Future Files, Richard Watson

Published by Nicholas Brealey

Buy it now from Blackwell Books

Predicting the next 50 years

Will machines ever achieve true intelligence and overthrow humans? Will your house protect you from intruders, keep your fridge stocked and suggest ideas for dinner tonight? And will you soon be able to control your computer by thinking at it?

Richard Watson, advisor on the future to many companies, explores these and other exciting topics in his new book.

Of course no one can accurately predict the future and the farther ahead one looks, the less accurate become the forecasts. Undoubtedly things we have not yet dreamt of will shape the actual future. Nonetheless, Mr Watson paints some provocative pictures and certainly makes one think. Some of his pictures are dark and frightening, others bright and cheerful.

For example, he predicts ‘a plethora of micromedia’ that will appeal to every interest – you will choose what, when and where to be entertained. We are seeing the start of this, of course with stop and play live TV, MP3 downloads and the like. The ability to produce our own videos etc cheaply and to distribute the results via the Internet also makes it ever more likely that Andy Warhol’s ’15 minutes of fame’ prediction will soon come to pass.

Mr Watson discusses culture, science, politics, money, transport - and more. He provides an extinction timeline so you can find out when (according to Watson) coins will cease to be used, glaciers will finally disappear (both between 2030 and 2040) or spelling will finally succumb, presumably thnks to txtg.

As for innovations: child-care robots anyone? And don’t forget invisibility, landing a man on Mars and virtual holidays (I think I already take those).

Fun, fascinating and thought provoking. Enjoy but don’t have nightmares.