Predictions of the future are often laughable when reviewed in the years for which they are made. For example, here in 2026 we neither live on the Moon, nor have flying cars. But sometimes they come closer to the reality than others, and in that the BBC Archive have an interesting offering. It’s a Newsnight feature from 2006 looking at the future of artificial intelligence, and since its main interviewee is none other than Sir Clive Sinclair, it’s worth a second look.
Watching the video it’s a shock to be reminded that 2006 was twenty years ago, as in so many ways it’s close enough to touch. Back then we had laptops with Windows or Linux, we had the Web, and HDTV, as we do today. But as we sat in our Ford Focus family car it would be on a Nokia that we rang home; while technically a smartphone it was nothing like the Apple and Android devices that would take the world by storm in the following years. Sir Clive is positive about the development of AI as he saw it then, seeing it as providing knowledge based services such as education or healthcare from your computer. The following interviewee from British Telecom perhaps puts his finger on the pulse the most, predicting a path “Over the next few years” that seems pretty familiar to us a couple of decades later.
So for once this is a future prediction that doesn’t seem too outlandish. Aside from Sir Clive’s appearance it’s packed with retro technology goodies, so it’s well worth a watch below.
It’s both fascinating and confusing same time to think of anything of the 2000s to be “historical”.
I mean, back then™ there were such documentaries about even earlier days already.
In a few years, people will probably quote some incredible “visionary” person from the 2020 who was so incredible, uh, “farsighted”.
It can make you feel old, yeah. The upshot is that we can say stuff like “way back in ’94” and pretend to be an old prospector talking about the gilded age.
There’s been people writing documentaries about “back then” since… er… “back then” 😂
I’m fairly sure each generation has said this since writing was invested.
It does drive home that AI evangelism was a thing long long before LLM existed. Films such as Tron and Terminator posited autonomy and agency would be pre-eminent features, and yet we exist now where AI is a text prediction chatbot that only responds to inputs.
Imagine if Skynet had to wait for their user to buy more tokens, or the nuclear holocaust that wasnt bc noone bothered to write the prompt.
Current LLMs are more like a mixture of Eliza and TNG’s Computer Voice, I think.
In their appearance, I mean.
Except that in TNG was/is used more like a database that gave/gives short, precise, formal answers.
In TOS this even more noticeable, the voice was more robotic etc.
(-TOS was written in a time before glass terminals were common in real world,
that’s perhaps why voice i/o was used instead of screens/keyboard-)
Also, the portrait citizens of the UFP were/are more self-aware of their use of A.I..
Most of the time they rely/relied on their own abilities and saw/see it as a tool rather than an iGod.
Asking the computer wasn’t seen as being smart but rather as a rational compromise.
In a humbling way, as if someone (a teen?) had to resort to asking their parents if he/she didn’t know or understanding something.
In Roddenberrys universe AI is built on technological systems that have biology, such as the Borg or the Noonien-Singh created Synth species.
In this case Roddenberry commits AI evangelism, in that he imbues AI with human/biological qualities. Huang and Altman are guilty of recycling this tactic with AI industry written memos that hit newpapers with headlines about apocalyptic outcomes and human extinction. Its all the rile up opinion to get even more investors hot for a James Cameron singularity that is neither feasible nor a coherent understanding of our situation with AI.
Hi, from what I read, Mr. Roddenberry wanted a positive view on technology that did help humanity, rather than control and replace it.
TOS episodes that come to my mind are the M5 episode and the Landru episode.
Furthermore, the episode in which Mr. Spock’s brain was stolen and the one of the two planets that were at war via computers.
They all questioned how far reliance on technology should go and how important human judgement is.
Also, I’m afraid that ST is being referenced/used by those tech bros because
it was a real world inspiration to geeks and tinkerers since the 1960s.
Even back in the mainframe era there were Star Trek computer games
being written and played on telex machines and serial glass terminals.
Star Trek simulations with Klingons as the enemy were ported to about any platform.
They had an SRS/LRS grid, an parser for input and a status line.
Along with Eliza, Lunar Lander, Zork, Adventure and Hunt The Wumpus, Star Trek was one of the earliest computer games
(not counting countless poker, tic-tac-toe and chess games, these were generic games).
So in the past, ST wasn’t just a random sci-fi franchise,
but something that truely had an influence on technology and people.
What comes to mind: Tthe Space Shuttle prototype was named Enterprise and
one of the ISS astronauts even had worn an ST outfit on ISS once.
Basically Star Trek is: communism “if only we ran it properly” – the nod to the Klingons in that vane is hilarious in the late 80’s knowing whats about to happen.
This notion that mankind will do things to better themselves and somehow it comes together in harmony just completely fails to account for lawyers, HR and bureaucrats.
You’re supposed to out grow it.
Bob, I understand, to US Americans everything besides Ferengi-style capitalism must be seen as communism/socialism.
But that’s not so simple. ST society encourages free thinking, freedom, seeking for truth and is peaceful.
It’s even less communist than ST’s country of origin, the US, here.
One of the reasons the society in ST works so well is because the basic needs are being satisfied and there’s no energy shorttage.
There’s the replicator, for example, which helps in this regard.
PS: Also, before someone comes up with Starfleet being military etc.:
No, not quite. It’s more like a form of merchant marine.
Hm. I think that Mr. Data and his relatives are more regarded as artificial lifeforms than A.I. per se here.
Though the Exocomps started out as tools but developed a certain degree of self-awareness in one episode, which made people think.
(Their artifical net was rewiring, it wasn’t just A.I. software but more like an evolution/mutation.)
The hologram people are basically A.I., but are shaped after living people and their personalities.
They’re somehow inbetween conventional A.I. and artificial life, not sure.
That’s why the episodes with the holo doctor in Voyager or Vic Fontaine in DS9 are so outstanding, I guess.
They do inherit human judgement and self-awareness, unlike most of the other holograms do.
(with Da Vinci and a few others being excepted, maybe).
About the Borg.. I’m not sure if Mr. Roddenberry was happy about them.
The TNG writers must have loved them as a story element, though, I suppose.
They’re basically opposite to UFP values, making them great antagonists.
By contrast, the Bynars are an example of a peaceful cyborg civilisation, I think.
They have a biological body but use implants to communicate with each others.
Are you forgetting all the episodes of TNG when they fought the computer??
Well yeah… being able to produce a passable conversation partner through technical skill has been a fantasy since probably classical times. The surprising part is actually how freaked out people are now that we’re actually closing in on it, but I guess that’s human nature as well.
You have your evangelists/ai psychosis burnouts on one side, and then you have the crazed end-is-nigh sidewalk signboard apocalypse preachers as well. Frankly those people remind me of the y2k bug doomsday preppers decades ago. I think they have a hard time pointing out any significant evidence, it’s mostly bluster and then hysterical anger if you don’t agree with them
Self-optimizing of A.I. is a real danger, because everything happens on a different time scale and human developers can’t keep up with it.
It’s like a living cell that multiplies fast and faster every generation, it’s a nightmare.
And they were absolutely right, I think.
Thanks to the Y2k panic, people all around the globe got aware of the Y2k situation and fixed it!
People did overtime to remove buggy systems before the clock hit midnight.
They ran Y2k-ready test software, installed new Y2k-ready EPROMs or replaced whole motherboards,.
That’s why almost nothing happened. Ordinary, simple people have no idea what how much effort was spent to avoid a catastrophy.
It simply means 2000s where the last decade of major computer inventions, and for the 20 year since there hasn’t been much new since (relatively speaking).
Hi, I feel same. 2006 feels as if it was about 7 years ago..
The only difference I see in daily life is that the 2000s had more color somehow.
I used to think this was just an illusion of my own age and everyone went through the same thing, but after talking to younger people a lot I think it’s actually true, we sucked the color out of life somehow along the way. It is shocking how desperately empty the lives of most kids are
2000’s had goatse.cx