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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
Not just the futurist or the libertarian, but the investor as well. Both T. Rowe Price and Phil Fisher didn't like investing in regulated industries.
This should not be seen as anything novel or contentious. Regulation stifles innovation. It is designed to stifle innovation. Innovation is trial and "error." If we add to the punishment of the error, how could that not reduce the "trial"?
Politically and economically, I choose (well, prefer might be more accurate) to err on the ide of more trial and error versus prior restraint and more voluntary granularity over forced interdependence (private property, little to no margin, freedom to choose, personal responsibility, etc.) to limit the spillover of errors.
Posted by: Andrew at Apr 5, 2008 5:34:52 AM
North v. South? Are we going there?
The greatest thing about about the internet is that it allows us Southerners to give our opinions to almost as many people as Northerners can with their mouths on busses, in movie theaters, and libraries.
Posted by: Andrew at Apr 5, 2008 5:49:10 AM
"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."
You have low taxes because we are subsidizing you. Enjoy it while you can.
Posted by: meter at Apr 5, 2008 9:35:36 AM
Actually, traffic and transportation problems have in fact seen a lot of progress, for instance in areas that can be addressed by software (supply chain management and logistics). FedEx didn't exist in 1968, and might not have been possible. The volume of shipping and world trade has vastly increased; containerization has created a physical packet network that rivals the Internet in importance. Also, air travel is tremendously cheaper and more widespread than it used to be; cars are far more mechanically reliable, safer, and handle the road much better.
What you're probably referring to is that we don't have faster transportation by an order of magnitude (New York to London in an hour), flying cars, affordable maglev trains, undersea intercontinental subways, and perhaps we never will: in a world where everything you need for work and entertainment will be transportable with you (a combination iPod/iPhone/Kindle/wearable computer), you'll be able to telecommute and social-network while on the slow boat to China, without any urgent need to arrive there on the same day.
Posted by: at Apr 5, 2008 9:51:03 AM
The part that surprised me was the utopian view of money. Not the almost correct prediction of the use of credit cards, but the apparent altogether irrelevance of money: you get half a house for a wedding present; you only work half a day because that's how much time it takes to do the work without concern for pay; the rich take rockets and the poor take SSTs.
I get that this is an engineer's view of the world, but it's hard to imagine anyone talking about 2048 without thinking about whether there are enough jobs, whether there will be money to maintain infrastructure, and the role of big finance. While I'm at it, there was also no mention of politics which would be similarly hard to ignore today.
Posted by: David at Apr 5, 2008 10:03:43 AM
To follow up: an obvious form of progress involves inventing things that are order of magnitude more advanced technologically. A more subtle form of progress involves the same old things, but an order of magnitude cheaper or more plentiful or more efficient. However the latter is still progress, and often more important than the former.
Agriculture and traffic/transportation fall in the latter category. We still eat the same basic food groups as we did in 1968, albeit with far greater variety and refinement and culinary diversity, rather than getting our calorie and nutritional intake from a single daily pill. However, there has been tremendous progress in agriculture, a green revolution to enormously boost crop yields, without which our planet would face mass starvation at current population levels. The same situation applies to transportation: current levels of air travel, trucking, and automobile traffic would not have been possible in 1968.
Subtle, unobtrusive progress is often far more significant than showy, flashy new technology. Plastics and air-conditioning had a much bigger impact in the 20th century than moon rockets or jet aircraft. This was true even in earlier times: if the ancient Romans had invented hay and stirrups, they would probably have retained control of Germany.
Posted by: at Apr 5, 2008 10:11:04 AM
Does that "better weather" include tornadoes? The Southern U.S. including the southern Midwest have because of the geography more tornadoes than the rest of the world together.
Posted by: lee at Apr 5, 2008 3:41:37 PM
The one thing that had me rolling on the floor with laughter was "A repairman will show up even before any obvious breakdown occurs."
'Allo --dis is Ralph in Cal---I mean, Kalamazoo, would you pliz hold?...9elevator music)...for technical assistance, visit our website at www.wehelpyou.com...please choose from the folowing menu...'
Or if you actually get a tech service, "They'll call you sometime between now and tomorrow evening and make an appointment....we can be at your house any time between 8am and 5 pm on Wednesday."
Posted by: Pat Mathews at Apr 5, 2008 5:29:38 PM
Posted by: eddie at Apr 6, 2008 3:21:41 PM
there's actually an underwater hotel being build in Duabi - not too far off on the first one!
Posted by: sonja at Apr 6, 2008 8:23:49 PM
My prediction for 2008 and the future is that HEALTH BEFORE WEALTH will start to really resonate with people because we're living longer. Money will take a backseat to happiness. Right now today there is a juice that could help propell the United States into a leader in the health business. I'm planning on living well past 100 and enjoying every day of it. Remember your body is the most important investment in the future you can make. If you take good care of it, it will take good care of you. The fountain of youth is exercise and GoChi juice every day. Check out what the future has in store for you today by going to www.redberrydrink.FreeLife.com. Thanks for reading. Gojijoan in Canada.
Posted by: Gojijoan at Apr 11, 2008 12:18:24 PM
The flying car equivalent UAV navigation equipped electric planes getting the equivalent of 498mpg or hybrid planes getting 100mpg. Commute at 100mph.
$40k-150k for two seaters.
Price, operation, safety (could have a parachute for the whole 500-1000kg plane and the they are based on gliders, so engine failure would mean moving ahead 40 feet for every one foot of drop and impact would have decent survivability with airbags etc...)
http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/07/hybrid-100mpg-plane.html
http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/07/438-mpg-commuter-uav.html
Posted by: Brian Wang at Aug 5, 2008 12:07:20 AM
Maybe we should just use our past errors to fine-tune our future predictions. So here goes:
1. All the "cheap" oil will have been used up by 2048. Oil will be the equivalent of about $30 per gallon. People in Texas will still be driving their big SUVs back and forth to work, and complaining that it is the gas taxes and environmental regulations keeping the price up.
2. Technology will improve telecommuting to the point where it is actually feasible. In exchange for working at home, people like me will end up working longer hours, and our home energy bills will be nearly as high as the commuting would have cost.
3. Endless tax cuts will have rendered most local governments bankrupt. Almost all roads will require a toll, all parks will have hefty entrance fees, and police will respond to property crimes on a fee-only bases. The county jail will be so expensive that once you are in, if you were not bankrupt to start with, you will be.
4. The gap between rich and poor will have expanded to the point where they are nearly separate species. Nothing will be more feared by the rich than riots, nothing will be more feared by the poor than the measures used to quell riots, including power blackouts, denial-of-water, and food embargo.
Posted by: FutureDave at Aug 5, 2008 7:53:55 AM
Bah. The 21st Century has been grossly overrated. Where are the robots, the air cars, the vactions on the Moon? As far as I can see the 21st Century is just like the 20th Century except with better computers and worse Presidents.
Posted by: Popular Mechanics at Aug 5, 2008 10:47:53 AM
