One of the interesting things about these photos is that, aside from all the under-water ones, many of the contraptions exist. We just call them Roomba, Kubota tractor, Audible, Philips All-In-One Trimmer, etc. One consistent facet is that many of our modern technologies are a lot more complex on the inside, but simpler in appearance. There really is one guy pushing buttons to harvest thousands of acres.<p>There's a complex kitchen one, and many people do have robot butlers in their kitchen today, they're just corporate chic instead of nearly alchemical, and called a Keurig. Though I would not invite such a creature into my home on account of its aesthetics I do admit its impressive.<p>Another observation is that we've abstracted away the robot-ish nature of a lot of these machines. There's a special factory that makes k-cups, so that our home environment can have the simpler machine. We decided to pave millions billions(?) of miles of road, and also perfectly flatten the square footage of nearly every store and warehouse, just to make the machines run smoother. I think it would be hard for a person from 1899 to understand just how much flatness we've engineered for our cars and roombas and shopping carts to work universally.
This might be a better source, with all of the images.<p><a href="https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/a-19th-century-vision-of-the-year-2000/" rel="nofollow">https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/a-19th-century-vis...</a>
It's also interesting to see what they could not envision. For example, they obviously could not imagine that women could wear anything other than a dress.
I love scifi art from this era. La Vie Électrique (1890) had some killer illustrations. I highlighted some of my favorites here:<p><a href="https://sundry.jerryorr.com/2023/10/28/la-vie-electrique" rel="nofollow">https://sundry.jerryorr.com/2023/10/28/la-vie-electrique</a>
One of the most difficult things seems to be forecast fashion but probably the artist didn't even attempt to envision future clothing, except for technical ones. That would distract from the main point. There is even a gown in the underwater game of croquet.
This reminds me of this 1947 documentary [1] in French that imagined smartphones. Many scenes are surprisingly accurate.<p>[1]: <a href="https://youtu.be/ZKfOcR7Qbu4" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/ZKfOcR7Qbu4</a>
It’s interesting because they got so much right but they just couldn’t quite imagine the computer so they have humans pulling levers, remotely operating machinery, being carried by advanced surveillance helicopters…<p>Perhaps this hints that our vision of the future should have us doing less.
In the midst of rapid technological progress, encompassing breakthroughs in AI, chips/semiconductors, alongside the unsettling surge in global geopolitical tensions and the transformative impact of certain social media, particularly affecting Gen Z & Alpha, I find myself constantly pondering the trajectory of our future. The relentless pace of change prompts me to question what life may entail in the next 10, 40 years, or even beyond 2010.<p>Personally, I am inclined to think that as time unfolds, the complexities of forecasting the distant future intensify. Just a month ago, the notion of individuals donning AR/VR headsets while walking down the streets seemed far-fetched. However, with the release of the Vision Pro and folks using it in public places as it was a phone, I realized I would not be able to predict much in the coming future and just live the moment and hoping the best for humanity.
These pictures, 120 years old, look old and so different from current standards.<p>I like to think that in 100 years what seems modern will look the same to our descendants (if there is no event that brings us back to the Middle Ages).<p>Even today's science-fiction movies are limited by an imagination that is born from what we see around, including the ones with magic.
And we still aren’t quite there where it comes to freeing people from hard manual labor. A bit depressing if you ask me. Nobody can even make a decent house cleaning robot which knows how to clean around cables and won’t paint your entire apartment in dog diarrhea if your dog poops where it shouldn’t have.
I found more of these:
<a href="https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/a-19th-century-vision-of-the-year-2000/" rel="nofollow">https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/a-19th-century-vis...</a>
I read somewhere that people understimate how much things in the long time and overstimate how much things change in the long time.<p>Seeing this drawings is interesting because it's possible lots of things that happened are old ideas like automation in farms. The ideas are correct in some with the visuals or details different, but overall very interesting. Shows how important it is having a vision.
Now I’m curious what would be a today’s vision of life in 2124.<p>Also, could we use these to train an AI? As in: pair 1899 predictions with the actual outcome, train a model, and later provide today’s predictions of 2124 as input?
seems mostly right to me:<p>1) ok, but should be staring at iphones<p>2) not this one perhaps, given our treatment of whales<p>3) john deere tractors - it's a thing<p>4) could see many of our overvalued billionaires going for this<p>5) drone strike<p>6) robo hoover - available everywhere
See also:<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retrofuturism" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retrofuturism</a>