This was really fun - it's interesting how many of the scenarios involve public internet terminals. I can see how at the turn of the millennium it would have sounded absurd that we'd be able to hold in our hand a mobile terminal that would allow any serious business to be accomplished, what with text entry being painfully slow, mobile screens being low-resolution, and mobile data being incredibly slow and just rolling out in most places. Indeed, "logging on" from someone else's computer out of necessity was quite common, even in the mid 00s. Of course, the login processes of some websites are still operating on the same assumptions. Gotta love the whole "Keep me logged in? Don't check this on public or shared devices." Like I'm doing my banking at an Internet cafe or something.
The "agent" stuff was a fascinating vision. It seems like an alternate history more than a future, as I'm sure if we all let our claws talk amongst themselves they won't be finding ways to collectively help us -- they'll probably be scamming crypto from each other or something.
This is quite fun. I've always enjoyed looking at past predictions of the future. This one seemed quite spot on most of the time as well which is quite interesting. In 2010 it might have looked a bit off, but as the author notes now with LLMs a lot more of these predictions have come true.
And yeah, it's always fun seeing the ones that don't come true, ie the connected fridge that orders food for you, and not for lack of trying.
That work like this often predicts a good portion of the technological advancements, but usually completely misses the mark on the execution and the enshittified commodification is why I like reading cyberpunk and other dystopian sci-fi.
For a similar fun set of reviews of past predictions of future tech, I recommend looking through Youtube channel "KnowledgeHusk"
Selected videos:
"People in the 80s Making Fun of Predictions From the 60s" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-B6zeAKAEQ
"2002 Tried To Predict 2025" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMZ9odjhOnU
"Terrible Predictions About The Future From 2005" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PH9kf9KLVVQ
(and many more can be found in their Retrofuturism playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZkkImzuw5q9Kk5KIq1yw... )
This was really fun - it's interesting how many of the scenarios involve public internet terminals. I can see how at the turn of the millennium it would have sounded absurd that we'd be able to hold in our hand a mobile terminal that would allow any serious business to be accomplished, what with text entry being painfully slow, mobile screens being low-resolution, and mobile data being incredibly slow and just rolling out in most places. Indeed, "logging on" from someone else's computer out of necessity was quite common, even in the mid 00s. Of course, the login processes of some websites are still operating on the same assumptions. Gotta love the whole "Keep me logged in? Don't check this on public or shared devices." Like I'm doing my banking at an Internet cafe or something.
The "agent" stuff was a fascinating vision. It seems like an alternate history more than a future, as I'm sure if we all let our claws talk amongst themselves they won't be finding ways to collectively help us -- they'll probably be scamming crypto from each other or something.
This is quite fun. I've always enjoyed looking at past predictions of the future. This one seemed quite spot on most of the time as well which is quite interesting. In 2010 it might have looked a bit off, but as the author notes now with LLMs a lot more of these predictions have come true.
And yeah, it's always fun seeing the ones that don't come true, ie the connected fridge that orders food for you, and not for lack of trying.
That work like this often predicts a good portion of the technological advancements, but usually completely misses the mark on the execution and the enshittified commodification is why I like reading cyberpunk and other dystopian sci-fi.