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Isaac Asimov's 50-Year-Old Prediction For 2014 Is Viral and Wrong
Daniel_Stuckey writes "The media is currently praising Isaac Asimov's vision for 2014, which he articulated in a New York Times opinion piece in 1964. The sci-fi writer imagined visiting the 2014 World Fair, and the global culture and economy the exhibits might reflect. NPR called his many predictions, which range from cordless smart telephones, to robots running our leisure society, to machine-cooked 'automeals,' 'right on.' Business Insider called the forecast 'spot on.' The Huffington Post called the projections 'eerily accurate.' The only thing is, they're not. Taken as a whole, Asimov's vision for 2014 is wildly off. It's more that 'Genius predicted the future 50 years ago' makes for a great article hook. Asimov does hit a couple pretty close to home: He got pretty close to guessing the world population (6.5 billion); he anticipated automated cars ('vehicles with 'robot brains'"); and he seems to have described the current smartphone/tablet craze ('sight-sound' telephones that 'can be used not only to see the people you call but also for studying documents and photographs and reading passages from books.') But he also thought we'd have a colony on the moon, be living under a global population control regime, eating at multi-flavored algae bars, and letting machines prepare us personalized meals. Most divergent of all, he believed that increasing automatization of labor would spawn not inequality or joblessness, but spiritual malaise."
The summary links to four different commentaries but not Asimov's original article. I'd rather get it from the source.
Most divergent of all, he believed that increasing automatization of labor would spawn not inequality or joblessness, but spiritual malaise.
How is this different from what we have now, I insist and ask ?
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
Seeing your gripe at Asimov's article I am very curious... What are your predictions for 2064?
Do you think you can hit as many home runs as Asimov?
Most divergent of all, he believed that increasing automatization of labor would spawn not inequality or joblessness, but spiritual malaise.
That's outrageous! I'm so incensed I'm going to post a comment citing at least two examples and/or authoritative opinions which contradict your assertion!
He keeps thinking there will be a 2014 World's Fair.
not exactly eerie and shows why i say the huff post site is nothing more then hollywood garbage spin site run by chicks and there boyfriends ....
you'd not be passing mant tests with that score now would ya
Is caused by no hope of ever getting a job..
Sounds a lot like our permanent unemployed to me...
At one point in predicting the robotic future in one essay in his magazine, Asimov said that if there was no work, all that people would have left to do was develop entertainment. Reminds me of Robert Noyse believing that the only use for a computer in the home was for recipes in the kitchen. Of course, Ben Franklin could think of no real use for electricity either.
>Most divergent of all, he believed that increasing automatization of labor would spawn not inequality or joblessness, but spiritual malaise.
Lol what? Automatization is to blame? What sort retard actually believes this? SURELY it's not god-awful policies, allowing corporations and banks to get out of control, or any of that sort of "serious" business. It's OBVIOUSLY improvements of our working conditions and the ability to produce more.
hmmm, almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea.
I think Asimov also wrote " My job isn't to predict the future but prevent it"
... mankind will suffer badly from the disease of boredom, a disease spreading more widely each year and growing in intensity. This will have serious mental, emotional and sociological consequences, and I dare say that psychiatry will be far and away the most important medical specialty in 2014. The lucky few who can be involved in creative work of any sort will be the true elite of mankind, for they alone will do more than serve a machine.
But what he failed to grasp was that the mindset of people in general changes. So if we're all bored, all we'll do is invent shit like facebook, and call it 'an integrated part of our society'. But he knew that 'passing time' isn't just some thing to do. This guy was a genius to conclude that robots would be doing a lot of the labor that men used to do, and since the people would be so great in numbers, they'd get bored to such an extent that would cause them mental repercussions. This is beyond what anyone would have been able to experience up to the 60's, in my opinion.
Politics; n. : A religion whereby man is god.
If you read a lot of his stories, they are about communist societies. No money, but everyone has a job and is given what is needed to survive, especially on his stories that take place on Earth (Caves of Steel an example). That being said, a lot of them are about how a society like that can't exist forever and personal freedoms cause issues eventually. It all ends with his foundation series where a central government completely breaks down and the humans suddenly evolve into a super communist intergalactic collective. Maybe he only though it would work with some super natural element.
I think he wanted to see a unified human government that worked for the people without corruption, but he wasn't sure how that could possibly work in the long run.
he failed to predict they would have rounded corners, which everyone knows is the true genius of the smartphone.
But most SF authors also predicted a future of humanoid robots.
I think he got the spiritual malaise aspect right on, if you ask me. The dull, repetitive jobs of the new service economy created by automation and offshoring offer little fulfillment or meaning, let alone pay. Is it any wonder that people are more interested in the antics of TV celebrities and us versus them politics than the advancement of humanity?
Considering the trends when he was writing, and which of these were easy projections compared to tough predictions, I'd say the Good Doctor got much more right than wrong in this article. You were expecting may be 100% You've been reading too much Buzzfeed...
It seems like most sci-fi predictions were based on the big ticket items when the real marvels are in nano technology. Of course, most writers/theorists probably didn't foresee a surge in the "ownership society" attitude of citizenry.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
To me it seems he was too optimistic. He got the technology part pretty well. What he underestimated was the dickishness of the average human:
The current result of automated labor is spiritual malaise... Because that's an inexorable product of it having brought radical inequality and joblessness since our culture bases one's personal value upon one's wealth.
We do have algae in our beverages, China did undertake a massive population control regime, and I'm not sure what you'd called TV dinners if not "machine-created meals". Granted, they aren't personalized and prepared on the spot as he might perhaps have envisioned, but I'm more than willing to grant him a correct prediction there because we've heard of robotic burger joints lately.
As for the colony on the moon, that is easily within our capability, but the political will is not there. And that's merely a matter of the caprice of our lawmakers. Besides, Mars One is well underway, and we are eyeballing asteroid mining. Give it only a few more eyeblinks in the grand timeline of things and it's quite likely that we'll be there.
I'm willing to grant him a margin of error the same as I'm willing to grant a margin of error to all calculations, observations and predictions.
It's a bit asinine anyway as Asimov never claimed to have clairvoyance anyway. These "predictions" were just whimsical entertainment in the first goddamn place, so I have no idea why people are intensely interested in the rightness or wrongness of it all.
I have yet to see how inequality and joblessness don't cause "spiritual malaise" as a consequence. At least they certainly have "serious mental, emotional and sociological consequences", even if not along the same pathway. Ask your psychiatrist.
Ezekiel 23:20
I might be impressed if it was done in 1364.
Deu 18:20-22
But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name that I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die.'
And if you say in your heart, 'How may we know the word that the LORD has not spoken?'--
when a prophet speaks in the name of the LORD, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the LORD has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him.
Being dead has not prevent exhuming the body and "punishing it" in the past. And to be honest, I don't recall anywhere the Bible calls for burning false prophets in the general case (though there are examples of putting them to death)
Of course Asimov never claimed to be a prophet, just a prognosticator. Jean Dixon on the other hand ...
Daniel Ducky is an idiot. you cannot possibly hope to get all the predictions right be it asimov or nostradamus. and some of his interpretations or lack there of, seem to hint that he is either completely brainwashed by popular propaganda, has mind of 8 year old or both
I eat at Taco Bell semi-regularly.
I'm pretty sure they sell the multi-flavored algae bars at Whole Foods.
Most divergent of all, he believed that increasing automatization of labor would spawn not inequality or joblessness, but spiritual malaise.
I think the thing about good science fiction isn't what the author actually believes will happen but what he wants to happen. If he published a more pessimistic view then the more desirable idea wouldn't have had a chance to propagate to begin with.
Ever been to Whole Foods?
Tofu, Quinoa, Quorn, Seitan, Tempeh, ...
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
I beg to differ. I have a Breville that automatically produces a concoction that is almost entirely like tea. Which is good for me, because if left to my own with naught but a stove and a kettle, I could burn water.
Is it really that astounding that an adult of reasonable intelligence predicted with some accuracy technological and social advances that might occur 50 years hence?
In the future we will have more of the things we want, and less of the annoyances we don't want... due to technology. I'm a visionary! Oh wait, that's common sense.
Asimov was right, nanotechnology is sexxy!
Move over Natalie : Raquel Welch, tiny and miniaturized, in a skin-tight diving suit.
Fantastic!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Sure, "spot on" is obviously stretching it, but considering the time scale I think he did really well - I doubt anyone today would be able to predict 2064 equally well. Some good examples from the original article:
State of robotics: "Robots will neither be common nor very good in 2014, but they will be in existence."
State of space exploration: "By 2014, only unmanned ships will have landed on Mars, though a manned expedition will be in the works."
Smartphones: "Communications will become sight-sound and you will see as well as hear the person you telephone. The screen can be used not only to see the people you call but also for studying documents and photographs and reading passages from books."
Fiberoptics for data transmission: "Laser beams will have to be led through plastic pipes, to avoid material and atmospheric interference."
Flatscreens: "As for television, wall screens will have replaced the ordinary set."
Slightly too optimistic on the proliferation of programming skills, but remarkable considering the state of computers in 1964: "All the high-school students will be taught the fundamentals of computer technology will become proficient in binary arithmetic and will be trained to perfection in the use of the computer languages that will have developed out of those like the contemporary "Fortran""
-- If no truths are spoken then no lies can hide --
Third world countries don't have Depression or Diabetes in remotely the numbers that we do because they are busy fighting Malaria and Tuberculosis and sometimes starvation. In fact that's the least divergent prediction.
If "spiritual malaise" doesn't describe 21st century America, then I don't know what does.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
What exactly is spiritual malaise? Not a very precise term. To a fundamentalist Theist it might mean not accepting [insert humanlike god] as your personal Lord and Savior to another it might mean not accepting a human invented god to another it might mean not being materialistic.
Spiritual Malaise is a humpty dumpty phrase.
I disagree. If you read RTFAs that cover this topic, he was clearly very prescient. His Big Mistake was to consider that the people who Run The Show would have any interest in elevating humanity so as to achieve Asimov's own egalitarian vision of universal equality wrt to material well being, leisure time and general wealth. Given when he wrote , this was universally just accepted as The Goal of Society.
We now know better. We now understand that males will attempt to create and sustain as much of a material differential as they possibly can between themselves and other males for the purpose of creating, in the minds of fertile females, a perception of being "better" than other males.
This is, at core, what drives inequality. It's sexual competition where "fitness" is measured, as it is in every other species, as the ability to control resources OVER AND ABOVE the amount of resources the average specimen controls. This is what "being attractive" amounts to, for males, or at least that part of "being attractive" which is under their control so far.
So Asimov's thinking just wasn't well informed on this matter the way it was on technical matters. That's hardly to his discredit.
I don't know about Asimov being that inaccurate. Keep in mind that a lot of what he is describing are exhibits at the 2014 World's fair. These would still be futuristic things even in 2014, but technologically possible. Many of the things he describes are devices or systems that are technically possible, but still not quite reasonable from an economic perspective. Obviously he is way off on some things, but that just goes to show how difficult it is to predict future developments.
Proverbs 21:19
He should have been right. He underestimated human stupidity which dictated that manufacturing destruction is more important than discovery. Compare the DO"D" budget to that of NASA.
Upward mobility is a slippery slope - the higher you climb the more you show your ass.
yet sadly he's still often promoted despite how many things he got so very very wrong
It's not Asimov who was wrong. It's reality that has failed to catch up to Asimovs' predictions. We really should have a moon base, tight population control and algae foodstuffs by now.
I wonder if the predictions were merely misunderstood. For instance:
"colonies on the moon"
I submit we had the technology to sustain a colony on the moon as early as the late sixties; we simply didn't have the will or the funding. The original article mentions a vehicle "with large soft tires intended to negotiate the uneven terrain" on the moon. There have been several on the moon since 1964. There's one chugging around there now.
I think of the technological predictions he arguably got wrong, most of them could be accomplished with current technology, but were simply not practical or did not catch on.
For instance, practical videophones have been available for some time -- every cell phone with a front facing camera is capable -- but most people don't use the feature, for the same reason videophones didn't catch on in the eighties and nineties. And again didn't catch on at home now that we have broadband to the last mile. It's a social thing, rather than a technological thing -- people don't necessarily want to be looked at when they're making a call.
In summary, of the parts he arguably got wrong, the reasons tend to be social rather than technical.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Nope...
The Clapper.
2014 has just started.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
In a way, the "algae bar" prediction did come true.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
. . . and letting machines prepare us personalized meals.
The future is here.
CAPTCHA: vomited. Might be apt.
What are video games?
What is rampant feminism, 70% divorce rates, single mothers?
What is LGBTQIWTFBBQ propaganda in grade schools normalizing homosexual relationships?
What is Planned Parenthood?
All things which lower birth rates, but pass themselves off as something else.
I thought 2014 was going to be more like Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future, "when man fought machine, and machine won". Wait, they already won. We carry tem around everywhere, feed them electricity, RAM, and processing power, and dedicate almost all our waking hours to them. Machines do not need to hunt down and 'digitize' us. We come to them. Much more effcient.
"SO we bide our time, waiting for a purer kick to bloom and the future is still bleak, uncertain and beautiful" -GSYBE
This seems on the balance to be much less accurate than the "Ladies' Home Journal" 100 year predictions we were talking about a few years back, and I recall those being kind of ridiculed. I suppose it's all a matter of authorial intent: do we want to play up the predictor as a visionary or play down the foresight of our ancestors to assuage our insecurity?
But he also thought we'd have a colony on the moon, be living under a global population control regime, eating at multi-flavored algae bars, and letting machines prepare us personalized meals
multi-flavor algae: Sodium alginate is a major food additive. many flavors.
global population control regime:
china we all know about:
uzbekistan: forced sterilization or IUD.
india: more than two children and you can't particiapte in many elective offices
iran: manadatory contraception to obtain marriage lic.
USA: ask Sarah Palin what she thinks of Title X
Israel: ordered sterilizations.
Auomated custom meal preparation robots:
http://www.psfk.com/2012/11/burger-making-robot.html#!rgOyn
Automated labor sparks malaise:
Foxcon suicide fences. no layoffs just repetitive work that machines won't do.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
What is Spiritual Malaise to you?
Yo: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fight_Club_(novel)#Motifs
Generation X found spiritual malaise.
*nm*
We are living under a global population control regime. It's called world finance. The borders are only there to push up the profit margins.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Global governance is "badly needed"? Please feel free to argue your assertion, but I'm going to challenge it. (I suspect your reasoning is going to be along the line of thought that since we're "all on this planet together", we need to be more aware of our natural resources and conservation of wildlife, and other such things which "can affect the rest of the world, not just our nation"?) I'd say that throughout the entire history of mankind, we've NEVER agreed to one global set of rules, and yet we're still here - not only still existing but thriving. If global governance was so important, the lack of it for so long should have done us in!
People in "any given spot of the world" thinking the people across the border are out to get them won't change, just because you add another layer of governance to everything we've already put in place! What we have is a lot of variety. Different nations run things in different ways and some do better than others. I agree that it might not be "fair" for a baby to be born in into a corrupt dictatorship someplace where quality of life is especially poor. But it's not, IMO, any less fair than demanding people living under more successful systems use their own resources to bolster whatever was lacking in the inferior system.
The whole "base on the moon" thing? It speaks more to me of a larger idea that someday, Earth might not be big enough for all of us to live comfortably. The moon was the object everyone clearly saw when looking up at the night sky, and the first one we succeeded in traveling to. So sure, you'd figure we'd have a lot of fiction referring to moon bases. But truthfully, it's not looking like all that wise of an idea to try to do it right now (if ever?). It might give people more square miles of space to spread out, but with no atmosphere, no bodies of fresh water, and no plants or trees growing there -- it would probably require a whole lot of regular deliveries of supplies from Earth to sustain it. What you want is to colonize a place that's quickly self-sustaining -- and I think we're going to find there are better choices than our moon for that. I don't think it's really about politicians considering it as a project, but saying "Nah... put that back on the shelf because I think we're going to get a better ROI starting a war with somebody!" I think it's about nobody currently having any means to cost justify doing it at ALL.
And as for that whole thing of fairly distributing gains from automation? I think that one's really LONG TERM predicting, vs. something that's just flat out incorrect based on what humans choose to do today. The process of automation is happening pretty gradually, despite all the hype. It has to, because robotics are still expensive and pretty limited in functionality. Yes, we've figured out how to automate things like automobile assembly or producing a fast food item, and we can probably tackle the problem of automating truck deliveries. But so far, you still have a lot of humans working at the auto plants and I imagine you'll still have humans working at restaurants for a LONG time to come. Humans like to interact with other people and especially for things like dining out, it's a social and entertainment experience as much as anything else. If you never get to speak with anyone except maybe some robotic order-taking robot? A lot of people will express the willingness to pay more to go elsewhere, where live interaction is still done.
And yes, if things reach the point where the majority are unable to find employment because everything has been automated? You'll have to go through a massive change in society to resolve it. It's no less revolutionary than a complete change of government. But the dust will eventually settle and knowing you can't really"un-invent" what's been invented? I'd say a prediction that society will morph into one where everyone has lots of free "personal time" is a likely end result. When we reach that stage? There won't really be a point to amassing wealth anymore. Maybe everyone in a country
I agree with parent, but let me try to drive it home. Sushi is largely... fish, well, okay. What's it wrapped in? Algae. So what's the fish, the mustard, the avocado slice? They're there for interest, color, and fllavoring. Do we have sushi bars? Yep.
Global population control regime? Ever here of the UN? Have you not noticed that they've been trying, and more and more successful?
Spiritual malaise: Foxconn is an excellent example. But considering that Asimov is from a Jewish culture [I think he was ... hereditarily Jewish, but not very religious] let me point out a judeo-christian concept: the physical and spiritual are inherently tied. So that un- and under-employment, the inequality, the endless hours spent on computer games, the school massacres, the suicides, the twerking, the reality shows, are all signs of spiritual malaise. A man who despises his neighbor is not healthy. Nor is a person who directs his/her sexuality to the masses, as opposed to using it to form a real, full, life-enhancing relationship with another person. Nor is a school shooter. To quote the Asimov quote in the article, "I can make about A.D. 2014 is that in a society of enforced leisure, the most glorious single word in the vocabulary will have become work!". Enforced leisure is called unemployment. And yes, the most glorious single word seems more and more to be 'work'.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
The science and technology are amazingly accurate
I must have been reading a different article. The one I read had working Fusion reactors, cars that float above the ground, Cubic TVs, windowless underground houses, no electic cords, colonies on the moon and automatic cooking machines in every kitchen.
But the article has absolutely no mention of mobile devices which seems, to me, to be a massive failure of foresight.
Colony on the moon is a bit wack though we do have commercial companies operating in space now and grandiose plans for a one-way Martian colony (...), but other than that the Soylent company is on the verge of releasing nutrients along similarly non-traditional lines, there are robot bartenders that will mix the *drink* of your choice (over the internet, even) even if we're not there with food yet, and while only China has a formal population control regime contraceptives are much more widespread (and widely used) than 50 years ago. I fundamentally disagree with the last point, too; in industrial countries with increased automation there is a significant extent of (what Asimov would have understood as) spiritual malaise; increase in atheism / agnosticism, decreasing popularity of mainstream churches / religions, increase in fringe and extremist movements. Less developed countries also appear to show a shift towards extremism but other symptoms such as increased atheism, individual interpretations of religious meaning etc. seem to be less pronounced. I'd see it more as a result of communication technology and exposing everyone to others with "minority" religious opinions that better gel with their own inclinations, therefore more people admitting to being atheist / whatever, and also more people being available for conversion, rather than to do with automation. But I'm not sure I could readily lay hands on a better 50-year prediction.
If you read a lot of his stories, they are about communist societies.
Most of his societies were based on benevolent Scientocracy: a small group of wise and powerful scientists ran the society for the benefit of the rest of the population. Look at the end of the Foundation series in particular, in which a highly secretive organisation called the Second Foundation was controlling and manipulating the whole of society with no form of accountability whatsoever.
I read a lot of Asimov as a teenager but stopped liking his writing when I realised just how much he was promoting right-wing authoritarian government rather than any real form of democracy or even accountability.
Remember - this was Asimov's idea for storing large amounts of data. The office ENIAC would address data by reading microscopic vibrations set going within a large tank of mercury. Imagine the UPS it would take to make sure that a momentary power glitch wouldn't wipe out that entire centrally stored Encyclopedia Galactica, right in front of a line of a line of Galactic Empire citizens who had spent their life savings on an interstellar trip to Trantor to submit their punch-carded requests to the database....
as he missed the world population number,
so did he miss the exact year for it all..
around, trying to usurp psychiatry.
Yeah, well. I imagine that 'predicting the future' or whatever you'd call what he did (in my opinion, he was simply a philosopher with very accurate insight) is not as one would assume, there's probably a lot of 'haziness' to it. What he's calling "psychiatry" may, today, be called 'giving pills to the masses', as they do with children these days.
I know of a few schools that require certain types of children to be medicated, just to make the teacher's job easier - and I credit the reason for my assumption (as to why the teachers get to declare the the kid(s) need medication), to be the same as the reason for his assumption (that in the future, people will depend on psychiatry so much). As both demonstrate a deterioration in an evolving mankind's love for an evolving mankind.
Politics; n. : A religion whereby man is god.
Don't mess with Issac. He was an amazing genius who's vision of mankind's future has helped to shape our lives. He's written more books than most people read their entire lives. He was an accomplished scientist in multiple fields as well as a world renowed author. His only fault was that he was an idealist who underestimated the greed and corruption that has become commonplace in our political systems, so that human progress is moving much slower than it should be moving. As a young child he was smuggled out of the USSR in a suitcase, so he always saw the west through rose colored glasses.
Isaac Asimov excelled at everything he put his mind to. To all who are dissing him I say this...
UNTIL YOU CAN DO BETTER, SHUT UP.
As a disclaimer, I will admit that I have been a fan of Isaac Asimov since my teen years in the late 60s. People here are complaining how far off he was on some predictions, but, a lot of them were very close to the mark. It is very hard to make predictions even one year in advance, much less, 50 years. I think we should give this guy with the big fuzzy side burns a pass on some of his less than accurate predictions and celebrate those which were nearly right on the mark. In those days world population was very much on every persons mind. I believe that he thought that the worlds' governments (i.e. China, etc.) would have to set in place population controls to prevent starvation. He did not count on the fact that advanced countries with high levels of education would cut their populations more or less naturally due to the fact that large families were no longer needed. But, look where populations are still growing unchecked. It's in third world countries with very low literacy rates or those countries which are still so religious in nature that birth control is out of the question. In future years those are the countries where famines will start to "cull" the human race. With all our science in agriculture knowledge, even we will not be able to feed everyone. I feel sorry for those who are under age 30 or so today, for they are the ones who will witness this carnage first hand. It's not too late though, education of third world masses, especially women, could still slow the birthrate. Barring an extinction event such as a huge asteroid strike or mega volcano eruption like Yellowstone or Indonesia, the real next killer will probably be a pandemic that is worsened by overpopulation and mal-nourishment. I doubt I will be around to see this, but, it could happen at any time. Oh my!, now I'm making predictions. I guess the genius of Mr. Asimov must have had a profound effect on me! That my friends is the power of writing genius. I miss you Isaac!
My karma is bad. Don't get too close!!!
I think that his biggest error was claiming that cars and household appliances would work with nuclear batteries. Of course that would be very handy and scientifically feasible, but even back then it should have been clearly evident why it could never be. All in all those are still some pretty amazing predictions.
Remember - this was Asimov's idea for storing large amounts of data. The office ENIAC would address data by reading microscopic vibrations set going within a large tank of mercury..
Sounds like the next step up from a bit of real ~1950 technology - the mercury delay line. Probably more plausible at the time than making valves - or even those new-fangled transistors - small and reliable enough to make fully electronic memory.
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
Just as with Nostradamus, bible, etc. "predictions" they kinda sorta came true if you squint at them the right way. And there are enough true believers to parrot praise in unison. However, a more objective look reveals that these "predictions" are way off.
A guaranteed income,
Welfare, housing assistance, charity. It's rough, but the basics are provided for if you go out and get them.
That is NOT guaranteed income. Welfare (in US at least) has existed since 1935, so that's hardly a prediction.
mass joblessness,
Underemployment. College grads are flipping burgers.
Not to the level that was predicted, and certainly not to the level afforded by guaranteed income.
and strict population controls
China did it. But yeah, it's really not a problem for first-worlders. Asimov didn't see that coming.
Precisely. *One* country has a problem with overpopulation. And their solution is NOT strict population controls, but economic disincentives for families that have more than one child (so it costs more, but rich families can afford it).
would all have much, much larger effects on the world we live in
You're using the term "would have" like these things didn't come to pass.
Because it fucking didn't. Quit trying to see things that are not there.
___
If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
"Brooding over existential issues is a pastime largely confined to the better off (it's hard to worry about the meaning of life when you're more worried about getting enough food to eat)."
I'm not sure this is true. Brooding is a Smart Person's activity. So for example with a junky job for example at the bottle factory I worked at in college, you had plenty of time to brood - all day every day! That's because you just packed boxes with empty gatorade boxes in the same pattern all eight hours a day.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Asimov missed Internet. Data networks have very little presence in his books. All we have are the hyper-wave communications, but we are not told what it is used for.
I have to agree. For most older science fiction, I usually just pretend that the book takes place in an alternate universe that splits off of ours at the time of the copyright date. Such alternate universes may have had us living on the moon in the 1990's, or had us still using analog magnetic tape centuries into the future. David Brin's Earth is one of the very few books older science fiction books that felt like it could take place in the current future even though it was published over 20 years ago.
When I was at the 1964 World's Fair, AT&T was showing off their "picturephone" which did everything he described for his 2014 prediction: "Communications will become sight-sound and you will see as well as hear the person you telephone. The screen can be used not only to see the people you call but also for studying documents and photographs and reading passages from books." So how is that even a precient prediction when it was already at the Fair? Further, it hardly is a prediction of smartphones - there's nothing in this prediction that suggests the pervasive use of a wireless, portable, battery-powered device that performs computation and gaming along with communication - let alone the rounded corners that others joked about here.
The next sentence, predicting synchronous satellites, is also hardly precient given that "Unisphere," the symbol of the 1964 World's Fair, was a 12-story stainless steel globe with satellites circling it. I also note that the "Unisphere," a twelve-story stainless steel globe, was produced by and celebrated the glory days of U.S. Steel, which began in the 1960's to dramatically change its focus and after several reorganizations, now produces substantially less steel than it did in 1964. For me, the most glaring part of his mis-predictions were the heavy reliance on I.B.M., General Motors, and General Electric, presenting the assumption that these lumbering giants of the 1960's were going to be the vanguard of corporations in 2014.
Really, I see the first part of his essay as describing what the World's Fair itself was predicting about the future. The exhibits were presenting the view that these futuristic ideas were safely in the hands of large corporations, who were well-positioned to serve all the consumer's needs. The second part, starting with the Equitable Life sign projecting the future population growth, is his attempt to show that all will not be so rosy. However, while his total may have been about right, he missed that growth in the US will have slowed down, so we don't have the solid city from DC to Boston that he projected. His estimate of the pervasiveness of automation is surely off-the-mark as there's still plenty of physical drudgery being performed by humanity rather than robots, and so forth. His estimates of industrial and food production are similar to the "Club of Rome" predictions and don't really match up with where we are in 2014. The second part of his essay more accurately predicts his own science-fiction stories than today's reality, though we may be all the poorer for not having lived up to his stories.
believed that increasing automation of labor would spawn not inequality or joblessness
Apparently he was unable to foresee the damage that Reagan would cause. Unregulated capitalism causes inequality, joblessness, and poverty.
with our current obesity rates, it's more like spiritual mayonnaise.
jk. I mean who could have predicted that one...
Increasing automation did not spawn joblessness. It may be contributing to inequality, by allowing some people to take better advantage of their talents, but that's not a bad thing.
Most divergent of all, he believed that increasing automatization of labor would spawn not inequality or joblessness, but spiritual malaise."
We have both.
He may not have got the species of malaise right but, wake up!, there's plenty of it going on.
"spiritual malaise."
That too
He failed to predict The Internet!
It's interesting that he predicted most of the pieces of the puzzle (communication, smart phones used for reading books etc.) but he did not see how they would fit together. I guess he was too focused on robots...
Most divergent of all, he believed that increasing automatization of labor would spawn not inequality or joblessness, but spiritual malaise.
Yeah, those robot armies of the 1930s were sure awful.
There has been pretty much no correlation of automation and bad economy. There were no special giant leaps in automation in the 1930s, 1970s, or 2008.
Deep down, you know who you have to thank for this economy ... but it's hard to admit you were wrong when you go so emotionally all in for a person and a political party.
I read the original article, and some of the predictions are astoundingly good, but some are about the return of old technology or practices.
"crowded highways along which long buses move on special central lanes."
This sounds like trams. These were removed in the USA less than 50 years before the predictions and were widespread in Europe in the 1950s and are still present today. So this seems to be a prediction of the return of the tram in the USA, but not about the world. In that sense it is accurate, but not revolutionary, and rather localised.
"Compressed air tubes will carry goods and materials over local stretches"
19th century technology used both for delivery of small packages and attempted for metro trains. Abandoned due to the fact that it required far too much maintenance as it requires efficient seals at all points in the system which may include areas where access is inconvenient to fix leaks. So the prediction was not revolutionary, but inaccurate.
He underestimated how much power and control the ruling powers that control our world have, and have had for a very long time. And how the greed have stunted our technological growth comapaired to what it could be. We could be living with our flying cars, and with free unlimited wireless power. Those who have power do not give up power. Just like how we never even needed to use fossil fules to run our automobiles. Hydrogen has always been an alternative for a fuel.
Windows need be no more than an archaic touch
Spot on!
Despite all our advances, the baseline costs of living hold down the proles. Even if tomorrow it takes two dollars for a coffee table to be harvested, shipped, chopped,, assembled, and delivered (all by robot) we (lol) still charge the same $60 for it as we did decades ago.
In other words, despite our advances we've kept it hard to afford overbreeding. For all the tinfoil accusations on the internet, I accept this is a bit past the "conspiracy" line, but I do wonder if it's just coincidence. I also wonder if, given that such an absurd idea were true, would it be wrong? Doubling the world population every decade would be irresponsible. Preventing overpopulation is better than "accidentally" knocking off millions of 99%'ers (hopefully not all at once). Then again, this would only target FWCs, when it's the third-worlds that are stretched thin.
TLDR: Are you SURE we don't have any subtle population control?
And Isaac Asimov led the pack. He didn't believe in the Orwellian idea, but rather the view in the foundation trilogy. With c3pO style robots. And A great planetary foundation, plus we've been going all over in ships. er.... Not.
If you twist it a little, drones with remote pilots is pretty close to a (very dangerous) flying (flown) car!
Seriously though, I think he was pretty accurate, I'd give him an A, but not an A+. A lot better than the Farmers Almanac for sure or the grocery store rags that can't even get tomorrow's predictions right...
But you can make a large profit.
We appear, right now, to have a great supply of desperate people, and more coming faster and faster (e.g. the baby boomer "retirement" (if anybody gets one before 75) and the coming "student loan crisis". These companies aren't going under, their hoarding cash in Ireland by the billions.
PS The middle class is toast.
Not really a divergent claim really, there is a whole lot less religious fervor in the Western world. Whether that is linked to automation or not is the question.
majority of mundane work, such as walking down the sidewalk, driving, or preparing our own meals. This obviously has not happened.
Let's see, segway and self driving cars exist and automation in factories is on the rise, even in China. Foxconn want to have it's first fully automated plant in 5 to 10 years.
Milking has already been fully automated for years now:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_milking
The increased milking frequency also gives higher yield.
There will be more and more automation in the production of food.
New things are always on the horizon
Now here is one thing he correctly predicted. Leela's home!!!
"Futurama" may well display vistas of underground cities complete with light- forced vegetable gardens.
Sure enough, the cow costume was hanging up next to the superhero outfit and sailors uniform. (S,Spud)
Seriously, it's misleading and wrong. Get this shit out of here.
We in China established a secret Moon Base this year, pretending we were only sending a rover to fool you silly Americans.