20/20 VisionAn eclectic view of the future impact of ICT

Agenda

Why forecasting is important.

The art of getting is wrong.

Technologies.

20 years from now - 2025

40 years from now – 2045

The centrality of computing

Concluding thoughts

Why Forecasting is Important

The Importance of Forecasting What is forecasting? Types:

Point; System; Quantitative; Qualitative.

Why is it important? Business; Personal; Government; Society.

Forecasting Some important concepts.

Evolution; Discontinuities.

Constraints: Human psychology; Basic economics; Social behaviour; Laws of physics; Feedback loops. Ergonomics.

Nicholas Carr

IT Doesn’t Matter Anymore (2003)

The Case…

We have been here before…

IT is following an established pattern.

Should We be Worried?

The Art ofGetting it

Wrong

The Art of Getting it Wrong

Forecasting is a risky business

Even the great and the good goof more than occasionally...

The Art of Getting it Wrong

“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.”

Thomas Watson, Chairman of IBM, 1943.

“We have one here at Cambridge; there is one in Manchester and there is probably a need for there to be one in

Scotland as well, but that is about all.”Prediction made about computers in 1947 by Douglas

Hartree, an English Mathematician.

“Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons.” Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of

science, 1949.

The Art of Getting it Wrong

“I have travelled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won't last out the year.”

The editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957.

“But what ... is it good for?”

Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, 1968, commenting on the microchip.

“There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.”

Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment, Corp., 1977.

The Art of Getting it Wrong

“The telephone may be appropriate for our American cousins, but not here, because we have an adequate

supply of messenger boys.”

British expert group evaluating the invention of the telephone.

“The horse is here to stay, but the automobile is only a novelty - a fad?”

Michigan banker advising Henry Ford’s lawyer not to invest in the Ford Motor Company.

“We don’t like their sound. Groups of guitars are on the way out.”

Decca Records, in turning down a recording contract with the Beatles. 1962.

The Art of Getting it Wrong“It is significant that despite the claims of air enthusiasts no

battleship has yet been sunk by bombs

Caption for a photograph of the U.S.S. Arizona in the program for the Army-Navy game, Nov. 29, 1941, eight days before the

Arizona sank at Pearl Harbor.

“Among the really difficult problems of the world, [the Arab-Israeli conflict is] one of the simplest and most

manageable.”

Walter Lippman, newspaper column, April 27, 1948. .

“You ain't goin' nowhere... son. You ought to go back to driving a truck”

Jim Denny, Grand Ole Opry manager, firing Elvis Presley after one performance, from an interview on Oct. 2, 1954. .

We Can’t All Be Right...

Francis Fukuyama

“The triumph of liberal democracy”

Samuel Huntington

“The coming clash ofcivilisations”

Moral

Technologies

Technologies Wireless.

Superparallelism.

Light.

Biology.

Nanotechnology.

Robotics.

Quantum computing.

Technologies

Semantics.

Interfaces.

Networking.

Embedded computing.

Ubiquitous computing.

Cyborg technology.

Artificial intelligence.

No End in Sight?

Time

Whatever

Processing powerCPU cycles on the networkVolume of storageNetwork capacityLines of code

Bannister’s Law

Complexity increases to utilise the technology available

20 Years from now:

2025

Assumptions: 20 Year Horizon

No global ecological disasters.

No radical social changes.

No major economic disruptions.

Continuation of current demographic trends.

Oil price close to $80 a barrel.

20 Years Ago

1985

20 Years Ago No...

Mobile phones; Internet (for general public); World wide web; Laptops; CDs (never mind DVDs); Broadband. Digital cameras.

Just about... Colour screens (wedding cake style); Luggable computers; e-Mail (limited to closed communities); Graphical user interface (for Mac users only); Ethernet (crude);

20 Years From Now?

By 2025

Effectively infinite storage

Effectively infinite computing capacity

No practical limits on non wireless bandwidth

Reached the physical limits of wireless bandwidth

Enormous advances in minaturisation

Organ cloning common

Some primitive use of cyborg technology

Advanced AI, but not self awareness

20 Years from Now?By 2025

Technology in the home

Natural external interfaces

Reasonably widespread electronic cash

Automated factories

35-40 hour working week

Holographic/VR conferencing

Video mobile phones

Virtual event attendance

Designer babies

40 Years from now:

2045

Assumptions: 40 Year Horizon Still no global ecological disasters. Radical social changes driven by

computing and biotechnology. Significant changes in economic

structures. Major energy problems. Major water problems. Oil extremely expensive. Alternative energy vectors emerging.

40 Years Ago

1965

40 Years Ago No...

Personal computers; e-mail; Colour screens; Networks; Office tools (WP/Spreadsheet/Graphics/etc/); GUIs, mouses; Laser printers; Jumbo jets;

Just about... All purpose computers (IBM 360); Colour television (but not in Ireland); Satellite communications; Dial up services.

Forty Years of Techno Progress

Forty Years of Techno Progress

SAP

40 Years From Now?

By 2045

Ubiquitous computing

Quantum computing

Cashless society in advanced countries

Electronically controlled transport systems

Universal access to the Internet

Highly controlled society

Opted out communities?

Unbreakable encryption and its implications

40 Years From Now?By 2045

On-line voting

More localised government

Widespread use of cyborg technology

Advanced virtual reality

Life expectancies of several hundred years

Major disruption to social systems

Human cloning (possibly illegal)

Conceptual problems with identity and life

A post human society?

1965: Back to the Future? A more optimistic era. Predicted...

Man on the moon by 1969; 20 hour working week by 1980s; Colonies on Mars; Cheap atomic power everywhere; Private jet cars; Video phones; Automated homes.

Science fiction and the Zeitgeist: 2001 – A Space Odyssey (1968); Blade Runner (1982); Gattaca (1997).

The Centrality ofComputing

The Centrality of Computing

Computing

Engineering And so on...

Manufacturing

Policing

Aviation

Physics

Business

Music

Genetics

Computing and Society ...is at the centre of modern life. ...affects society in numerous ways

some good: productivity; health; empowerment; access to information; flexibility.

some bad: social isolation; cyber crime; social complexity/stress; social control; vulnerability.

ConcludingThoughts

Two Seminal Books

On Getting it Wrong…

Electricity doesn’t matter any moreN. Carr Senior (1904)

On Getting in Wrong…Think electric motor

Then think…

4215/MRP

Today: How many electric motors are there in your parents’ home?

Tomorrow: How many processors will there be in your home?

From The Leading Guru on AI

“In from three to eight years, we will have a machine with the general intelligence of an average human being. I mean a machine that will be able to read

Shakespeare, grease a car, play office politics, tell a joke, have a fight. At that point, the machine will begin to educate itself with fantastic speed. In a few months, it will be at genius level, and a few months after that, its

power will be incalculable.

Marvin Minsky, MIT Professor, 1970

The Last Word…

John Sedgwick

“They couldn’t hit an elephant at this dist...”Spotsylvania 9 May, 1864