Sidewalks will be replaced by moving sidewalks.
Everyone will have a personal Jet Pack.
Cars will fly.
A robot maid will clean your house.
You will have a daughter named Judy and a son named Elroy.
You will walk your dog on an automated treadmill.
"Help! Help! Jane, stop this crazy thing!" -- Geroge Jetson
RealityI'm still waiting for my personal jet pack.
Flying cars haven't proven very successful either.
But Amazon.com says its going to build a Zeppelin book warehouse
and use drones to deliver books to your door!! Scheduled date:
when hell freezes over. (Picture the size of drone required to lift
lift a box of books. If you don't know, ask a model airplane enthusiast.
Now picture it crashing into your living room.)
OK, aviation may have cost and safety limitations, but what about computers?
Surely they can
anything?
Alas, advances in artificial intelligence have been few and far between
But larger, faster computers--aided by blizzards of corporate PR--have given
the appearance of progress.
In 1996, after 11 years and $4 million dollars in development, using a roomful
of custom-designed computers, IBM finally beat one middle-aged man at a
board game.
In a related story, Caterpillar has just announced that, it's latest 390F L
96-ton excavator has successfully moved more dirt than one laborer
with a shovel.
Which shows you the difference between AI and mechanical equipment:
the very first earth-moving machine ever built moved much more earth
faster than a dozen men.
Since 1996, no famous chess masters have been beaten by computers
because nobody wants to pay $4: the game ain't worth the candle.
The problem with AI is that neuroscientists still don't know how the
brain works. And the brain wasn't designed by an engineer or programmer--
it
evolved over millions of years.
Nevertheless, AI has raised more investor money in stocks schemes than
anything since the South Sea Island company.
So we have driverless cars are crashing into pedestrians, fire trucks, police cars,
buildings...with loss of life and no tangible benefit to society. But man,
is it "high tech"!
In the future,
anything is possible--if you tell big enough lies.