I think best summary on technological predictions is Your Flying Car Awaits by Paul Milo. In short: most predictions are wrong, no matter who did them and in what technical field. Overoptimistic are more common than too conservative. Also, predictions made in late 19th—early 20th centuries are vastly more correct then those from 1950 − 1970.
As for predicting things like consequences and commercial sence (given that tech is feasible), problem is that they are dependent on a lot of exact implementation details and outside factors.
One good example is airships. The idea was first mentioned in late 17th century, the first prototype flew in mid-19th and mass-production started just before the WW1. During that time lots of different authors did lots of predictions how airships will be used and change the world. They all were totally wrong (except maybe Jules Verne). Airships cannot capture or destroy cities, cannot sink navies, they are not practical for carrying paratroopers and useless as fighters. In civilian use airship is just flying catastrophe, about 1000 rate more dangerous than same tech level airplane, expensive and ineffective. This all comes from details like airframe strenth and wind drag which are hard to predict.
The same thing, just lesser in magnitude happened with civilian nuclear ships and supersonic airliners.
Also, there is no good way to predict political and legislative changes. It could happen that for example medicine wasn’t so regulated but Internet was banned from the very beginning.
Yeah. Non-experts are more numerous and make predictions which are far more random. Essentially my model of non-expert prediction is “a bunch of people take more or less outdated expert predictions and add random jitter”.
I think best summary on technological predictions is Your Flying Car Awaits by Paul Milo. In short: most predictions are wrong, no matter who did them and in what technical field. Overoptimistic are more common than too conservative. Also, predictions made in late 19th—early 20th centuries are vastly more correct then those from 1950 − 1970.
As for predicting things like consequences and commercial sence (given that tech is feasible), problem is that they are dependent on a lot of exact implementation details and outside factors.
One good example is airships. The idea was first mentioned in late 17th century, the first prototype flew in mid-19th and mass-production started just before the WW1. During that time lots of different authors did lots of predictions how airships will be used and change the world. They all were totally wrong (except maybe Jules Verne). Airships cannot capture or destroy cities, cannot sink navies, they are not practical for carrying paratroopers and useless as fighters. In civilian use airship is just flying catastrophe, about 1000 rate more dangerous than same tech level airplane, expensive and ineffective. This all comes from details like airframe strenth and wind drag which are hard to predict. The same thing, just lesser in magnitude happened with civilian nuclear ships and supersonic airliners.
Also, there is no good way to predict political and legislative changes. It could happen that for example medicine wasn’t so regulated but Internet was banned from the very beginning.
Thanks, I don’t think I’ve seen that book before.
Yeah. Non-experts are more numerous and make predictions which are far more random. Essentially my model of non-expert prediction is “a bunch of people take more or less outdated expert predictions and add random jitter”.