From Sam Edge, Ringwood, Hampshire, UK
Rather than just sometimes, futurism almost always prevents us from seeing what is actually coming next. No futurists predicted geosynchronous satellites, remote control mechanical manipulators, mainframe computers, handheld personal electronic assistants etc. Some current technologies – including all of my examples – were suggested by science fiction writers, but sci-fi isn’t futurism (8 March, p 18).
In the 1950s, futurists claimed we would be zooming around in flying cars by the 80s. They have been claiming for the past two decades that we will be sitting in a fully autonomous car without a steering wheel within five years. Now they say that large language models are a panacea to our woes, while what this type of artificial intelligence is really doing is filling websites with hallucinations.
Frankly, if someone is described as a futurist, then their predictions are probably less likely to prove true than those of an economist.
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