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Predictions about 2008
A typical vacation in 2008 is to spend a week at an undersea resort, where your hotel room window looks out on a tropical underwater reef, a sunken ship or an ancient, excavated city. Available to guests are two- and three-person submarines in which you can cruise well-marked underwater trails.
But many of the predictions are good, at least in part. Get this:
The single most important item in 2008 households is the computer. These electronic brains govern everything from meal preparation and waking up the household to assembling shopping lists and keeping track of the bank balance. Sensors in kitchen appliances, climatizing units, communicators, power supply and other household utilities warn the computer when the item is likely to fail. A repairman will show up even before any obvious breakdown occurs.
Computers also handle travel reservations, relay telephone messages, keep track of birthdays and anniversaries, compute taxes and even figure the monthly bills for electricity, water, telephone and other utilities. Not every family has its private computer. Many families reserve time on a city or regional computer to serve their needs. The machine tallies up its own services and submits a bill, just as it does with other utilities.
Via www.geekpress.com. As usual, it is presumed that traffic and transportation problems will have seen a lot of progress when in fact they have not. Nor was it understood how unevenly the benefits of progress would be distributed and how possible it would be to continue a life basically devoid of these advances.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on April 4, 2008 at 12:09 PM in Science | Permalink
Comments
Nor was it understood how unevenly the benefits of progress would be distributed and how possible it would be to continue a life basically devoid of these advances.
Really? Because this strikes me as an underestimate of how broadly the benefits would be distributed:
"Not every family has its private computer. Many families reserve time on a city or regional computer to serve their needs. The machine tallies up its own services and submits a bill, just as it does with other utilities."
Virtually every family in the U.S. that now lacks even a 'private computer' owns a television that cost as much or more than a basic or used computer. And they mostly also subscribe to TV services that cost more than Internet service would. In general, the families who lack computers, lack the interest or ability to make use of one. And those 'regional computers'? Free to use at the public library.
It's interesting, too, how 'utility-minded' that vision is. No notion at all that computers would be used for communication, education, research, art, music, video, photography, games. And not much for hooking up all the appliances to diagnose themselves. Not because it's not feasible, but because appliances have become so reliable and so cheap to replace that repair services are often not worth it for appliances more than a few years old.
Posted by: Slocum at Apr 4, 2008 12:31:38 PM
Hey, we've still got 6 months! You never know...
Posted by: Andy at Apr 4, 2008 12:39:20 PM
"As usual, it is presumed that traffic and transportation problems will have seen a lot of progress when in fact they have not."
- not to mention fixing the weather.
Posted by: tom s. at Apr 4, 2008 12:40:52 PM
I guess the biggest miss, as is often the case in these things, is that they don't predict the Internet or the Web.
Posted by: Andy at Apr 4, 2008 12:42:33 PM
The other element to futurism isn't just what we predict will change but hasn't but what changes so utterly. I remember reading Fahrenheit 451--not strictly a futurist novel, but giving a vision of futuristic life, Wall TV's, portable defribrilators, etc--and noticing one thing that was out of touch with our world today.
Characters smoked like chimneys. They smoked in other peoples' living rooms (like watching "All The President's Men"). They smoked on the job.
In extrapolating trends, it is difficult to predict large changes in opinion like that which aren't necessarily driven by technological change.
Posted by: Adam Hyland at Apr 4, 2008 12:48:29 PM
The most striking thing is how accurate it was about the functions that are used with a computer. Not a day goes by where I am not using my computer (work or personal) to read the news, communicate with family, friends, colleagues, purchase goods or pay bills.
The idea that we vacation underwater is not complete science fiction. We can book a hotel that is partially submerged under the sea.
It goes to show you that in some areas we have met or surpassed the expectations of the 60's. Now if we can get a flying car by 2012 we'll be set.
Posted by: Anthony at Apr 4, 2008 12:48:56 PM
Can we get a review of Richard Florida's new book?
Posted by: Chris P at Apr 4, 2008 12:53:11 PM
They're certainly not a typical vacation, but 2008 really is the year of underwater hotels with personal submarines: four underwater hotels are opening soon
Posted by: Andrew at Apr 4, 2008 1:07:23 PM
Is it a reasonable assumption, then, than in our own predictions about the year 2058 a large proportion of the world will still be in poverty without access to clean water or basic healthcare, despite a slew of technological advances?
Posted by: Finance Monk at Apr 4, 2008 1:11:48 PM
Is it a reasonable assumption, then, than in our own predictions about the year 2058 a large proportion of the world will still be in poverty without access to clean water or basic healthcare, despite a slew of technological advances?
Posted by: Finance Monk at Apr 4, 2008 1:11:51 PM
"Nor was it understood how unevenly the benefits of progress would be distributed and how possible it would be to continue a life basically devoid of these advances."
No, you are completely wrong. The American middle class is fabulously more prosperous than it was in 1968, and those who dispute this are ignoring the facts. The New York Times had a great editorial on this, and unfortunately I can't find it, but it contained a graph of the percentage of Americans who owned all of the important products created by our technological progress: cars, washing machines, tv's, phones, electricity, the internet, etc. The percentages are much higher today than they were 40 years ago. Moreover, newer inventions are spreading more quickly than they did at the beginning of the twentieth century. For example, the middle class is getting the internet much more quickly than it got electricity or phones.
The fact of the matter is that if the world is peaceful, capitalism will slowly produce great wealth for everyone. Those who think differently need to take a long hard look at the facts.
Posted by: bla bla at Apr 4, 2008 1:30:19 PM
It should be noted that total world inequality is vastly lower that it was at the time this was written, largely due to tremendous advances in China, India, Latin America, and Indonesia. It should also be noted that worldwide propagation times for technological advances have taken a nosedive in the last few years.
Posted by: Dave at Apr 4, 2008 1:45:49 PM
They missed the single most important enhancement to civilization since 1968: my wife.
Posted by: infopractical at Apr 4, 2008 1:47:23 PM
Agreed, the American middle class is much better off in absolute terms, but there's no denying that advances have not even touched a great number of people on Earth. America is only 5% of the world's population, after all, and the number of beneficiaries of our wealth gets considerably smaller depending on how you define 'middle class.'
The disparity between areas in the globe is quite shocking - average life expectancy of a female in Zimbabwe is 34 yrs, while it's 83 in Sweden and 85 in Hong Kong. While some of the wealthier areas and classes will likely continue to see great improvements in quality of life (genetic therapy, mobile communication, entertainment products), I would also imagine a significant portion of the world will continue without the basic necessities.
Where are you getting this information that income inequality has lessened in the past 50 years? My impression is that it has grown tremendously, mostly to due to wealth advances in the upper echelons with relatively flat growth in the lower percentiles. I do agree though that measures of wealth in absolute terms is an important measure in these types of thought experiments (i.e. people now own cars, washing machines etc).
Posted by: Finance Monk at Apr 4, 2008 2:41:58 PM
Monk: try Hans Rosling's celebrated presentation at Ted Talks for a start: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/92 The software Rosling uses is at http://www.gapminder.org
Posted by: The Sheep Nazi at Apr 4, 2008 2:56:39 PM
Here's one thing I can't believe in 2008.
I'm staring into my computer sack, looking for the right cord.
There are 8 cords, they have all different connectors but they are all the SAME color!
The basic "sense" I always got from the futurist stuff was how well design was going to mesh form and function. It hasn't at all. Apple is the exception that proves the rule. Even they aren't really that notable in my opinion (except that theirs is the only white cord in my pile of spaghetti).
Posted by: Andrew at Apr 4, 2008 3:29:53 PM
"As usual, it is presumed that traffic and transportation problems will have seen a lot of progress when in fact they have not."
Perhaps we have seen progress, but not the type some imagined or desired. Geogrpahic dispersion of workplaces and housing the past four decades allowed many more workers to live close to workplaces, in affordable housing they desired. That may not be the situation along the upper Atlantic coast. But that's been my observation in Tennessee, Missouri, Texas, and Arizona.
Sprawl, that dirty word of government planners, has enabled Dallas-Fort Worth to grow to the fourth largest metro area in the U.S., without an appreciable increase in commute times. Edge cities and now edgeless cities kept urban congestion to manageable levels.
Of course, not every community has enjoyed the freedom that Sprawl allows. Sprawl's mortal enemy, Smart Growth, continues to inflict its damage on commuters in states with socialist tendencies.
Posted by: John Dewey at Apr 4, 2008 4:01:32 PM
The disparity between areas in the globe is quite shocking - average life expectancy of a female in Zimbabwe is 34 yrs, while it's 83 in Sweden and 85 in Hong Kong.
Well that's not because of a failure to spread technology, it's because of Mugabe's reign of criminal idiocy (which finally, finally) may be ending.
Africa in general is an exception, but since 1968, unequal access to modern technology has decline greatly due to huge advances in Asia. And that said, it's now hard to find any country so poor that mobile phones are a rare sight:
"Worldwide we are currently at about 2.2 Billion mobile phone users, with a global penetration rate of well over 30%; the cellphone is the most widely spread technology on the planet. Three times as many mobile phones as PCs of any kind, over twice as many mobile phone users as internet users, and more mobile phones than cars, more mobile phone users than people with credit cards. Twice as many people use SMS text messaging worldwide than use e-mail."
http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2006/03/phone_for_every.html
It seems likely that the internet is going to come first to most of the world's people in the form of a mobile handset.
Posted by: Slocum at Apr 4, 2008 4:24:23 PM
"Sprawl, that dirty word of government planners, has enabled Dallas-Fort Worth to grow to the fourth largest metro area in the U.S., without an appreciable increase in commute times."
We're way ahead of you. See, in the northeast we have this magical ability to telecommute. Do y'all have toothpaste down there yet?
Posted by: meter at Apr 4, 2008 5:16:27 PM
http://www.gizmag.com/under-the-sea-dubai-underwater-hotel/8505/
Posted by: Tom at Apr 4, 2008 6:52:43 PM
How do you sweep floors over the internet? In the south we not only have toothpaste, we have lower taxes, bigger houses for less money, better weather, and way hotter women. My property taxes, in Tennessee, are a tenth of my cousin's in Jersey. Our houses are about the same size and mine cost less than half of what his did. He would move down here in a heartbeat, if his kids didn't live up north.
Posted by: adam at Apr 4, 2008 7:46:00 PM
Also, the usual rubbish about 'ubiquitous computing'. This nonsense (sensors everywhere, detecting faults before they are apparent, etc.) still pervades computing research. Ain't gonna happen!
Posted by: Mr Art at Apr 4, 2008 8:07:13 PM
The Dubai underwater hotel publicity has been floating around (pardon the pum) for about 5 years, but construction hasn't started, or even pre-started. That's one bit of the Dubai hype that's going nowhere.
Posted by: bartman at Apr 4, 2008 8:36:13 PM
"The meal then is served on disposable plastic plates. These plates, as well as knives, forks and spoons of the same material, are so inexpensive they can be discarded after use."
This one is unfortunately spot on, at least in the U.S.
Posted by: pinus at Apr 5, 2008 12:28:42 AM
"As usual, it is presumed that traffic and transportation problems will have seen a lot of progress when in fact they have not."
Here's a handy tool for the futurist: the more regulated the sector, the slower the rate of innovation. Government-owned roads: the same. Heavily government-regulated autos: some advancement. Deregulated railroads and airlines: very different than their 1960s predecessors. Unregulated computer design and manufacturing: need I say more?
Posted by: M. Hodak at Apr 5, 2008 12:33:09 AM
