Forecasts that "thought to be very convincing" but by 2020 are wrong

Contrary to predictions, artificial intelligence and robotics should not be common in everyday life in 2020. It is still impossible to go on a vacation on the Moon or live to 150 years old.

Imagine waking up in the morning, rushing to send a “virtual” hug to your loved one thousands of kilometers away, jumping into a car with a monkey as a driver. A long day awaits but in just a few days you will have a wonderful holiday on the Moon.

Forecasts that "thought to be very convincing" but by 2020 are wrong
A 1958 drawing simulating human life in the future – (Image: Getty Image).

It sounds odd, but that’s the 2020 vision that previous generations imagined. They even believe that by 2020, robots will replace humans with housework and our lifespan will also increase to 150 years.

In fact, the rapid progress of the past decade and a number of prominent trends is happening just as we predicted many years ago. However, there are things that have yet to materialize.

Forecasts that "thought to be very convincing" but by 2020 are wrong
A toy playing robot of Toyota in 2007 – (Photo: AFP).

“Futurists and technologists think that robots and artificial intelligence of various forms will become part of everyday life by 2020 and will almost entirely take over manual jobs. “ , CNN quoted an article from Elon University in 2006.

British futurist Ian Pearson goes even further. “Perception is just a possibility and that’s what we’re trying to put into computers. I think we can create a cognitive computer with superhuman intelligence by 2020,” Mr. Pearson once said. with the British Observer in 2005.

“It’s definitely emotional. If I’m on a plane and I want the computer to be more afraid of falling than I am, it will do everything to not crash.” But in fact, when entering 2020, computers still do not have emotions like humans.

Sharing on CNN recently, Mr. Pearson admitted “things did not happen as quickly as I expected”. “I estimate AI is developing 35% to 40% slower than we expected,” he said.

However, the real rise of robots is happening. ” You can walk into some car factory and see no one there,” Mr. Pearson said. Some things have happened as expected such as the explosion of social networks, messages …

Giving a forecast for 2030, Mr. Pearson said that then “we can turn an entire city into a smart city in just a few weeks, with very, very cheap transportation. People, cities and the environment will be there. enjoy great benefits”.

Forecasts that "thought to be very convincing" but by 2020 are wrong
People still cannot give up food in 2020 – (Image: AFP).

Futurist Ray Kurzweil has predicted that humans won’t need food by 2020. “Billions of tiny nanobots in the digestive tract and blood can intelligently extract the exact amount of nutrients they need. We need,” Kurzweil wrote in his 2004 book Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough to Live Forever .

Although the tiny robots have yet to replace food, some predictions about eating trends are also approximate. A forecast in the New York Times in 1913 suggested that Americans would give up meat and live on vegetables and rice, and more than a hundred years later, the trend toward vegetarianism was exploding. Scientists are also reminding us to eat less meat to protect the environment.

Forecasts that "thought to be very convincing" but by 2020 are wrong
Simulation of the Big Falcon Rocket project with Elon Musk’s ambition to establish a Moon base – (Photo: SpaceX).

Travel on other planets has been predicted for decades. By 2009, this prospect seemed very close when a series of companies and individuals wanted to turn the decade of 2010 into the decade of space tourism.

“In 2020, you’ll see people circumnavigate the Moon,” Eric Anderson of Space Adventures told Space.com in 2009. Elon Musk, founder of Tesla and SpaceX, was even more confident when he declared ” will have serious plans to go to Mars with people in 2020.”

But plans to put tourists into orbit have been delayed for a decade, and hundreds of subscribers are still receiving promises of “next year” and then “next year.”

“Now we have private companies building our own commercial passenger vehicles. That’s the difference between the last decade and the decades before,” said Laura Forczyk, founder of the private company. Astralytica spatial problem, evaluation. However, we will still need a thick wallet to see Earth from space in 2030.

“Humans are so ingenious, it’s entirely possible… As long as the dream is there, people will continue to do it,” Ms. Forczyk said.