Anyone who has read an old issue of a magazine or newspaper—not to mention bygone science fiction—could tell you that it's hard to anticipate where innovations will lead us, or even which inventions will be the ones that stick. Think of the headlines populating sites like WIRED's right now. Mark Zuckerberg talks a big game about the metaverse, but many (myself included) find it hard to imagine that it will have legs over time. Generative AI seems more likely to disrupt interactions between man and machine but, again, who really knows. Turns out, it's pretty hard to predict the future.
As Steven Johnson points out in a 2014 story for WIRED, "Why Inventors Misjudge How We'll Abuse Their Creations," when we look back on the history of technology we tend to focus on moments of clairvoyance and glimmers of insight. "But there's a flip side to such farsightedness that shows up again and again in the history of innovation," he notes, "the blind spots, the possibilities that somehow escaped our field of vision but that, in retrospect, seem glaringly obvious." It's easy to write these off as mistakes or failed attempts at foresight. But aren't they kind of brilliant and enlightening in their own right?
There are several kinds of blind spots, Johnson observes. There's "the assumption that some new device will never find a mass audience," like Digital Equipment Corporation cofounder Ken Olsen's 1977 prediction that people wouldn't want computers in their homes. There are those that incorrectly forecast how a new technology will be used—or abused. The inventors of email's basic standards knew they were at the dawn of a communications revolution in which people could message each other exponentially more easily than ever before, and didn't think at all about how easy it would be for spam to make the rounds, as well. And then there's the impulse to focus on anticipated problems that end up not being a big deal at all.
As Johnson points out, each of these kinds of blind spots tells us something essential about humanity and about our relationships with technology and innovation. This week, let's give future WIRED readers some predictions to assess down the line. What's an invention that seems like it's about to change the world, and what do you think will happen with it in the years to come? Write me a note with a wacky, off-the-wall projection, or leave one in the comments beneath Johnson's story. Whether you're totally wrong, completely right, or somewhere murky in the middle, it doesn't really matter. I'm guessing we'll learn something no matter what.
See you next week!
Eve
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