The Skeptics' Guide to the Future

2. A Brief History of the Future

The pitfalls of futurism.

Yogi Berra famously said, “The future ain’t what it used to be.” (You knew that quote would make an appearance, right? Although he wasn’t the first person to utter this phrase.) He had a quirky genius for making a concept that ultimately makes sense sound self-contradictory or nonsensical. What has changed is not necessarily the future itself, but our beliefs about the future. Futurism ain’t what it used to be.

In traveling back in time and into the future at the same time, we can look at some of the visions of yesterday’s future—what did they get right and what did they get spectacularly wrong? When tracking the errors of past futurists, some common themes emerge—what I call “futurism fallacies”—and they will help us shape our own future vision.

Futurism Fallacy #1—Overestimating short-term progress while underestimating long-term progress.

One core challenge of predicting the future is trying to determine not only what technology will develop, but also how long it will take. It is almost a certainty that eventually we will develop fully sapient general artificial intelligence. What is extremely challenging is predicting when we will cross that finish line. When trying to glimpse the future, there is also a tendency to overestimate short-term advancement, while underestimating long-term advancement. We see this frequently in science fiction movies—whether they are serious, comedic, utopian, or dark, the technology in twenty to thirty years is typically portrayed as transformational, rather than more realistically incremental. So, from Back to the Future to Blade Runner, we have flying cars by 2015.

This overestimation of short-term progress comes partly from the tendency to think of “the future” as one homogenous time, much as we often think of “the past” as one indistinct era. My favorite example of this is that Cleopatra (69–30 BCE) lived closer in time to the Space Shuttle (first launch in 1981) than the building of the Pyramids of Giza (2550–2490 BCE).

But, getting back to the future (heh!), we often imagine that “the future” contains whatever the next big advance is expected to be in any given technology. So instead of using phones, we are using video phones in the future. Instead of driving regular cars, we are driving electric, self-driving, or flying cars. We fly to other continents in commercial jets now, so in the future we must be flying rockets instead. Even if “the future” is only twenty years from now, we imagine all these technological transformations have already taken place, therefore overestimating short-term progress.

Underestimating long-term progress is mostly a matter of simple math, because technological progress is often geometric rather than linear. Geometric progress means doubling (or some other multiplier) every time interval, so progress looks like 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, while linear means simple addition every time interval: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and so on. You can see how geometric is much faster than linear, especially over the long-term. The best example of this is computer technology, such as hard-drive capacity and processor speeds. Processor speeds have roughly doubled every eighteen months, so in the past forty-five years, processors have not become several times faster—they have become millions of times faster. Underestimation also occurs because game-changing new technologies are often missed.

However, while there is a general tendency to overestimate short-term and underestimate long-term progress, each technology follows its own pattern of progress. Therefore, it can be difficult to pick technological winners and losers. The problems we are trying to solve with technology may also be nonlinear, getting progressively harder to advance at the same rate. At first, we may pick the low-hanging fruit and progress may be rapid, but then further advances become increasingly difficult, with diminishing returns and perhaps even roadblocks. If we project early progress indefinitely, that will result in overestimating the strides we will make. But then geometric advances and game-changing innovations eventually catch up, causing us to underestimate long-term progress.

A humorous showcase of this fallacy is the short film produced by General Motors in 1956, which imagined the “modern driver” of 1976. They get everything wrong. The film was made to promote their gas turbine engine technology—remember those? Probably not, because they never came into wide use. Several car companies, most aggressively Chrysler, tried to develop a gas turbine engine to replace the internal combustion engine, and none succeeded.

The film also featured “auto control” in which the car was able to take over steering from the driver—in 1976, remember, about a half century too early. But in order to do this, the driver had to first enter the “electronic control lane” and then synchronize the car’s velocity and direction with the external control. This was all done with the help of people in control towers that lined the highway through radio communication.

Science fiction depictions of the future are also rife with this fallacy. In 1968, the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey chronicled a mission to Jupiter (still beyond our current technology), with crew members in cryosleep (also not possible) and featuring a fully artificially intelligent computer, the HAL 9000. These technologies are all at least fifty to a hundred years premature.

Professional futurists, such as Isaac Asimov, frequently fell for this fallacy. In 1964, he made predictions for 2014, fifty years in the future, for the world’s fair. His forecasts were published in the New York Times, although in fairness, he admits these are only “guesses.” He predicted:

What about energy?

Again, these predictions are at least a half-century premature. In general, futurists need to be much more conservative in their estimates of short-term advancement. It seems like doubling or even tripling the estimated timeline is a reasonable rule of thumb. Anticipate roadblocks, blind alleys, and troubling hurdles, and your estimates will likely be closer to the mark.

Futurism Fallacy #2—Underestimating the degree to which past and current technology persists into the future. Corollary—assuming we will do things differently just because we can.

One particularly ambitious look forward was the 1967 film by the Philco-Ford Corporation imagining the world of 1999, starring a young Wink Martindale. Those thirty-two years were full of advancements with the advent of personal computers, the internet, and essentially a transition to digital technology.

The authors of this film could not see through the thick veil of these technological revolutions, so they relied heavily on their own hidden assumptions, falling for many of the futurism fallacies. They assumed that many aspects of daily life would change simply because future technology would allow for such change. Everything thirty-two years in the future has to be different, right? History has shown, however, that past technology persists into the future to an incredible degree.

In their depiction of a typical day in 1999, even the simple act of drying one’s hands at home had to be done using the most advanced technology possible, such as infrared lights and air blowers. Drying your hands on a towel seems too old school for “the future.” Communicating from the next room was done through video. In this future, all food is stored frozen in individualized portions and heated up in minutes by microwave to serve, replacing all cooking, except perhaps for special occasions. The central computer monitors nutritional and caloric needs and suggests the appropriate menu.

Asimov made similar predictions about cooking in the future (again from his 1964 world’s fair predictions):

The idea that we will be utilizing essentially the same culinary techniques in the future, despite the fact that we’ve been cooking food over heat for millennia, just doesn’t fit a futurist lens. But the reality is we still buy raw vegetables and cut them with knives on a wooden cutting board, and then steam them or stew them in a pot. My modern kitchen and the process I use to cook would be fully recognizable to someone from fifty, even a hundred, years ago depending on the recipe. In fact, I recently purchased some hand-forged kitchen knives. Sure, the appliances are all more efficient, and may have had some incremental functional improvements, but mostly they are the same. The biggest innovation is the microwave oven, which I, like most, use for heating, not for cooking.

Sometimes we do things the old-fashioned way because we want to, or because the simple way is already pretty close to optimal. Sometimes convenience isn’t the most important factor (that is another lazy assumption about the future—everything is about optimizing convenience). Recently, several people close to me purchased the automatic coffee makers where each cup is made from a prepackaged individual container of ground coffee. This method prioritizes ease, speed, and convenience, and these coffee makers became very popular. But after a couple of years there was a backlash, and all it took was being exposed again to a really well-brewed cup of coffee. Compounded with environmental concerns over the waste of all the plastic used in those individualized packages, suddenly the swill they were drinking out of convenience simply wasn’t good enough.

Now many of them (I don’t drink coffee, so I watched this play out from the sidelines) have swung back to the other end of the spectrum, prioritizing quality. They grind their beans fresh and may go through an elaborate process such as slowly pouring boiling water over those grounds in search of the perfect cup of coffee. They enjoy the ritual, and it builds their anticipation of flavorful enjoyment.

Old technology can be remarkably persistent. We still burn coal for energy. Our world is still largely made out of wood, stone, steel, ceramic, and concrete—all materials that have been used for thousands of years. Plastic is probably the one new material that has shaped our modern world, but not everything is made from plastic just because it can be.

None of this is to downplay the truly transformational technologies that make up our modern world and have changed our lives. But the future always seems to be a complex blend of the new and the old. The trick is predicting which things will change, and which will substantially stay the same.

Futurism Fallacy #3—Assuming there is one pattern of technological change or adoption. Rather, the future will be multifaceted.

Sometimes new technologies completely fail and fade away (like the gas turbine engine), sometimes they are adopted but fill a smaller niche than initially assumed (like microwave ovens), and sometimes they completely replace (except for nostalgic or historical purposes) the previous technology (like cars did to the horse and buggy). There is no one pattern.

We must also recognize that there are many competing concerns, and this is often why it is extremely difficult to predict how a new technology will play out. Convenience is not everything, and we do not widely adopt new technologies just because they are new. In addition, there are considerations of cost, quality, durability, aesthetics, fashion, culture, safety, and environmental effects. Even the concept of convenience itself can be multifaceted.

What tends to happen is that many technologies exist in parallel, each finding their niche where these combinations of factors make the most sense. I am writing this book on my computer, but sometimes I take notes by writing them down on a piece of paper. It’s just more convenient for some applications. Sometimes I listen to books on audio, sometimes I read them on my ebook, and sometimes I like the feel of a physical book in my hands.

We still use natural wood in home construction because of its cost and how easy it is to work with, and for a desired aesthetic. In fact, antiques have a high value partly for their rustic or quaint appearance in home interiors. Conversely, I may spring for artificial wood for my deck because of its weather resistance and lower maintenance.

I drive to work in a car that would mostly seem ordinary to a driver from the 1950s, but they would likely be blown away by my GPS and entertainment system. And yet, I still usually just listen to news on the radio.

Futurism Fallacy #4—Anticipating the end of history.

In his book, Predicting the Future, Nicholas Rescher points to a tendency to assume “the end of history”—that society reaches its equilibrium point, and once achieved we have endless peace and prosperity. In this utopian future, not just convenience but also leisure become everything. Well, history doesn’t stop, at least it hasn’t so far.

A good example of this fallacy is the 1920s film about the twenty-first century Looking Forward to the Future, set after the “War to end all wars” where there would be never-ending peace and prosperity, with increasing leisure time. It predicts people wearing electric belts to control their climate. Men (not women) would be outfitted with a utility belt that would contain, “telephone, radio, and containers for coins, keys, and candy for cuties.” Planes would be enormous, designed like luxury cruise ships, with lounges, dining areas, and activities. The farther back in time we go, the more outlandish our present “future” becomes.

This fallacy mostly stems from a lack of imagination—thinking that all of our current problems will be solved by technological advancements. Once that happens, we will have achieved a stable utopia. But what always has happened so far is that as we solve one problem, new problems emerge. Even the technology we develop to make our lives better can come with a suite of its own challenges—new resources become precious, power shifts, and new conflicts arise. When past futurists looked at the advent of the internal combustion engine, they did not imagine the challenges of global warming, or the rise of power centers in the deserts of the Middle East.

History does not end; it just keeps churning.

Futurism Fallacy #5—Extrapolating current motivations and priorities into the future. Corollary—it’s still not all about leisure and convenience.

This assumption of increased leisure time was not unreasonable a century ago, as the industrial revolution really did free developed societies from previous crushing drudgery. Machines taking over many of the worst repetitive, time-consuming, and dangerous tasks was a defining feature of that era. It stands to reason that they would extrapolate that trend into the future, so they did. This assumes that current trends will continue indefinitely into the future, but they rarely do.

In the United States, for example, the forty-hour workweek did not come about because of technological advancement. In fact, industrial factories made workers more productive, and therefore their hours of work more valuable. Achievement of a forty-hour workweek was the result of a labor fight, fought over a century, and finally achieved by federal law in 1940. Since then, the workweek had been stable but has been increasing recently with the rise of new forms of contract work that fall outside these regulations.