Donald Prell is the founder of Datamation magazine – the
publication you’re now reading – which he launched in 1957. We invited
him to use his long grasp of tech history to predict how today’s
technology will impact human life many years from now.
As a futurologist, I have been asked to present my scenarios/predictions for the future of the computer and information industry in 2050. At the age of 92, it isn’t possible that I’ll ever know how it actually plays out. In 1964, the author of “2001: A Space Odyssey,” Sir Arthur Charles Clarke, was interviewed on the BBC television program Horizon. In addition to forecasting what life would be like in 50 years, he warned the audience:
"Trying to predict the future is a discouraging, hazardous occupation because the prophet invariably falls between two stools. If his predictions sound at all reasonable, you can be quite sure that in 20 or at most 50 years the progress of science and technology has made him seem ridiculously conservative. On the other hand, if by some miracle a prophet could describe the future exactly as it was going to take place, his predictions would sound so absurd, so far-fetched that everyone would laugh him to scorn. This has proved to be true in the past and it will undoubtedly be even more in the century to come. The only thing we can be sure of about the future is that it will be absolutely fantastic. So if what I say now seems to you to be reasonable then I will have failed completely. Only if what I tell you appears absolutely unbelievable will we have chance of visualizing the future as it really will happen.” Read More........
As a futurologist, I have been asked to present my scenarios/predictions for the future of the computer and information industry in 2050. At the age of 92, it isn’t possible that I’ll ever know how it actually plays out. In 1964, the author of “2001: A Space Odyssey,” Sir Arthur Charles Clarke, was interviewed on the BBC television program Horizon. In addition to forecasting what life would be like in 50 years, he warned the audience:
"Trying to predict the future is a discouraging, hazardous occupation because the prophet invariably falls between two stools. If his predictions sound at all reasonable, you can be quite sure that in 20 or at most 50 years the progress of science and technology has made him seem ridiculously conservative. On the other hand, if by some miracle a prophet could describe the future exactly as it was going to take place, his predictions would sound so absurd, so far-fetched that everyone would laugh him to scorn. This has proved to be true in the past and it will undoubtedly be even more in the century to come. The only thing we can be sure of about the future is that it will be absolutely fantastic. So if what I say now seems to you to be reasonable then I will have failed completely. Only if what I tell you appears absolutely unbelievable will we have chance of visualizing the future as it really will happen.” Read More........
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