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The article succumbs to the fallacy of predicting the future from current trends. To give you an example, here are some things that didnt exist 50 years ago th

by russell 15y ago

The article succumbs to the fallacy of predicting the future from current trends. To give you an example, here are some things that didnt exist 50 years ago that were life and culture changing. Personal computers, the internet, cell phones, most of the interstate, networking, cable, computer games, CDs, personal electronics, google, twitter, medical imaging, nearly all heart surgery, gene sequencing, financial oligopolies, media domination, civil rights, gender equality, terrorism, airport searches. Missing predictions: AI, flying cars, nuclear power too cheap to meter, fusion power, colonies on the moon and mars and of course, flying cars. My point is that 50 years from now is going to be way different from what we imagine.

lkozma 15y ago
To be fair, many things that exist today would have been considered AI back then. Part of the problem with AI, as John Neumann observed it already is that if you can formulate precisely enough what you want, you are already on the way to solving it so it is a shifting definition to some extent. Otherwise totally agree with your point, it's amazing how most science fiction of the past missed things like the internet.
- maratd 15y ago
  To be fair, many things that exist today would have been considered AI back then. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_test http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_test
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
- russell 15y ago
  I am amused at how wrong SF authors often get the details of every,day future things. In Stranger in a Strange Land, set around 2000(?), one of the characters mentions a mobile phone the size of a brief case. Or in recent David Weber novel, the heroes get through customs, because the agents hadnt received their photos. In the year 4000 something. I will admit that with a 2000 year advance in security the book would have been a lot shorter.
- FiddlerClamp 15y ago
  Apart from "A Logic Named Joe", which was eerily prescient.
nitrogen 15y ago
...here are some things that didnt exist 50 years ago...terrorism... Terrorism isn't new. See the Wikipedia list of terrorist incidents: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/List_of_terro... Also, it could be argued that the early American revolutionists, especially those who participated in the Boston Tea Party, were terrorists. What seems to be new is the widespread paranoia regarding terrorism.
- jerf 15y ago
  Widespread paranoia is an effect of the ever-increasing empowering effect of technology putting greater and greater destructive power into smaller and smaller numbers of hands. Science fiction has been predicting the rise of terrorism for a long time. I tend to agree that we are currently overreacting to the problem (at least in terms of actions taken within the US), but in a somewhat longer term it is not hard to imagine that it will be necessary to step things up even more. And other arguments can be made, and I would make some of them. But the argument that we can't help but progressively step up our levels of "paranoia" about terrorism over the next century is a good, solid one with lots of sensible things to say about it.
  - nitrogen 15y ago
    I instinctively believe that there is a better way to prevent and/or deter terrorism than increased oppression and violation of the rights of the protected. Some combination of analyzing the motives of relatively-sane terrorists and removing those motives, promoting the availability and appeal of psychiatric help for insane potential terrorists, and coping with acceptable risk seems better than focusing primarily on security theater, warantless spying, and invasive searches.

by russell 15y ago

lkozma 15y ago

To be fair, many things that exist today would have been considered AI back then. Part of the problem with AI, as John Neumann observed it already is that if you can formulate precisely enough what you want, you are already on the way to solving it so it is a shifting definition to some extent. Otherwise totally agree with your point, it's amazing how most science fiction of the past missed things like the internet.

maratd 15y ago
To be fair, many things that exist today would have been considered AI back then. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_test http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_test
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
russell 15y ago
I am amused at how wrong SF authors often get the details of every,day future things. In Stranger in a Strange Land, set around 2000(?), one of the characters mentions a mobile phone the size of a brief case. Or in recent David Weber novel, the heroes get through customs, because the agents hadnt received their photos. In the year 4000 something. I will admit that with a 2000 year advance in security the book would have been a lot shorter.
FiddlerClamp 15y ago
Apart from "A Logic Named Joe", which was eerily prescient.

nitrogen 15y ago

...here are some things that didnt exist 50 years ago...terrorism... Terrorism isn't new. See the Wikipedia list of terrorist incidents: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/List_of_terro... Also, it could be argued that the early American revolutionists, especially those who participated in the Boston Tea Party, were terrorists. What seems to be new is the widespread paranoia regarding terrorism.

jerf 15y ago
Widespread paranoia is an effect of the ever-increasing empowering effect of technology putting greater and greater destructive power into smaller and smaller numbers of hands. Science fiction has been predicting the rise of terrorism for a long time. I tend to agree that we are currently overreacting to the problem (at least in terms of actions taken within the US), but in a somewhat longer term it is not hard to imagine that it will be necessary to step things up even more. And other arguments can be made, and I would make some of them. But the argument that we can't help but progressively step up our levels of "paranoia" about terrorism over the next century is a good, solid one with lots of sensible things to say about it.
- nitrogen 15y ago
  I instinctively believe that there is a better way to prevent and/or deter terrorism than increased oppression and violation of the rights of the protected. Some combination of analyzing the motives of relatively-sane terrorists and removing those motives, promoting the availability and appeal of psychiatric help for insane potential terrorists, and coping with acceptable risk seems better than focusing primarily on security theater, warantless spying, and invasive searches.