Isaac Asimov's Vision of 50 Years Hence
Video communication, decent but imperfect robots, psychotherapy, self-driving car technology, and processed food: these are some of the things Isaac Asimov predicted would make up modern life in 2014. The year was 1964, and his vision for 50 years into the future turned out to be surprisingly accurate. A few other predictions fell flat, like underwater colonies or human inhabitation of planets other than earth, but you can forgive the author his exuberance at the dawn of the space age. The BBC is running an interesting article looking at Asimov's vision and how it played out in real life .These days, most teens favor dystopian visions of the future , modern life is resembling dystopia in more than one way , and the world of peace and unity seems farther off than ever.
Who today has the prescience that Asimov did in 1964? Who among the 21st century's authors, film-makers, and thinkers is most thoughtfully envisioning the world that awaits us in 2064? And what lessons do they provide for us to learn?
For anyone who has read several SF books, what has been going on these last years can be scary :
-- Megacorps like Google who buy companies in many different tech domains.
-- Flying drones (armed or monitoring) become widespread.
-- General spying by governments, together with megacorps. They even stopped denying or justifying.
-- Personal spying devices like Google glass for a start, but sooner or later, it could be implants.
-- Genetic manipulation, or at least selection, that slowly starts.
-- Medias: hard to say how they will evolve. Anyway, their interest seems to keep the people fed with the most easy and idiotic content in order to sell the most advertisement time to corporations.
-- Worst of all : most people gladly welcoming those devices and actions.
I must forget or fail to see a few other points, but if you add the next thing coming: Internet of Things, you have almost everything you need for any dark SF.