metal ass.
I'm still waiting for the orgasmatron to come into production.
June 26, 2005
Ten things I learned about the future at the Wired NextFest
This past Saturday, I attended the Wired NextFest at Chicago's Navy Pier. The event promised visitors that they could "experience the future," and I just couldn't pass up that opportunity. I wish I had, though, because after spending a few hours at the NextFest I'm sad to report that the future isn't what it used to be. Maybe I was expecting to relive my first visit to Epcot Center as a child, or maybe I'm just jaded in my old age. Whatever the cause, my trip to the future was not very inspirational.
Here are the things I learned about the future, in no particular order.
1. The people of the future are a scantily clad people. They delight in showing off their naked, tattooed flesh.
2. In the future, an airport security checkpoint will work exactly the same as it does now, except that the scanning technology will be different. For instance, at the GE-manufactured checkpoint that I saw, the machine supposedly sniffs you for bomb residue.
Interestingly enough, there was a long line of people waiting to go through that checkpoint and be checked for bomb residue, which is something that just baffled me. I mean, don't people dread going through the checkpoint at airport security? Why voluntarily stand in line in order to pass through a security scanner if you don't have to? It's not like the machine did anything other than flash a little green light saying you were free of bomb residue. Truly, the long line of people who just couldn't wait to go through that security checkpoint was probably the most bizarre thing that I saw at the entire event.
3. The elderly Japanese people of the future will be so desperately lonely for companionship that they'll purchase creepy android replicas of the sci-fi author Phillip K. Dick. Why the Japanese, and why Phillip K. Dick? It's a long story, and I'm not sure I fully understood it all when the android's makers explained it to me.
I think the PKD robot would've been a lot cooler and significantly less creepy if they'd have glued his hair on, instead of leaving the wires in the top of his head exposed. But hey, PKD was an odd guy, and maybe he would've wanted it that way.
4. The senior citizens of the future won't roll around in wheelchairs - not even cool robotic wheelchairs like those invented by Dean Kamen. Instead, they'll have robotic exoskeletons that will make them much stronger and faster than the non-elderly. So in addition to being the largest voting block in future elections, they'll also have superhuman strength and speed.
5. In the future, most robots will look pretty much like robots have looked since the 1970's. About the only difference is that robot antennaein the 70's were spiral shaped and had a tiny ball on the tip. The current thinking is that future robots will have straight antennae with no ball, and maybe a plastic coating instead of just bare wire.
6. Apple's market share doesn't change much in the future. Out of all the computers I saw at the NextFest, only one was a Mac. Sorry Steve, but the people of the future are still using Windows. At least you can gloat that they're all still running Windows 2000. From what I saw, Windows XP never really catches on in the future, and Longhorn is nowhere to be seen at all. I did see a flying car though, so maybe it was running the embedded version of Longhorn.
7. On the weekends, the people of the future will take to the water in dolphin-shaped craft that don't look nearly as much fun to drive as a Seadoo of today. Hey, the future isn't always better than the present - sometimes we have to settle for less. The good news is that the robotic dolphin is too small to accommodate a human who's equipped with an exoskeleton, which means that if you're being pursued by a senior citizen then you can use the dolphin to escape.
8. Dolphin watercraft aren't the only form of future transportation that's a bit cramped. The electrically powered cars of the future will
I was lucky enough to attend the Aichi World Expo in 2005. The "robots" were pretty good, but not really autonomous. Software is were the work needs to happen; and IBM it working on that in a sense. So, well done Asimov. Kinda.
The thing that disturbed me the most about his article was the last sentence:
http://www.dvice.com/2013-8-5/flying-car-completes-first-public-demo-flight
We'll never make it.......oh! we made it! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWf3iJjqYCM&list=FL7kKrE4eTs17mQl7eyvJIOg
Google: Wikipedia Jetsons
Jetsons ran from 63-64. Asimov's predictions were from 64. So did Asimov get a kick out of Rosie? Heh. There's not enough information available to know this, but that's the first thing I thought of.
God spoke to me
The missiles Asimov mentions in his opening paragraph are what stopped his vision on electricity from coming anywhere near reality: "The appliances of 2014 will have no electric cords, of course, for they will be powered by long- lived batteries running on radioisotopes. The isotopes will not be expensive for they will be by- products of the fission-power plants which, by 2014, will be supplying well over half the power needs of humanity. But once the isotype batteries are used up they will be disposed of only through authorized agents of the manufacturer."
Instead, we're still just as dependent on coal, oil and gas as ever.
International Business Machines never really had a consumer division, then or now, except for a short stint in the 80's where they made PCs that were subsequently cloned and outsold by everyone else.
And, of course, the whole notion that we'd have a world's fair is among the inaccurate predictions.
It's only off by one year. Expo 2015 will be in Milan, Italy. There was one last year (2012) in Yeosu, S. Korea. The World's Fairs started using the term Expo with the 1967 Montreal World's Fair, Expo '67.
It's generally a good idea to know what you're talking about before you accuse someone else of inaccuracy.
-- Alastair
IF object.contains?(Carbon); THEN
object.throw_away();
ELSE
object.set_aside();
FI
I believe the Japanese lean towards octopi.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
There's a jules verne short story called "in the year 2889" which is a very interesting read as well.. . I'd say in many ways he was describing 2013, not 2889...
Definitely worth the 5-10 minutes to read.
You didn't touch the Crushinator, did you?
#DeleteChrome
Like this one from Popular Mechanics in 1954:
http://blogs.osafoundation.org/mitch/Picfrom1954PopulareMechanics.jpg
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) --
The whole notion that we'd have a world's fair is among the inaccurate predictions? There still are world fairs. Just the name was modernized. The EXPO 2017 will be in Astana.
I re-watched that recently. I remember when I first watched it I took it for a dystopian vision of the future of Detroit. As it turns out, it was hopelessly optimistic.
Also, all robots should make the noise that Robocop makes.
To the contrary, once permanent colonies are established, people will adapt. Just look at the extreme environments that people inhabit on earth, from Sahara to the Arctic.
It's past time for humans to be out there, exploring and exploiting the resources of the solar system.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
Current thinking is that locally-made soaps work well. They show women in developing countries women "like themselves", except for having only one or two children -- and putting their kids in school, sticking up for themselves against their menfolk, etc.
Best part is that this is an unintended consequence. The soap-opera makers just wanted to make money...
In the 47 years I have spent on this rock, I have yet to see a futurist reliably predict the future.
If you mean successfully predicted a technology, social movement, or political change, then many Science Fiction authors fit the bill.
French author Jules Verne (often called the father of Science Fiction), for instance, predicted Cell Phones, the Nuclear Submarine, that _America_ would land on the Moon, the return splashdown (with a spookily accurate estimation of the total cost), correctly predicted the number of Astronauts that were sent, and seems to describe WEIGHTLESSNESS, writing that the astronaut's "...feet no longer clung to the floor". All 100+ years before the fact(s).
In 1898 Mark Twain predicted the World Wide Web (Internet), streaming video, Social Networking sites, blogs and discussion boards, all based on the phone system. Only a handful of years after the invention of the Telephone it'self.
H.G. Wells not only predicted the Atomic Bomb, but he coined the term "Atomic Bomb". He also predicted mutations as a danger from overexposure to uranium.
Even Gene Roddenberry predicted flip phones. (Can someone both predict and inspire the same thing?)
I'd say that SciFi authors, with some very specific predictions, have a better track record than Nostradamus and his ilk with their sweeping predictions.
Now if you mean someone who can tell you in detail what's the world will be like in 50 or a 100 years, you tell me, who does that?
Where the fuck is my flying car?
And you won't be getting a flying car until it can reliably fly itself, need no user maintenance, and not require a thorough going-over every other time you take it out. Oh, and can crash anywhere without endangering hundreds of lives. Until then it's called a helicopter, get a license and find places that have helipads and your golden.
Or, you could always look here: http://www.terrafugia.com/ Video: http://www.terrafugia.com/news/first-public-transition%C2%AE-demonstrations
Personally I suspect the flying car is going to catch-on like those Dick Tracy communicator watches http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dt2wrr.jpg did. It'll just be more trouble than it's worth, and it's job will be done better by something else.
THINK! It's patriotic
... Let me write this down!
THINK! It's patriotic
He says: "Any number of simultaneous conversations between earth and moon can be handled by modulated laser beams"
We say: http://news.slashdot.org/story/13/08/24/1416209/nasa-testing-frickin-laser-communications
soylentnews.org
Read The Last Question.
Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75. -Benjamin Franklin
IBM's planning to introduce their "Crushinator" maid robot at it! Two tons of hot robot maid!
I just hope she's sassy, or at least comes with an optional sassy module.
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
Its amazing how the most successful science fiction authors are great futurists in disguise. They are usually right on the their predictions and just as often wrong on the time frame. The last sentence in TFA is particularly chilling - only a lucky few will have jobs - glad he's off on that one.
Greed is the root of all evil.
Re: concerted birth control efforts:
If you're looking to control the unintended population boom, you might want to reverse those showings there, Mr. A.
UTF-8: There and Back Again
The problem with futurists is that as much as they try to use their imagination they're still heavily constrained by the technology of the day. Most of their predictions arise from extrapolation of the world around them. I can't count the number of sci-fi novels I've read, even those written in the 70s, where they predict galaxy-spanning civilizations storing data on tape and computers spitting out reams of paper.
Faster than light travel and robots are easy to imagine because they're all enhancements, taken to their most absurd extreme of course on what we see around us. But making that intuitive leap to something like the internet, and then going the next step beyond that to imagine how it will affect society is the real challenge. Of course, the problem is that often the most significant advances are very subtle. And the problem is that often times there's the important distinction between what we are capable of and what we are actually able to do for financial, political or practical reasons.
So we don't have the flashy bits of tech like flying cars and torus shaped space stations. But the internet and the impact it's had on humanity is incredible. The miniaturization of electronics is another big one. Those of us who grew up even as late as the 80s would be in complete awe of the world today. Growing up I fantasized about flat tvs and portable tablets, mostly thanks to Star Trek. These things are so common today that they're taken for granted. Most cars on the road today would look like an exotic concept back in 1985. That may be an aesthetic consideration, but technological evolution enabled the complexity found in presetn day cars. And by every other metric, performance, economy and reliability, cars today are far superior. But as I mentioned, many things are quite subtle and would only be noticed by someone waking up from a 30-year coma. And little of it would have been predicted by anyone.
"Mr. Asimov, did you know that in 2013, a quarter of all Americans will own an android?" ...
"Why, the future will be astounding!"
"Another quarter will have iOS!" trollface.jpg
Windows need be no more than an archaic touch
What? Windows 8 is all about touch! It relies on it too much even. Many people prefer the older (dare I say "archaic") style of non-touch UI.
and even when present will be polarized to block out the harsh sunlight.
Yeah... no. LCD's are already out of fashion because polarised sunglasses (used in harsh sunlight) block out anything on the screen.
The degree of opacity of the glass may even be made to alter automatically in accordance with the intensity of the light falling upon it.
My last laptop, and my new mobile, alter the screen brilliance depending on the level of ambient light.
Still, one out of three isn't too bad, given that was written about 50 years ago. ;)
Even today, a small but genuine fusion explosion is demonstrated at frequent intervals in the G.E. exhibit at the 1964 fair.
What was he referring to?
It's cure that you twist the meaning to make yourself feel good, but stop it.
This is what people mean when they say flying car:
"In science fiction, the vision of a flying car is usually a practical aircraft that the average person can fly directly from any point to another (e.g., from home to work or to the supermarket) without the requirement for roads, runways or other specially-prepared operating areas. In such works they can often start and land automatically in a garage or on a parking lot.[1] In addition, the science-fiction version of the flying car typically resembles a conventional car with no visible means of propulsion, unlike that of an fixed-wing aircraft or helicopter.
A flying car is subtly different from a hovercar, which flies at a constant altitude of a few meters above the ground."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_car_(fiction)
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I recall stories from relatives of the various World's Fair they attended in the various cities of the US, very much like what Asimov wrote about. The organizers no longer call it the "World's Fair" though as the "Expo's" tend to focus in towards some type of theme. In 2015, Milan, Italy, will be the host with the theme of Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expo_2015
Agrisea Tsunami - Epyc Servers... https://agrisea.net/products
Scientists! Give us flying cars and you will be forgiven for not delivering on the other sci-fi prophesies like moon vacations and robot maids.
Table-ized A.I.
China has nukes, Japan doesn't. Unless you count the damage from leaking nuclear reactors.
Also, China has a large military and a young population, Japans population is aging with fewer service-aged citizens.
Both countries have all-volunteer militaries (conscripts tend to do a lot worse). But to be fair, Japan's military is much better trained (thanks to the U.S), and China's military tends to be politicized - it's similar to the U.S.S.R in WW II, in which Stalin kept interfering until Germany had taken half of Russia. At that point, he kept his hands off and let the professional fight the war, which pushed Germany back to Berlin.
Then again you'd have to consider the alliances of the area - even excluding the U.S. First Taiwan, despite disputes over ownership of the Senkaku (Tiaoyutai) islands, would side with Japan. And though Koreans tend to hate Japanese for former war atrocities (and Japan's censorship of its own guilt), Korea in general would probably ally with Japan (ironically, North Korea would provide the essential buffer keeping Korea safe from immediate retaliation from China). So between the three of them, much of China would be cut off from ocean-going world trade - including fuel and supplies.
After that it gets a bit fuzzy to predict. I think most countries would try to remain neutral initially, but woud be drawn in - particularly India, which has border disputes with China, and Russia, which distrusts China but kind of needs it to keep buying oil and resources, but also needs Europe, and is the greatest country in the world except for all its problems all caused by the United States and not corruption etc.. Add Australia, the U.S, Pakistan, etc., and you can keep yourself entertained for days predicting utterly improbably things.
But original point stands - Japan can't nuke China, despite many Japanese politicians advocating that they should be able to.
...is that he was far more accurate about the negative aspects of 2014 than the positive ones...
Of course we have world's fairs. They are called Expos. The Shanghai one was in 2010 and the Aichi one was in 2005. You must be American to be so unaware of what is happening in the world.
Looks like 2015 is scheduled for Italy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World's_fair
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_world_expositions
If you think about it, robots are the things people are pushing as the new "thing". robots that learn to walk, cars that drive themselves, and robot vacuums and lawn mowers. They also aren't very good, for example bipedal movement is exceptionally tricky, the roomba isn't great for more than basic dusting, and selfdriving cars are still untrusted. Miniaturization is what you're mainly going to see, and clunky robots are probably going to make an appearance. he missed some things, but what he predicted is surprisingly realistic.