Isaac Asimov's 1964 Predictions For 2014

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While some of Isaac Asimov's predictions didn't come true, he sure hit the nail on the head with a lot of these.

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. Synchronous satellites, hovering in space will make it possible for you to direct-dial any spot on earth, including the weather stations in Antarctica.
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I read a lot of Asimov and books by Asimov inspired writers and I have to say, his technical foresight and lingo was dead on. Pretty cool.

I recommend the Robot City Series in addition to the Asimov standards (Foundation, etc.)
 
The dude was filled with a ton of boner ideas back then. I wine if he got a lot of rolleyes back then.
 
Damn auto correct, that's what I get for posting after working a 12 hour graveyard shift.
 
Some people can win the lottery more than once too. Sometimes people are just lucky with guessing.
 
sfsuphysics said:
Some people can win the lottery more than once too. Sometimes people are just lucky with guessing.
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I don't think Asimov was "lucky", I think he was creative. Of course, he had so many ideas that he put in writing that at least a few were bound to come to fruition.
 
So that's where the idea for the flavored algae food products came from that i've been reading in scifi books.
 
CMadki4 said:
I don't think Asimov was "lucky", I think he was creative. Of course, he had so many ideas that he put in writing that at least a few were bound to come to fruition.
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He was also inspiring. The people inventing technology today grew up full of ideas because they were inspired by reading sci-fi greats...
 
LeninGHOLA said:
Some people have a big impact on the world, others take pot shots from the peanut gallery.
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Some people see random happenstance as if it was planned, others do not.

I don't give credit to Gene Roddenberry for tablets and blue tooth communication either, nor do I believe his representation of them is what inspired that to come about. You want to believe that the readings of Asimov have inspired us to get things like Roomba, then you're not the kind of person who will listen to me anyways ;)
 
sfsuphysics said:
Some people see random happenstance as if it was planned, others do not.

I don't give credit to Gene Roddenberry for tablets and blue tooth communication either, nor do I believe his representation of them is what inspired that to come about. You want to believe that the readings of Asimov have inspired us to get things like Roomba, then you're not the kind of person who will listen to me anyways ;)
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Oy vey. Asimov made educated guesses based on his education. It's interesting to see what he was guessing at and why.

It's only people with Asperger's and physics professors who don't find it interesting or impactful.
 
I like peanuts and Asimov probably didn't make any predictions about canned cashews :mad: (they're a great source of antioxidants)...just saying.
 
LeninGHOLA said:
Oy vey. Asimov made educated guesses based on his education. It's interesting to see what he was guessing at and why.
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All I'm saying is he wrote science fiction for the sake of writing science fiction, not because he was honestly trying to predict the future.
 
oasoudbuoas some of his predictions are blowing my mind a little bit with how accurate they are.... here area few excerpts that really got to me...

Robots will neither be common nor very good in 2014, but they will be in existence. The I.B.M. exhibit at the present fair has no robots but it is dedicated to computers, which are shown in all their amazing complexity, notably in the task of translating Russian into English. If machines are that smart today, what may not be in the works 50 years hence? It will be such computers, much miniaturized, that will serve as the "brains" of robots. In fact, the I.B.M. building at the 2014 World's Fair may have, as one of its prime exhibits, a robot housemaid*large, clumsy, slow- moving but capable of general picking-up, arranging, cleaning and manipulation of various appliances. It will undoubtedly amuse the fairgoers to scatter debris over the floor in order to see the robot lumberingly remove it and classify it into "throw away" and "set aside."
....

General Electric at the 2014 World's Fair will be showing 3-D movies of its "Robot of the Future," neat and streamlined, its cleaning appliances built in and performing all tasks briskly. (There will be a three-hour wait in line to see the film, for some things never change.)
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Much effort will be put into the designing of vehicles with "Robot-brains"*vehicles that can be set for particular destinations and that will then proceed there without interference by the slow reflexes of a human driver. I suspect one of the major attractions of the 2014 fair will be rides on small roboticized cars which will maneuver in crowds at the two-foot level, neatly and automatically avoiding each other.
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However, by 2014, only unmanned ships will have landed on Mars, though a manned expedition will be in the works and in the 2014 Futurama will show a model of an elaborate Martian colony.
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Although technology will still keep up with population through 2014, it will be only through a supreme effort and with but partial success. Not all the world's population will enjoy the gadgety world of the future to the full. A larger portion than today will be deprived and although they may be better off, materially, than today, they will be further behind when compared with the advanced portions of the world. They will have moved backward, relatively.
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Indeed, the increasing use of mechanical devices to replace failing hearts and kidneys, and repair stiffening arteries and breaking nerves will have cut the death rate still further and have lifted the life expectancy in some parts of the world to age 85.
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Even so, mankind will suffer badly from the disease of boredom, a disease spreading more widely each year and growing in intensity.
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sfsuphysics said:
All I'm saying is he wrote science fiction for the sake of writing science fiction, not because he was honestly trying to predict the future.
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I can agree with that. There is a decent amount of hard science in his writings, but only to reinforce context and detail in the stories.
 
sfsuphysics said:
All I'm saying is he wrote science fiction for the sake of writing science fiction, not because he was honestly trying to predict the future.
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That's true, but he did have a Phd in Biochemistry and was a college professor. He wrote hundreds of books and not only just sci-fi.
 
Cool article, and it is interesting to see all the things that he got right.

On the other hand, we don't seem any nearer to practical flying (or even hovering) cars or living on the ocean floor. The moon has never been colonized, though at least there is a space station.
 
sfsuphysics said:
All I'm saying is he wrote science fiction for the sake of writing science fiction, not because he was honestly trying to predict the future.
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A lot of scientists and inventors grew up reading science fiction. That's what they want to bring to reality. Those ideas are planted in their head. You see some science fiction stuff? Some nerd is seeing it, too, and trying to figure out how to actually make it.

He may not have predicted the future, but he definitely had a good impact on it becoming reality. He saw what was available and expanded on it with an educated guess of what was possible in the future. So, did he predict it or did he help plant the seed to bring it to fruition?
 
I think a lot more of his predictions might have come true if the Cold War hadn't dragged on for so long ... imagine what the world would be like if the cold war had ended in 1969 rather than 1989 ... all of that military spending could have sped up changes to infrastructure to support things like flying cars or space colonies

some elements of technology are just the progression of technology over time ... other times they require fundamental shifts in culture and human behavior ... those types of changes are definitely harder to predict reliably
 
Some of the best technology we have was thought up during the Cold War. Competition drives innovation more than whiskerkisses and sunshine hugs :p
 
kbrickley said:
I think a lot more of his predictions might have come true if the Cold War hadn't dragged on for so long ... imagine what the world would be like if the cold war had ended in 1969 rather than 1989 ... all of that military spending could have sped up changes to infrastructure to support things like flying cars or space colonies
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Or, more than likely, even more money would have been wasted on green energy, handouts to government unions, and wasteful social programs, and the country would be even worse of than it is now.
 
LeninGHOLA said:
Some of the best technology we have was thought up during the Cold War. Competition drives innovation more than whiskerkisses and sunshine hugs :p
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To a certain extent, but our massive consumer and business based economy drives innovation now (and there is no reason to assume that it couldn't have then also) ... and the later years of the Cold War (except for Star Wars and Stealth perhaps) didn't generate as much crossover innovation as the boom years of the 60s and the Space Race (and the later years created some significant cultural problems ... cough cough "The War on Terror" cough cough) ;)
 
kbrickley said:
all of that military spending could have sped up changes to infrastructure to support things like flying cars or space colonies
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It's been almost 25 years since the end of the cold war, so how has diverting all that military spending to infrastructure and the like worked out so far?
 
sfsuphysics said:
It's been almost 25 years since the end of the cold war, so how has diverting all that military spending to infrastructure and the like worked out so far?
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Well, by the time the first Cold War ended we had already started the preliminaries of the next one (The War on Terror) ... the 90's actually did have a booming economy for awhile ... maybe it is just human nature that we always need to be in some form of war :eek:
 
A pretty impressive write up as far as I'm concerned. Sure he was spitballing, but he did a good job of it.
 
polonyc2 said:
only genius still living is Stephen Hawking
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eh, he's sharp but there are other notable astrophysicists that are just as smart who don't get the publicity like Hawking. He certainly deserves it based on what he's overcome but there are others just as intelligent. Laflamme I think proved Hawking wrong on the black hole theory.
 
CMadki4 said:
I read a lot of Asimov and books by Asimov inspired writers and I have to say, his technical foresight and lingo was dead on. Pretty cool.

I recommend the Robot City Series in addition to the Asimov standards (Foundation, etc.)
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Being a huge sci-fi reader, I was embarrassed to recently realize I had never read any Asimov. Ever. So I picked up Prelude to FOundation and in the prologue, he gave a list of all of his books in canon-chronological order, so I've been reading them in that order, starting with I, Robot, and am about to start the fourth Elija Bailey book (the only one of the 4 NOT on any ebook platforms for some reason).

His work is incredible. Unless you looked at the (c) page, there's no way you'd know it was all written in the middle of the 20th century as opposed to last year. My favorite parts are his nods to contemporaries like C.S. Lewis (read the Space Trilogy if you haven't) and Tolkein.
 
LeninGHOLA said:
Some of the best technology we have was thought up during the Cold War. Competition drives innovation more than whiskerkisses and sunshine hugs :p
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This is a completely meaningless statement.

You can not attribute most non-military tech development during the cold war to the cold war. The fact is that the majority of technological innovation we care about came from government grants to future silicon valley companies.

The cold war itself was a huge waste of money and effort and led to the massive increase in power, size, and capability of things all the fake libertarian tech nerds here hate like the NSA, CIA, etc.

It did NOT encourage competition in any meaningful technological area aside from weaponry. Soviet consumer products were pretty horrendous.

And now we have a huge bloated defense budget and a military industrial complex with a grip on the balls of half of the Congress... bleeding away money on advanced tactical fighter jets and huge money sinks that do nothing but waste the time of engineers who should be getting retrained or be working on civil projects.
 
InternationalHat said:
This is a completely meaningless statement.

You can not attribute most non-military tech development during the cold war to the cold war. The fact is that the majority of technological innovation we care about came from government grants to future silicon valley companies.

The cold war itself was a huge waste of money and effort and led to the massive increase in power, size, and capability of things all the fake libertarian tech nerds here hate like the NSA, CIA, etc.

It did NOT encourage competition in any meaningful technological area aside from weaponry. Soviet consumer products were pretty horrendous.

And now we have a huge bloated defense budget and a military industrial complex with a grip on the balls of half of the Congress... bleeding away money on advanced tactical fighter jets and huge money sinks that do nothing but waste the time of engineers who should be getting retrained or be working on civil projects.
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If you want to go on a one sided diatribe over a post that was clearly meant to be light hearted, sure.

You're talking about DARPA grants and the like, right? :p
 
snowcat said:
Cool article, and it is interesting to see all the things that he got right.

On the other hand, we don't seem any nearer to practical flying (or even hovering) cars or living on the ocean floor. The moon has never been colonized, though at least there is a space station.
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Just because "we" haven't colonized those places doesn't mean something else hasn't yet. ;)
 
Those are some good guesses. I think the compressed air cars and underground homes was a little too out there. Even though that form of housing would be a good design for efficiency.
 
kbrickley said:
I think a lot more of his predictions might have come true if the Cold War hadn't dragged on for so long ... imagine what the world would be like if the cold war had ended in 1969 rather than 1989 ... all of that military spending could have sped up changes to infrastructure to support things like flying cars or space colonies

some elements of technology are just the progression of technology over time ... other times they require fundamental shifts in culture and human behavior ... those types of changes are definitely harder to predict reliably
Click to expand...
Everyone always wants to blame the military spending...but what no one ever realizes is that advances in military tech does eventually translate to civilian use. During the cold-war era, especially soon after WWII, the US Government was the largest patron investor in Science and Technology in the USA. Nuclear missiles begat satellites and space travel, missile guidance systems and satellites begat smaller and more powerful computers, secure electronic communication between government and military facilities started with ArpaNet and became the modern day internet. It could be argued that without the cold war, we may not be as far along technologically. These companies making products for the military always have a constant need to make a profit, and military contracts always go to the lowest bidder so they might not always have a steady stream of profit if they don't sell products to the civilian side. Company investors demand profit and growth, so why not adapt some military tech for civilian use and sell billions?
 
Haserath said:
Those are some good guesses. I think the compressed air cars and underground homes was a little too out there. Even though that form of housing would be a good design for efficiency.
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Actually a few years ago they had prototypes of a compressed air car.
 
Wasn't that a compressed air engine?

What I read in the article sounds more like a modern day hovercraft, which is only really feasible if you don't care about efficiency or noise...
 
Decibel said:
Wasn't that a compressed air engine?

What I read in the article sounds more like a modern day hovercraft, which is only really feasible if you don't care about efficiency or noise...
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ok, I missed that part of the article. I just skimmed through it.

Yes that was a compressed air engine.
 
Asimov is the man. I would love to go back in time and have a bunch of drinks with him and Einstein and shoot the shit. Sadly, the Delorean is in the shop....
 
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