

Isaac Asimov's 50-Year-Old Prediction for 2014 Is Viral and All Wrong - ahomescu1
http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/isaac-asimovs-50-year-old-prediction-for-2014-is-viral-and-all-wrong

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dkrich
_Asimov imagined that humanity would decide to distribute the wealth accrued
by the automatons, and the problem wouldn 't be lost capital for workers, but
lost meaning. Of course, in reality, it's both—and therefore a much, much
bleaker scenario._

I don't think Asimov believed that "humanity would decide to distribute the
wealth accrued by the automatons" at all. I think he believed (as I do) that
automation reduces costs. Reduced cost is equivalent to increased wealth. If
nobody has to work anymore because everything they need is close to free of
charge, then what is the motivation to create or do anything? Hence a sense of
pointlessness to life, etc.

Now obviously that is not the case in 2014, but the author's assumption that
the reality is necessarily lost capital is unfounded. Any one industry that is
displaced by automation examined in a tunnel will appear bleak, but in the
long term, the consumers are likely better off because they become wealthier.
I think that idea extrapolated outward to most every manufacturing industry is
what Asimov was referring to.

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PavlovsCat
You're talking about owners and consumers; where are the workers in this?

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dkrich
The point is that workers are no longer necessary because everything is
automated.

I do not believe this will ever really be feasible because you still need
lawyers, the government, police, teachers, etc. But I do believe that as time
goes on more and more industries will become more efficient in production
capability, rendering a large part of our society fairly useless in relation
to productivity.

~~~
PavlovsCat
> The point is that workers are no longer necessary because everything is
> automated.

Sure, but what then happens to them? My guess is poverty and starvation,
rather than lower costs for owners of means of production leading to giving
means of production or products away for free. Why shouldn't this game of
musical chairs keep going on until there are only a few dozen mansions and
millions of golf courses and parks left? Or even machines optimizing humans
away completely -- unless held on a tight leash, why shouldn't they? And if
held on a tight leash, why would this not also extend to the disenfranchised
masses, the then "useless eaters"? As much as I would like to believe it,
_everything else being the same_ I don't think automation and lower costs by
themselves will necessarily lead to anything good.

Worker's rights weren't granted because they could be afforded, they had to be
fought for. Same for segregation and other things. But these people had
something to throw on the scales -- unnecessary workers will not have that.
They will be at the mercy of others, and I do not see enough mercy to go
around already, looking bleaker going forward. We already have elites that are
pretty much above the law -- steal cell phones repeatedly, go to jail for a
long time, start aggressive wars, get re-elected, be too big to fail, get
bailed out. Once fooling people to get their approval is no longer required, I
doubt the same classes will suddenly discover virtue.

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jpmattia
> Asimov [predicting the future]: _The lucky few who can be involved in
> creative work of any sort will be the true elite of mankind, for they alone
> will do more than serve a machine._

The article says he got this wrong. I'm not so sure.

~~~
Cookingboy
Yes, because artists and creative writers make up the upper echelon of our
society, and Wall Street bankers, doctors, lawyers, politicians and business
executives are staying at the bottom of the social ladder.

(To be fair, one can say bankers, lawyers, politicians and business execs are
constantly engaging in creative work, as in creating new ways to circumvent
any obstacles, including laws and regulations, to accumulate more wealth and
influence ^_^)

~~~
dkrich
Creatives go beyond the arts. People who are able to contribute new inventions
and create new industries are creatives too. I think the point is that when
technology becomes so advanced to make the cost of most everything trivial,
you'd have to be pretty extraordinary to create any new invention of value.

~~~
Cookingboy
Yes, people who are more innovative at their trade usually end up a step
ahead, this has been true throughout our entire civilization and is not a new
discovery.

I don't think that's what Asimov meant though, if you read the context of his
prediction, I actually think he meant creative arts, since all "necessary"
functions and jobs of the society would have been automated under his
prediction.

~~~
ahomescu1
The immediate extension of this line of thought (IMHO) is to ask what is "art"
and what is "necessary". Architecture seems like an example of both.

Also, I think scientists definitely qualify as "creative workers", and will do
so as long as there are unknowns in the universe (like how the brain works,
what the universe is made of, stuff like that). For example, wouldn't you call
Einstein's work "creative"?

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ek
Does it seem like cultural commentary has also improved in the last 50 years?
I am young enough to not remember what it may have been like when Asimov wrote
originally, but it strikes me that Vice is a relatively contemporary sort of a
thing.

I would be interested in similar pieces from 50 years ago, looking back on
1914's view of 1964. So much has changed since then, though, and it seems like
more has changed since 1964 than changed from 1914 to 1964. In particular, the
60s happened, but even after that, the Internet seems to have effected a
fairly massive and seemingly permanent cultural shift. It might be too early
to tell, but even the fact that someone posted this commentary, we all read it
instantly, and then now we're discussing it here only hours later seems worlds
away from the climate of 1964.

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coldtea
> _Does it seem like cultural commentary has also improved in the last 50
> years? I am young enough to not remember what it may have been like when
> Asimov wrote originally, but it strikes me that Vice is a relatively
> contemporary sort of a thing._

Cultural commentary? If anything, it declined a lot. Once you had people like
Normal Mailer, Tom Wolf and Hunter Thompson doing cultural commentary, and
many more besides.

Now it's mostly puff pieces, and 90% of it is about who said what on some bs
tv show (and twerking).

~~~
nsp
90% of it was then as well, we just don't reread or remember those. You don't
think that there are five cultural critics(whatever that includes) on par with
Thompson or mailer? There might be more noise, but there's a lot more signal
as well.

~~~
coldtea
>* You don't think that there are five cultural critics(whatever that
includes) on par with Thompson or Mailer?*

No, I really don't. Not to mention others -- heck, Hemingway himself was a
reporter and cultural commentator too.

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Pitarou
In America in the 60s, it was easy to believe that technology had solved the
old problems of allocation of wealth between capital and labour once and for
all. And maybe, in the long run, the techno-utopians are right. But we've
still got a long way to go.

In the early 20th century, new manufacturing technologies triggered a burst of
investment in capital-intensive production lines. With so much capital lying
around, workers had secured a pretty good deal for themselves by 1964. But now
those jobs have fled to Asia, and it sucks to be an unskilled American. Most
new jobs are in the service sector, and they can disappear in a heartbeat.

Still, I'm not entirely pessimistic. Factory wages in China are rising...

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jedmeyers
"Asimov imagined that humanity would decide to distribute the wealth accrued
by the automatons" \- why would one think that this will ever happen?

~~~
mullingitover
A man like Asimov probably assumed that earthlings would develop a greater
sense of community as civilization progressed. Also, in 1964 the US was a lot
more liberal; LBJ and a massive democratic landslide had just taken control of
the government and were on the verge of rolling out the Great Society
programs. War on poverty, civil rights, social welfare programs, consumer
protections, etc. He had no way of knowing that ongoing class struggle would
push us back into this vast inequality, and rationalizations for it, that
we're currently accustomed to.

~~~
TDL
And the Vietnam war, escalation of the draft, escalation of the war on
drugs... Those liberals way back when weren't as wonderful as many would like
to believe.

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mullingitover
The point remains, it was a more optimistic time. It was only three years
after the first people had been launched into space, and it seemed that the
sky was no longer the limit. Asimov had no way of knowing that so much of our
potential would be wasted on killing each other instead of on building the
future he envisioned.

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Theodores
So his predictions were not really that different to a 'cold reading' that a
psychic comes up with - remember the hits and forget the misses.

~~~
coldtea
> _So his predictions were not really that different to a 'cold reading' that
> a psychic comes up with - remember the hits and forget the misses._

No, his predictions were quite accurate on the technological side, but for the
societal side they were based on prevailing ideas of the day (which didn't
necessarily apply later).

For example the "moon colony" would have been a very real possibility, if the
US has kept the same determination of space exploration. It's not much harder
than the ISS to setup something similar on the moon, just the budgets are not
there.

As for his food prediction, we already have something similar ready to be
commercially available, with Soylent. Not to mention that compared to his
era's food (mostly home cooking, no HFCS, no prevailing fast food chains),
today's food is 500% more processed and lab made.

Anyway, they are called "predictions". What did people expect? Genuine
prophecy?

