From Irving Wladawsky-Berger:
What will the world be like in 2064? Will we be living in a radically different post-singularity world, where machines far surpass humans in intelligence or will we continue to co-evolve with and shape our tools, as we have from time immemorial? Will technology advances lead to increased economic inequalities and conflicts, or to major reductions in poverty in a more stable world? Will it be an era of environmental crises and scarce water, food and energy, or will sustainable innovations and worldwide cooperations help us confront global challenges?
These are some of the questions that went through my mind as I read Visit to the World’s Fair of 2014, an article by Isaac Asimov written around the time of the 1964 New York World’s Fair. In the article he imagines what the world in 2014 would be like, 50 years into the future as envisioned in 1964.
Any predictions made by someone like Isaac Asimov have to be taken seriously. He was one of the top science fiction authors of the 20th century, having written classics like the Foundation, Robot and Empire series. He was professor of biochemistry at Boston University and a prolific author of popular science books, including The Intelligent Man’s Guide to Science.
As you would expect with any predictions 50 years into the future, he got some things wrong. For example, he wrote that: “By 2014, electroluminescent panels will be in common use. Ceilings and walls will glow softly, and in a variety of colors that will change at the touch of a push button. Suburban houses underground, with easily controlled temperature, free from the vicissitudes of weather, with air cleaned and light controlled, should be fairly common. The surface . . . will be given over to large-scale agriculture, grazing and parklands, with less space wasted on actual human occupancy”Previously on our WB channel:
We are clearly far from free from the vicissitudes of weather, as evidenced by our tough winter and recent hurricanes. Nor have other predictions come to pass, including experimental fusion-power plants, underwater housing, moon colonies, an increasing number of ground vehicles that travel a foot or two off the ground or transparent cubes for 3D TV viewing.
But, as a number of articles point out, Asimov got a lot of things quite right. “Gadgetry will continue to relieve mankind of tedious jobs. . . Robots will neither be common nor very good in 2014, but they will be in existence. . . [miniaturized computers] will serve as the brains of robots . . . 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.” ...MUCH MORE
Irving Wladawsky-Berger is Much Smarter Than I: "The Digitization of the Economy"
I'll start out by committing the logical fallacy of Appeal to Authority:
...I am Visiting Lecturer at MIT's Sloan School of Management and Engineering Systems Division; Executive-in-Residence at NYU’s Center for Urban Science and Progress; Senior Fellow at the Levin Institute of the State University of New York; and Adjunct Professor in the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Group at the Imperial College Business School. I am a member of the Board of Directors of Inno360, ID³ and CNRI, the InnoCentive Advisory Board, the Visiting Committee for the Physical Sciences Division at the University of Chicago, and the Advisory Board of USC's Annenberg Innovation Lab."The Citi-Imperial Digital Money Readiness Index"
I served on and later became co-chair of the President’s Information Technology Advisory Committee from 1997 to 2001, and was a founding member of the Computer Sciences and Telecommunications Board of the National Research Council in 1986. I am a former member of University of Chicago Board of Governors for Argonne National Laboratories, the Board of Overseers for Fermilab, and BP's Technology Advisory Council. A few years ago, I was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences....
Errrmmm, Yes: "Parallel Supercomputing: Past, Present and Future"
"Beyond GDP - Measuring Value in a Service-oriented, Information-based, Digital Economy"
"Big Data Takes Center Stage"
"Understanding the Workings of Our Minds" (Kahneman does a cameo)
"...Machines to help us enhance our cognitive capabilities": Cognitive Systems and Big-Data-driven Applications
"Reshaping Business and Capitalism for the 21st Century" or What Do You Get When You Cross the Harvard Business Review With Forrest Gump?
Irving."A Kind of Digital 'Perfect Storm'" (and what about the startups that were going to change the world)
Not only does he know business at a very high level but he seems to have been wherever the action was in computers, IT, strategy, management etc.
We are fans
