I love movies that have futuristic events already in the past. Like 2001. Our problems are so much more mundane than conscious machines. Granted, most of the time they're not seriously trying to predict what life will be like XX years from now and the farther out they go the less likely things are to come true. How much longer is it supposed to be until Zephram Cochran invents the warp drive?
Hindsight is better than 20/20. Hindsight is clairvoyance.
We get to see people's biases played out in past-futures. Astrophysics and biogengineering advance. Psychology and cars don't. (Gattaca) Cars and computer graphics advance. Government oversight doesn't. (Minority report) Etc.
I once heard that futurists tend to overestimate the big things and neglect the small ones. Sounds about right to me. I mean, the Jetsons. What was that about?
Posted by eric at June 13, 2005 11:51 PM
Comments
I noticed this review at Arts & Letters Daily:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/09/AR2005060901546.html
I especially like Vernor Vinge's idea of accelerating technological growth. If it holds to historical pattern, in a few decades we'll all be living in the sort of luxury that only J-Lo and her ilk enjoy now.
But classier, obviously.
Posted by: blandwagon at June 14, 2005 02:49 AM
That's pretty funny. There's no way that the first "computer that thinks like a human" will be built in 15 years. They've been trying for the last 40 or so, now, and nothing much has changed.
J-Lo? What a terrible example!
Posted by: EB at June 14, 2005 09:18 AM
"Hindsight is better than 20/20. Hindsight is clairvoyance."-Eric Boyd
"The Owl of Minerva first takes flight with twilight closing in"-G.W.F. Hegel
Posted by: Edwardo at June 14, 2005 01:42 PM
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Posted by: Mattias at June 14, 2005 09:30 PM