There’s an old saying that goes, “Predicting the future is easy … getting it right is the hard part.” Throughout history man has been making predictions of the future. With the advent of technology, the predictions moved away from religious topics to scientific and technological. The interesting part comes when one looks back on past predictions to see who was on target and who missed the mark by a mile.
There have been plenty of mundanely accurate predictions of market share, technology development and adoption rates. The predictions that stick in the mind are those that demonstrate spectacular misjudgment, misunderstanding, overly optimistic hyperbole, self-delusion or wishful thinking.
In below infographic I am listing my favorite predictions, spanning the past 150 years, that didn’t quite turn out as expected and some that were right on target:
Conclusion
We can’t hold it against these people, evolving technology can be hard to understand.
What’s your prediction of our technological future?