A little while ago, Ben Betts blogged about a wonderful book called 2010: Living in the Future which was written by Geoffrey Hoyle back in 1972.
I love these vintage visions of the future.
Reading the book prompted me to seek other predictions from yesteryear, and I found plenty via Vintage Future.
Some predictions were remarkably accurate (eg telemedicine, prepackaged meals, orbital space stations) while others were way off the mark.
This got me thinking
Why do some predictions of the future pan out so wrong?
I remember as a child being fascinated by a 19th century illustration of space travel that depicted a steam train flying among the stars and planets.
Clearly at that point in history, the futurist was so convinced of the modernity of the locomotive that he did not conceive any other possible mode of transport – let alone the depletion of fossil fuels.
It was perfectly natural for him to expect that, one day, trains would be hurtling through outer space.
More examples
Consider these…
Why is a robot pushing the vacuum cleaner?
Because contemporary practice was for the housewife to do it.
Naturally, then, the innovation was to replace her with a humanoid.
Why must the shopper be at the store?
Because contemporary practice was for the shopper to visit the supermarket in person.
Naturally, then, the innovation was to automate the system on site.
Why is Dick talking into his watch?
Because wristwatches were the contemporary fashion.
Naturally, then, the innovation was to add an audio channel to that device.
Why did they miss the mark?
In each of the above examples, contemporary practice prejudiced the futurist’s expectations of future practice.
They were wearing blinkers.
Of course they had no concept of jet engines, infrared sensors, the World Wide Web and smartphones. But without an audacious imagination that dared to consider the possibility of these technologies, their predictions were doomed to fail.
Not so fast
It’s easy to look back with a smug sense of intellectual superiority. How rediculous those predictions were! How primitive the science!
But are we really any better today?
I hear a lot about innovation in the workplace, but I doubt we have mastered the creative thinking that is required to forecast beyond our immediate future with any sense of confidence.
If we don’t wrap our minds around the stuff that doesn’t yet exist, our “innovations” will become the latest examples of charming vintage.
E-Learning Provocateur 
Hi Ryan,
I think this is really interesting. I was involved in a research project looking at future trends for Australia and evaluating how the predictions worked out. The problem is something called ‘future bias’ where we imagine the future as an extension of today.
Here is a link to a presentation I recently delivered for the Hargraves innovation network http://www.slideshare.net/canvale/where-is-the-future
I was looking at three predictions from 1957 and started with looking at ‘tommorowland’ at Disneyland, where in 1957 you could have seen a microwave oven, remote controls for your flat screen television and mobile phones with video cameras. These things have all come to pass, but some of the predictions from this time have not.
This is a very interesting area – and here is a link to the future study I was involved in at the Australian Business Foundation are here
http://www.abfoundation.com.au/research_knowledge/research/193
And here is a link to a LG watch phone
http://www.lg.com/au/mobile-phones/all-lg-phones/LG-GD910.jsp
So it has a name: Future bias.
Thanks Phillip, and great links too.
Should I get myself an LG watch phone, or should I wait for a biophone implant?!