Isaac Asimov's Predictions for 2019: A Look Back

The year 2019 is upon us, and not a few will try to anticipate its changes and movements. In fact, the year 2019 has been the target of multiple calculations and predictions, and among the most notable are those made by Isaac Asimov. On the last day of 1983, the creator of the Foundation series shared his futuristic ideas in a Canadian newspaper, and now that we find ourselves in that future, the question is: how did he do?

A video that often appears in my feed shows Isaac Asimov talking about the potential of technology applied to self-learning. Almost automatically, that video is associated with the modern version of the Internet, and if we consider the impressive volume of resources available (from platforms to learn programming to Wikipedia itself), let's say the author hit the mark. But that's not Asimov's only prediction. While he was passionate about education, he didn't hesitate to speak about politics, economics, and social conflicts.

The 1983 Forecast

His most important 'list' of predictions dates back to 1983, specifically December 31. The Toronto Star invited Asimov to answer a question: What will the world be like in 2019? That leap of three and a half decades is not coincidental, because in 1984 it would be 35 years since the chilling future George Orwell imagined in his novel '1984'. Asimov began by noting something obvious for that era: if the United States and the Soviet Union went to the extreme of a nuclear exchange before 2019, it would be useless to visualize a future for the few surviving humans. Therefore, favoring this exercise, he decided to assume that there would be no nuclear war between the two countries.

First, he highlighted the spectacular advance of computerization, which would continue in an 'inevitable' manner. He also mentioned the so-called 'mobile computerized object', a byproduct that would take only 'a generation' to penetrate homes. In these lines, Asimov talks about resistance to the march of computers, but deems a Luddite revolution unlikely. At the same time, 'the growing complexity of society' would make it impossible to continue without computerization, unless one wishes to 'court chaos'. The suffering of those who lag behind would be so obvious that authorities would seek computerization with the same intensity as weaponry.

Here is where his predictions become a bit darker, if you will. Asimov mentions that the immediate effect of computerization is the radical change in work habits. The shift 'from the farm to the factory' was 'quick and painful', and although he had no major reason to believe that the new transition would be destructive (annihilating more jobs than it creates), he recognized greater speed, and therefore greater pain. The combination of computers and robots would make all those 'simple, repetitive, and lacking initiative' jobs disappear, triggering changes in the education system. Just as the appearance of the factory demanded reading and writing from its workers, millions of 'untrained' people would be forced to face a complex re-education process. Asimov imagined that by 2019, this transition would be complete. Otherwise, those who were not retrained would be assigned to other useful roles, and in the case of 'less wise governments', supported 'begrudgingly' with some form of social assistance.

Asimov also visited in the original text problems such as overpopulation (combated with plans to reduce the birth rate), the lack of human responsibility regarding pollution and waste (the technology of 2019 should enable the means to reverse the damage), and the rise of militarism, with the hope that in the future all nations would get along well enough to live under something similar to a world government. I'm afraid the writer was quite wrong there.

Another area where Asimov's predictions failed is outer space. While he declares that 'we will go into space to stay', and that the International Space Station has been occupied for almost two decades, the author said that humanity would return to the Moon, creating there a permanent international presence with mining operations that would obtain the necessary material to shape new facilities in Earth orbit. Those new structures would be 'guarantors of world peace', and of sustained cooperation among nations. The peak of that evolution would manifest through the relocation of entire industries to Earth orbit, accompanied by the first residential complexes.

The Verdict

Some modern critics basically say that Isaac Asimov's predictions hit the easy ones and miss the hard ones, but we'd be wrong to deny him the credit he deserves. After all, predicting the technological future of humanity is nearly impossible. Think about the last... 15 years? Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, Twitter... they are very young companies that intervene in our lives at a very deep level. Now try to imagine what's coming, and you'll understand the challenge.

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