Future of, well, all kinds of stuff

e-Horizons is a project from Oxford “focused on critically assessing competing visions of the future of media, information and communication technologies and their societal implications.” As part of the project, they have hosted a variety of talks/interviews on the future of, well, all kinds of stuff. Predicting 50 years into the future is largely a fool’s game, but it’s still fun (after all, in 2057, we’ll need something to look back on and mock). I’m reminded of the failed predictions of artificial intelligence. Before the AI community shifted from GOFAI to Connectionism as an organizing model, predictions were offered about machine intelligence replacing human intelligence by the mid-60’s. Obviously, that hasn’t happened. But perhaps the statement of “overestimating short term impact and underestimating long term impact” of technology is valuable as a guide here. Still, the e-Horizons videos are worth viewing simply as a mind-opening exercise.