As a tech columnist, I’m often asked to speak about the future of technology. Well, sure. Who doesn’t want to know what the future holds? Yet I’d be in much better shape if I were asked to predict the future of politics or bass fishing. Because nothing changes faster, and more unpredictably, than consumer technology.

Everybody who takes a stab at these kinds of predictions inevitably winds up looking like an idiot. Surely you’ve seen these things go around by e-mail: “I think there is a world market for maybe five computers,” said the chairman of IBM in 1943. “This ‘telephone’ has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication,” went an 1876 Western Union internal memo. “Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?” asked Harry M. Warner (one of the Warner Brothers) in 1927.

It’s not predictions in general that will get you into trouble, though. The danger lies in predicting that things can’t be done or will never work. Those are the forecasts that will make you look shortsighted.

In general, it’s much safer to predict things that will happen. If you’re right, you’ll look like a genius. Take Jules Verne, whose articles and stories described electric submarines, TV news, solar sails, “phonotelephote” (video calling), “atmospheric advertisements” (skywriting) and “electronic control devices” (tasers).

Or Arthur C. Clarke’s “newspad” (iPad), Ray Bradbury’s “thimble radios” (earbuds), Isaac Asimov’s pocket calculators and George Orwell’s security cameras.

And if you’re wrong, well, who can blame you? After all, if you predict something that hasn’t come true, you can always cover yourself by adding “yet.”

So the first rule of making tech predictions is this: make predictions about things that will come to pass, not about things that won’t.

Here’s the second rule: history is going to repeat itself. Experience has shown, over and over again, that certain trends are virtually inviolable.

For example, black-and-white formats always go to color: photographs, TV, movies. So back in 1970 you could have confidently predicted the proliferation of color newspapers.

In addition, analog formats always go digital. Audio, video, photos. So in 1990 you could have safely predicted the dawn of digital TV and e-book readers.

We know that Internet access is becoming more ubiquitous, and more gadgets are getting online. Thus, you’re safe describing a future where things that currently aren’t generally online will be, like cars, kitchen appliances and clothing.

If you insist on predicting the demise of things, stick to extrapolating from obvious trends. Look at the way recent college graduates live and assume that they are the future. They don’t subscribe to printed newspapers. They don’t sign up for home phone service. They film with phones or still cameras instead of camcorders. They download their movies.

They expect to get everything on demand—songs, books, magazines, newspapers, TV shows, movies—and you’d be foolish to bet against that trend.

But what about specific products? Is there any way to predict what we’ll be carrying in our pockets in 2020? Can anyone see the next iPhone, iPad or Wii?

Probably not. If they could, electronics companies wouldn’t release flopperoos like Microsoft Zune, the BlackBerry PlayBook and the Iridium satellite phone.

In the end, it’s a blessing we can’t predict the future of tech—because it means we’ll keep trying. If we don’t know if something will succeed or fail, we’ll keep innovating. We’ll heed the words of Alan Kay: “The best way to predict the future is to invent it.”

9 Comments

1. 1. Vivekanand 12:19 AM 1/18/12

   Really? This is the future of Technology?
   
   Flopperoos?
   
   The future of technology at this point is a paradigm change so tangential from ANY linear projections, most current day technologists will have to re-invent themselves or become obsolete.
   
   We are headed to move to true efficiency.
   The end of the age/curse of oil.
   The Post-Carbon world.
   
   I challenge Scientific American to delve deeper, not puff piece such an important trend.
   
   Vivek
   
   http://aadivaahan.wordpress.com/2012/01/17/1460-days-ago-ensign-principles-world-view/
   
   http://aadivaahan.wordpress.com/the-plan/

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2. 2. Cogitari 01:02 PM 1/18/12

   That current trends will continue, like Moore's law, are easy. Breakthroughs, like the internet and flat screen displays, not to mention the effects they will have, are much harder to predict. It is also much easier to predict what will happen if your own self-interest does not get in the way. I bet there are many periodical managers and editors (maybe even at S.A.) who still think that paper-based periodicals will never go away. Just like so many people did not believe that horses would be replaced with engines, even after it was well underway.

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3. 3. jtdwyer in reply to Cogitari 03:14 PM 1/18/12

   BTW, Moore's law is to some extent a self-fulfilling prophecy, in that it paces financial investments in production facilities that govern product circuit densities...

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4. 4. bigbopper 06:34 PM 1/18/12

   Here's an inviolable rule of future technology: the biggest single driver of technology is ordinary human desires which haven't changed since the rise of Homo sapiens: the desire to gossip with one's friends; the desire to keep in touch with one's loved ones; the desire to live as long as possible; the desire to do things as easily as possible; etc. etc. etc.

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5. 5. 62gu60 01:24 AM 1/19/12

   предсказать будущие в области развития технологий весьма просто - все электронные компоненты будут стремиться к трехмерью. Например, трехмерная память, трехмерные процессоры, трехмерные изображения и т. д. Это естественное подражание природным процесам.

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6. 6. dobermanmacleod 03:24 AM 1/20/12

   In my opinion, cynicism masquerading as skeptism is the bigger danger when predicting the future. For instance, there is a new clean energy technology that is one tenth the cost of coal. LENR using nickel. People simply are in denial of this easy to predict emerging energy technology because it is too-good-to-be-true.
   
   Incredibly: Ni+H(heated under pressure)=Cu+lots of heat. This phenomenon (LENR) has been confirmed in hundreds of published scientific papers: http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/RothwellJtallyofcol.pdf
   
   "Over 2 decades with over 100 experiments worldwide indicate LENR is real, much greater than chemical..." --Dennis M. Bushnell, Chief Scientist, NASA Langley Research Center
   
   "Energy density many orders of magnitude over chemical." Michael A. Nelson, NASA
   
   "Total replacement of fossil fuels for everything but synthetic organic chemistry." --Dr. Joseph M. Zawodny, NASA
   
   According to Forbes, electricity will be "too cheap to meter" if Rossi's Oct 28 demonstration succeeds: http://www.forbes.com/sites/markgibbs/2011/10/17/hello-cheap-energy-hello-brave-new-world/
   
   Here's the latest, according to MSNBC it passed the test: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45153076/ns/technology_and_science-science/#.TrNo9rJqwe4
   
   By the way, here is a current survey of all the companies that are bringing LENR to commercialization: http://www.cleantechblog.com/2011/08/the-new-breed-of-energy-catalyzers-ready-for-commercialization.html
   

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7. 7. dobermanmacleod 05:14 PM 2/7/12

   Ironically, I am violating those "rules" of predicting the future, by prediction that LENR (a totally revolutionary energy production technology) will spread like wildfire, replacing all other forms of energy generation:
   
   There is a new clean energy technology that is one tenth the cost of coal. LENR using nickel. Incredibly: Ni+H(heated under pressure)=Cu+lots of heat.
   
   This phenomenon (LENR) has been confirmed in hundreds of published scientific papers: http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/RothwellJtallyofcol.pdf
   
   "Over 2 decades with over 100 experiments worldwide indicate LENR is real, much greater than chemical..." --Dennis M. Bushnell, Chief Scientist, NASA Langley Research Center
   
   "Energy density many orders of magnitude over chemical." Michael A. Nelson, NASA
   
   "Total replacement of fossil fuels for everything but synthetic organic chemistry." --Dr. Joseph M. Zawodny, NASA
   
   According to Forbes, electricity will be "too cheap to meter" if Rossi's Oct 28 demonstration succeeds: http://www.forbes.com/sites/markgibbs/2011/10/17/hello-cheap-energy-hello-brave-new-world/
   
   Here's the latest, according to MSNBC it passed the test: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45153076/ns/technology_and_science-science/#.TrNo9rJqwe4
   
   By the way, here is a survey of all the companies that are bringing LENR to commercialization: http://www.cleantechblog.com/2011/08/the-new-breed-of-energy-catalyzers-ready-for-commercialization.html

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8. 8. elle1@ellefagan.com 07:23 PM 2/23/12

   Occupant Safety & Escape Technology must be a priority for tech-innovation. The winning ideas for it proposed over 50 years ago are easy to do now. If we had done them up , at least at the Bi-Centennial, the losses of Nineleven would not have happened. Please badger your leaders to get it done now.

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9. 9. elle1@ellefagan.com 10:28 AM 2/24/12

   "Everybody who takes a stab at these kinds of predictions inevitably winds up looking like an idiot." If you believe in your idea, NO ONE can make you feel like an idiot, at least not for long. One must get past that feeling to do ALMOST ANYTHING WORTH DOING IN THIS WORLD. :-D
   

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