It’s no longer a movie set in the future.
When I was a kid, I thought we’d be a lot further along, technologically, by now. Though maybe we’re getting close to flying cars. And while the world of 2001: A Space Odyssey is decades late, it looks like it’s finally approaching as well.
I guess it depends on what tech you look at.
Dick Tracy wristwatch vid phones? Check.
Forbidden Planet robots? Terminator? Check out the latest back-flipping bipedal bots, we’re definitely getting there.
Rockets that take of and land upright? Check.
Bionic Man? Making progress on controllable prosthetics and implants.
I wonder what Gwynne Shotwell is imagining when she expects breakthrough interstellar travel in her lifetime? Or maybe what she knows that the rest of us don’t? She’s more or less too old to be my daughter. (I was 13 when she was born, so while I could probably have impregnated a woman, I wasn’t getting any volunteers yet.) Maybe she expects immortality to come first.
Flying cars are coming. Check out evtol.news. There are something like 200 projects and now Burt Rutan has entered the arena.
If I can get my current projects finished I’m keen to start building some 1/3 scale models of a two seat light aircraft VTOL. Electric for VTOL, piston engine for cruise. Then the real thing. I’m surprised some enterprising EAA’er hasn’t already done so.
From 2001: A Space Odyssey:
Flat screen video?: Check
iPad?: Check
Velcro soled shoes? Well Velcro strapped sneakers, check.
Cars with clear plastic bubble tops? No, nobody wants that!
Computers that talk?: Check
Computers that see?: Check
Computers that hear?: Check (Siri, Alexa, etc.)
Computers that understand what you say? Almost. (Siri, Alexa etc.)
Routine passenger flights to LEO? Not yet.
Orbiting Space Station?: Check
Orbiting Space Station w/artificial gravity?: Not yet.
Orbiting Nuclear Weapons Platforms?: No, impractical, treaty ban.
Lunar colonies and telescopes?: No
Two way video telephony?: Check (Facetime, Skype, etc.).
Nuclear powered interplanetary spacecraft?: No.
Russian Scientists w/attitude?: Check.
Bush Babies?: No. Cabbage patch dolls instead.
Monoliths?: No. The closest we’ve gotten is this 5 pounder:
https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/71fkqqAeSmL._SL1500_.jpg
OK before somebody beats me to it. There’s this:
https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/09/11/article-0-0B22AE16000005DC-149_634x388_popup.jpg
On the other hand, in Dick’s book, the world is still recovering from some kind of limited nuclear war (the movie never states this directly, but the atmosphere certainly is a mess).
So if the lack of flying cars and offworld colonies is a disappointment, I’m glad we avoided splitting that many atoms. And the killer robots.
The biggest thing they got wrong is predicting that advanced AI would be anthropomorphic. That’s looking more and more like an anachronism, though the concept lives on in things like Westworld.
I would argue the reason advanced AI isn’t anthropomorphic is because humans are still the cheapest, easiest, anthropomorphic AI around.
I suspect you are correct. However, having seen the latest Blade Runner sequel, I also suspect that there is a strong desire for at least one AI to be anthropomorphic, even it it has to dissect a hybrid to find out how.