No “smart homes” and driverless cars in cities.
From http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-41694991
Back in 2001 a book called “The Future of Wireless Communications” predicted the following technology developments by 2020:
- A personal communicator that would book flights and allow you to check in at airports.
- A personalised news feed delivered to your communicator.
- A robot that mows the grass.
- A function allowing you to pre-order your cappuccino from a coffee chain and then direct you to its location.
Those predictions look pretty accurate and now the book’s author, William Webb, a telecoms consultant, is publishing his vision of how the world will look in 10 years.
His predictions include:
- Virtual assistants like Siri or Alexa will play bigger roles in our lives.
- AI will have become extremely good at specific tasks.
- In the workplace facial-recognition technology replaces security staff and robot vacuum cleaners take away cleaning jobs.
- Retailing will be almost entirely online.
But mostly he is very cautious about the pace of change. He does not believe we will all have smart homes – “the benefits are not that great but the price is quite substantial” – and he is not convinced that autonomous cars will soon be cutting congestion in cities.
“It’s a nice vision,” he says. “I think we will see a very limited autonomy. In 10 years we might well see cars on the motorways but I don’t think we will see that in city centres – it’s just too complicated.”
And as for general artificial intelligence able to complete a variety of tasks, he thinks that is a long way off.
We are told that technology is advancing at breakneck speed. But if William Webb is right it may take something of a breather over the next decade.
Oh and in S’pore PAP still in power much to the frustration of the anti-PAP cybernuts who lost their nest when TRE closed because the cybernuts were too cheapskate to fund it. TeamTRE got tired of being taken for a ride by the cybernuts.
