In 1964 , sci - fi legend Isaac Asimov indite a small-arm for the New York Times with his predictions for the world of 2014 . look at the World ’s Fair of 50 age hence , Asimov imagine 3D TV , underground cities , and colonies on the moon . Many hoi polloi online havehailed thisas an incredible deterrent example of prescient thinking , but what sticks out to me is just how shockingly restrained — unoriginal , even — his predictions were for the time .
There was nothing Asimov proposed in that article that had n’t already been promised by popular futurism of the fifties and early ’ 60s . In fact , you’re able to somewhat much discover every individual one of Asimov ’s 1964 prediction in the 1962 - 63 TV show “ The Jetsons ” — a show that exist to parody the future as much as embrace it . This is n’t a rebuff to Asimov , but rather an indication that pop imagination of the succeeding evolve like any other idea : lento and in a sort of invisible collaboration with the culture at big .
https://gizmodo.com/50-years-of-the-jetsons-why-the-show-still-matters-512621126
Below I ’ve pulled out a few of Asimov ’s predictions and put them within the setting of other futurist imagination from the 1950s and ’ 60s . you could read his article in its entirety at theNew York Times .
Cities Under The Sea
Asimov : Population pressure will force increasing insight of desert and polar domain . Most surprising and , in some way , heartening , 2014 will see a expert beginning made in the settlement of the continental ledge . submerged caparison will have its drawing card to those who like body of water sports , and will undoubtedly advance the more effective victimisation of ocean resources , both food and mineral .
The idea of building cities on the ocean floor ( and even pushing into the desert ) was an implausibly popular one in the late 1950s . You could find prevision for the submersed city of tomorrow in everything fromscience fiction magazinesto popular TV programs like “ Disneyland , ” which beam the fabled retrofuture episodeMagic Highway , USAin May of 1958 . Thanks to the transportation advances of the former twentieth one C ( viewers were separate ) there would be no stopping the urban sprawling into comeuppance , sea , and beyond .
https://gizmodo.com/magic-highway-u-s-a-publicity-stills-1958-512628467
Fully Automated Driverless “Robot” Cars
Asimov : Much campaign will be put into the designing of fomite with “ golem - brains ” vehicle that can be set for particular destinations and that will then proceed there without interference by the boring reflexes of a human number one wood . I suspect one of the major attractions of the 2014 fair will be ride on lowly roboticized cars which will manoeuvre in crowds at the two - pes level , neatly and automatically invalidate each other .
Visions of driverless cars were nothing raw in 1964 . In fact , they ’re at least as old as the 1939 New York World ’s Fair , when the superhighways of tomorrow in GM ’s Futurama display were shown to have amply automated capabilities . The1957 mark adabove demonstrate how the home of tomorrow would soon bask a reposeful instrument panel game , rather than have to keep their eyes on the route . The driverless car of tomorrow ( with their “ robot brains ” ) were a certainty . cable car companies and pop futurists of the 1950s were bank on it .
Automated Kitchens
Asimov : Kitchen whole will be devised that will prepare “ automeals , ” inflame water and converting it to coffee ; toasting breadstuff ; fry , poaching or shinny eggs , grill bacon , and so on . breakfast will be “ ordered ” the night before to be ready by a specified hour the next morning . over luncheon and dinner , with the food semiprepared , will be stack away in the freezer until quick for processing .
In the Jetsons universe they had the foodarackacycle , a kind of witching microwave that maybe incorporates elements of 3D intellectual nourishment printing . But as ahead of time as the 1940s , Americans were told that icy dinner party were amount to the kitchen board of tomorrow .
The image above follow from the September 1955 issue of Scientific American cartridge holder and shows off the automaticpush - button kitchenof tomorrow . The food of the future would travel straight from the cryptic freeze to the table in a topic of second thanks to the wonder of science and technology that were invade the postwar home .
https://gizmodo.com/how-we-imagined-the-push-button-kitchen-before-microwav-567626091
Glowing Walls
Asimov : By 2014 , electroluminescent panel will be in vulgar purpose . roof and wall will glow quietly , and in a potpourri of vividness that will change at the sense of touch of a push push .
Well , this foretelling actually has its origin in the 1930s , when people interpret bleached ambient lights projected on walls as a fantastically futurist melodic theme . The image above make out from the June 1931 issue of Modern Mechanics powder magazine , and shows that tomorrow ’s bulwark decoration will be little more than coloured visible radiation , correct however you hope . These ideas were expanded upon and later became an improbably democratic prediction for houses of the hereafter in the 1950s .
The strange part about the 1950s predictions , however , was that people think we ’d need those glow walls because we ’d be exist in windowless turkey - proof house . Asimov even seems to hint at this — though with a gentler pinch — draw underground houses as being “ free from the vicissitudes of atmospheric condition , with melodic phrase cleaned and light controlled … ” and not scream OMGCOLDWAR quite so blatantly as others .
Robots in Theory and Practice
Asimov : Robots will neither be common nor very secure in 2014 , but they will be in being .
At first rosiness , this is the most surprising prediction given the fact that personal house golem would remain a promise of the close - future for so very long . But when you get a few paragraphs further you see just how wildly optimistic the former sixties was when it came to technology :
“ In fact , the I.B.M. building at the 2014 World ’s Fair may have , as one of its prime exhibits , a robot housemaid big , cumbersome , slow - go but capable of general picking - up , arranging , cleaning and manipulation of various gadget . ”
This was Asimov ’s hedging , which twist out to be right on the olfactory organ . We do have humanoid robot like Honda ’s Asimo , but they ’re for the most part still the stuff of gaud and notice themselves doing little more than carnival acts on stages at Disneyland or CES . Above we see the “ golem housemaid ” of 1959 from the Sunday comic strip Closer Than We intend byArthur Radebaugh .
https://gizmodo.com/arthur-radebaughs-shiny-happy-future-512620295
Moon Colonies
Isaac Asimov : For that matter , you will be able to attain someone at the moon colonies , concerning which General Motors commit on a display of impressive vehicle ( in model form ) with magnanimous flabby tires intended to negotiate the scratchy terrain that may subsist on our natural satellite .
Of course , Asimov and his predictions for the New York Times were partially inspired by what was on video display at the 1964 New York World ’s Fair . This was the ostensible purpose of his article , look forward into the World ’s Fair of tomorrow . So it ’s natural that he ’d take the swirl futures buzzing around in New York at the time ( like colonies on the moon ) and tout them as a give way . The moonshine colonies he references were on display in miniature , as he describes , and are record off in thephotograph above .
Highways and Hovercars of Tomorrow
Asimov : At the 1964 bazaar , the G.M. exhibit depicts , among other things , “ road - building manufactory ” in the tropics and , closer to home , crowded main road along which long buses move on special central lane . There is every likeliness that highways at least in the more advanced sections of the world will have passed their peak in 2014 ; there will be increasing emphasis on transportation that makes the least possible contact with the open .
Again , Asimov is actually dial back the more wild predictions of the sixties here . Everybody then knew that flying motorcar were a foregone conclusion . Asimov stunningly fudge and banks simply on a mode of transportation that sounds nigher to the hovercar . The “ flying carpet auto ” above comes again from a 1958 edition of Arthur Radebaugh ’s “ close Than We Think ” comic flight strip which ran from 1958 until 1963 — what some consider a gold age of techno - futurism and rich ground for the great unwashed like Asimov to not only inspire but be inspired by the changes around them .
Online Education
Asimov : Part of the General Electric showing today comprise of a school of the future in which such present realities as closed - circuit TV and program tape help the teaching cognitive process . It is not only the techniques of teaching that will advance , however , but also the subject thing that will change . All the high - school students will be learn the fundamentals of computer technology will become expert in binary arithmetical and will be coach to perfection in the use of the computing gadget languages that will have developed out of those like the contemporary “ Fortran ” ( from “ formula translation ” ) .
Asimov assured people that the schoolroom of the future would include so many of the postwar technologies ( driven by miniaturization in electronics ) then being developed to help kids succeed . Above we see the “ automated mistress ” that was sport at the 1964 New York World ’s Fair which gave visitors a peek at the schoolroom of tomorrow .
Even things that today are frowned upon by educators were still being hug at midcentury and even earlier . Television was seen by many as a fantastic technology to introduce into the classroom , even at the dawn of the culture medium . In 1938 , when few people know what television even was , student from NYU set up in the RCA building for a demonstration of the futuristic classroom — with 15 tv set sets ! By the 1960s , the mechanization that was promised actually scared so many hoi polloi that the National Education Association issue a financial statement assuring anxious parents thatrobot teacher would not be taking overclassrooms anytime soon .
https://gizmodo.com/before-online-education-these-15-tvs-were-the-classroo-733486470
Automating All The Jobs
Asimov : The humanity of A.D. 2014 will have few routine jobs that can not be done better by some simple machine than by any human being . humanity will therefore have become largely a race of machine tenders .
The concern about golem taking over the men were nothing raw . This worry was kicked into high gearing during the other 1960s and always witness its most warm defenders during time of economical discord . For instance , when the talkie emerged in the late 1920s musicians were interest about being put out of oeuvre in America ’s movie theaters . But it was n’t until 1930 , after the origin marketplace crash , that the Music Defense League was formed ( and spent over $ 500,000 in 1930 dollar ) in a bootless attempt to stop the forward motion of sound motion picture . Who would symbolize the entrench force of cold engineering in music?The robot , of course .
https://gizmodo.com/musicians-wage-war-against-evil-robots-512620574
These concern of mechanisation in the work — creating a “ wash of political machine tenders”—weren’t just relegated to the tough economic times or the more dystopian minded among us . No , Parade magazine even got in on the act , concern that when every caper is taken over by automaton , humans will recover themselves sobored as to become suicidal .
World’s Fairs?
In the terminal , Asimov ’s predictions come across as quite materialistic . Or at the very least , very much of their time . He got a mountain about the other twenty-first century correctly ! But what ’s amazing is that his gamy percentage comes from dialing back the more techno - utopian thought of his time .
In retrospect , the most amusive forecasting from Asimov ? It might just be that the people of the 21st century would still care about the World ’s Fair .
driverless carsFoodkitchensnew yorkpaleofuturetransportation
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