How Arthur C. Clarke Predicted We'd Communicate in the 21st Century (paleotronic.com) 48
beaverdownunder quotes Paleotronic:
While researching for our magazine we sometimes find nuggets buried by time that have been forgotten by the Internet. This particular nugget was found in the May 1977 issue of Creative Computing. Science fiction author and futurist Arthur C. Clarke's predictions of the future are fascinating, both for what he got right, and what he got wrong.
Quoting Arthur C. Clarke: [W]hat about verbal inputs? Do we really need a keyboard? I'm sure the answer is "Yes." We want to be able to type out messages, look at them, and edit them before transmission. We need keyboard inputs for privacy, and quietness. A reliable voice recognition system, capable of coping with accents, hangovers, ill-fitting dentures and the "human error" that my late friend HAL, the computer from 2001, complained about, represents something many orders of magnitude more complex than a simple alpha-numeric keyboard. It would be a device with capabilities, in a limited area, at least as good as those of a human brain. Yet assuming that the curves of the last few decades can be extrapolated, this will certainly be available sometime in the next century....
Noting that he coined the phrase "Don't commute -- communicate!" Clark adds "We are already approaching the point when it will be feasible -- not necessarily desirable -- for those engaged in what is quaintly called "white-collar" jobs to do perhaps 95 per cent of their work without leaving home. Of course, few of today's families could survive this, but for the moment let's confine ourselves to electronic, not social, technology."
But he wasn't excited about the possibility of telepathy in the future. "I find that my mental processes are so incoherent...that I should be very sorry for anyone at the receiving end."
Quoting Arthur C. Clarke: [W]hat about verbal inputs? Do we really need a keyboard? I'm sure the answer is "Yes." We want to be able to type out messages, look at them, and edit them before transmission. We need keyboard inputs for privacy, and quietness. A reliable voice recognition system, capable of coping with accents, hangovers, ill-fitting dentures and the "human error" that my late friend HAL, the computer from 2001, complained about, represents something many orders of magnitude more complex than a simple alpha-numeric keyboard. It would be a device with capabilities, in a limited area, at least as good as those of a human brain. Yet assuming that the curves of the last few decades can be extrapolated, this will certainly be available sometime in the next century....
Noting that he coined the phrase "Don't commute -- communicate!" Clark adds "We are already approaching the point when it will be feasible -- not necessarily desirable -- for those engaged in what is quaintly called "white-collar" jobs to do perhaps 95 per cent of their work without leaving home. Of course, few of today's families could survive this, but for the moment let's confine ourselves to electronic, not social, technology."
But he wasn't excited about the possibility of telepathy in the future. "I find that my mental processes are so incoherent...that I should be very sorry for anyone at the receiving end."
Re: Well it sure beats Twitter. (Score:1)
Oh he had an editor, and people never wondered at why he wrote what he did. In fact, the war crimes tribunal at the Hague after WWII had people thinking the same thing, long before he did. They (IBM to be specific) did real time translation from German to English and French using human machine translation backed up by humans (one of which was a great uncle of mine working for the British and American group).
Stay safe and think encrypted thoughts....
Not hard to predict (Score:3)
Written, time-delayed communication is as old as human civilization. The typewriter, end hence the keyboard is just a final improvement. Same for real-time voice communication, where the final improvement was to be able to do it over large distances. Seriously, it does take zero "vision" for such a prediction, just seeing what is is quite enough. And we will stay with these interface types, because they are what works.
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Except he predicted quiet keyboards so one can enter their words in privacy. Today the trend is towards fancy mechanical keyboards with the top of the line ones turning "private typing" into a battlefield of machine guns.
(yes, I jest).
Ok already (Score:2)
Re:Ok already (Score:5, Interesting)
People predict a lot of things.
Arthur C. Clarke was far better at predicting than most people, especially about the future.
Some things he predicted:
1. Malware
2. Tablets
3. GEO comm sats
4. Skype/Facetime
5. Networked home computers
6. Email
7. Mobile phones
8. Telecommuting
Where's that orbiting space wheel?
A space wheel is a good design. It is not Arthur's fault that we haven't built it yet.
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"A space wheel is a good design" For... what? Not really, it isn't. It makes everything much more complicated for the fiat of centripedal fake gravity. It also makes shielding and propulsion much, much more complex.
And there's no evidence that the mild centripedal force would counteract the space bone mass attrition problem or anything like that even if all passengers were using it all the time, which isn't really possible anyway.
It's interesting though, as fiction food for thought. It's not a design
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For a couple people like the ISS, it doesn't make sense, but for a long-term living environment, the economics likely change.
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It is easy. Just mine some asteroids and....
I have a feeling that the attitude "just mine some asteroids" might be a wee bit more complicated in practice. But I like the idea of working on an asterioid mining ship.
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Or....
Setup a magnetic field around the ship. That's how the earth does it.
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Re: Ok already (Score:3)
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4. Skype/Facetime
5. Networked home computers
8. Telecommuting
Wonder how much a radar specialist would have seen and got access to during ww2 and just after ww2?
1984 had telescreens.
A lot was well understood at that time as far as national networks, TV and needed image quality.
WW2 Germany had an early cable communication network.
With an early "video" phone that connected a post office to a post office.
A huge camera was used but the ability and network was in place.
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People predict a lot of things. Where's that orbiting space wheel?
NASA punted on building one out of space shuttle fuel tanks, so we don't have one.
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No moving parts? I had one of those as a kid. It was a great Teddy Bear. I miss it dearly...
A distinguished but elderly scientist (Score:2)
He also predicted that we'd still be using PetaByte drives in 3001
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Well, we DO still need a keyboard (Score:3)
If you're trying to write code, or anything longer than a text message, you definitely still want to use a keyboard. Voice recognition has come a long way, but it's still a far cry less accurate than typing.
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Maybe. One problem will be that variable names are not words, they are made up, and often are a set of words strung together, often with random abbreviations. It's hard to imagine any voice recognition system being able to correctly spell such names correctly. I personally don't want to spell my variable names, letter by letter!
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To me, the keyboard is a thinking aid. It allows me to use/access different parts of the brain than to those I use while talking to people. I'm sure a lot of people are used to "thinking with their hands" while playing musical instruments or doing woodwork, for example.
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This is an excellent point! I hadn't considered this aspect before. One cannot effectively write code while listening to a person speaking, but it is possible to write code while listening to music. The same principle applies here.
Siri doesn't suck all the time (Score:2)
I am often surprised about how well Siri understands me speaking Dutch to her. Even when I stutter or use the local accent or burp during talking she manages to understand me perfectly well most of the time. Oftentimes her answers to my questions are amazingly unusable though, which is a bummer of course.
The future (Score:2)
In the 21st century, calls will be far more efficient because rotary phones will spin twice as fast. Computers will be so small they will fit in an ordinary two-car garage. You will be able to make calls from anywhere because there will be a phone booth on every street corner. High speed miniature printing presses in every home will make it possible to receive a book in a matter of days rather than 4 to 6 weeks. Low cost air conditioning will make it possible to have a cooling room in every neighborhood.
white collar jobs (Score:2)
its cute the author is trying to shoehorn in telework or whatever nonsense its called this week at the end of a summary about communications, they obviously do not communicate much if they think a jarring subject change is acceptable, but I digress.
Clarke was wrong on that point, the white collar jobs he speaks of, are not things people even do anymore, let alone from home ... those jobs have been replaced by software and automated systems decades ago. If you have a job where you can work from home, just ke
Ah, yes, telecommuting (Score:2)
Clarke did not predict that since the 1970s, housing costs would rise faster than take-home pay.
Back in the day, most middle class houses could afford a dedicated "den" room. Today, it is not economically feasible for most people to work from home most of the time. Certainly not in a manner that OH&S would allow.