Asimovs 1964 predictions of 2014

In 1964 Isaac Asimov wrote an article for the NY times about a hypothetical World Fair 50 years later. There are many sites on the internet that interpret this article, but the original in its entirity is Here , it is lauded by many for its accuracy, and some parts are somewhat uncanny.

A few things stuck out the most for me:

1. Apart from the compressed air highways and moon colonies, no crazy we all wear siiver jumpsuits and sit around having robots do everything for us scenarios

2. Predictions for population size and life expectancy are dead on, although off with the World Manhattan thing and the assumption that density would spread out.

3. That Robots, or at least robots that look like humans wouldnt exist as they are pretty much useless, that most of us would be machine minders rather than something like Skynet from the Terminator movies taking over and enslaving us, and that the biggest deisease of the 21st century would really be just boredom even though we have far more information at our fingertips.


Transpose this kind of thinking to the next 50 years, and in 2064, world population will be somewhere around 17 billion, life expectancy up to 120 for the developed world, but no World Manhattan, population density of the major cities increasing (Remeber Korben Dallas's apartment in The Fifth Element) with still a lot of the earth sparsely inhabited.

Robots and automation all around us in one sense, but none that really look like us, cos whats the point, except for sex dolls , No robot apocalyse scenarios, cos when Skynet does come online, it wont need to exterminate us, just subdue us with cheesy sitcoms, teen pop stars, flashy movies, invent new disorders rather than just calling it boredom and re-label the prescription meds that cure them

 

Asimov was a great thinker. He went into everything deep and from all sides. It so wonder he could make accurate predictions for a lot of things. I speak of him going deep and from all sides basically from reading his nonfiction work. I haven't read any of his fiction yet.

There could be an entire forum just for him

 

I enjoyed reading that...

I didn't get too many chills reading that due to It's accuracy, there were some parts which were fairly spot on, primarily how interconnected we are via technology and some of his claims are not as prevalent as he envisioned but are in existence. I always find Assminov's pratical and detailed explanations of technology interesting.

 

Yeah, yeah, yeah; there is also the prediction he didn't make (irpnically because his education was organic chemistry): man failed to work effectively on feeding the world of poverty; he did create the acidified crumbling of the continental shelves (under the ocean) still onto further decay.

 

That just shows we arent as close to the real deal as we may think, the videos set up to make it look impressive, but its not having a real conversation

And reminds me of Mori's Uncanny Valley hypothesis - that the closer they are to humans the creepier they are.

I dont think there is ever going to be a need for mass produced robots that look and act like humans.

And there are a few stumbling blocks to AI we may never overcome

 

Have that in my State.

Yep, have that here.

Have that in my City.

Got one of those.

Have that in my City.


And we do have things crawling around on the Moon, and Mars (with communication back and forth). Plans on colonization in the works for both going on right now also (as I type this post on my miniature computer).

Wow.

Cool article/post, Nilla! :2thumbsup:

 

Fission.

But fusion is in the works..

http://phoenixnuclearlabs.com/

 

what people don't seem to be getting, and i lay this at the feet of corporate propiganda that people aren't getting it, is that consumers of electrical power don't need nukes. monopolistic producers of electrical energy do, to keep it centralszied and monopolized. some goes for coal, and oil for the sacred automobile.

we really already have all the other ways we absolutely need, absolutely proven and reliable. just not favoring ways of doing things now, which are devistating the environment. and devistating the environment will bring the whole economic house of cards called economics crashing down, along with population reduction from mass famine and pandemics.

environment is the wild card. and it isn't technology that is directly the conflict with it, but our priorities politicially that are determining our aproach to technology and infrastructure.

we can reduce that future disaster, but it is unlikely to excape it completely unscathed. rather it is a question of whether there will even be a human species a hundred years from now.