Lovely set of pieces in Slate on the Future of the Future. One article in particular caught my eye, which is an analysis of 81 technology articles and press releases going back to the 1990s in which things are said about what will be true in 5-10 years. As the article points out, one especially common mistake is to confuse the invention of something with its widespread adoption and use.
The full set of articles can be found here.
Interested to see how Ray Kurzweil does with his predictions on singularity.
So far it seems as he’s done well: https://thedigitalabstract.com/blog/computers-will-achieve-human-intelligence-in-2029
I’ve long thought that someone should do a ten or twenty year study properly looking at how good these predictions (all predictions) are. For my part it’s quite interesting to re-read a book I wrote called Future Files ten years on – written in 2006 and first published in early 2007. From my experience there are certainly themes surrounding why we get things right and wrong to explore.