“The Americans have need of the telephone, but we do not. We have plenty of messenger boys.” So predicted Britain’s Post Office chief engineer in 1876.
“The horse is here to stay, but the automobile is only a novelty–a fad.” This advice was given to Henry Ford’s lawyer by the president of the Michigan Savings Bank in 1903.
Daryl Zanuck, a film producer and co-founder of 20th Century Fox: “Television won’t be able to hold onto any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night.”
The FCC Commissioner said in 1961, “There is practically no chance communications space satellites will be used to provide better telephone, telegraph, television, or radio service inside the United States.”
And Ken Olsen, founder of Digital Equipment Corp., claimed: “There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home.”
Even machines get the future wrong. Aiera, Wells Fargo’s artificial intelligence platform, was asked where Amazon would put its second headquarters. The machine drew on a wide pool of data to predict that Amazon would choose Boston. Chicago was Aiera’s second choice, followed by Atlanta.
The actual winners, New York and Northern Virginia, were number four and unranked, respectively.
“Great is your faithfulness”
Now we’re one day from a new year. I could fill the rest of this article with predictions for 2019, but most will be as inaccurate as predictions last year that President Trump would resign, Paul Ryan would become president, and the Patriots would win the Super Bowl.
The ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus noted that we cannot step into the same river twice. Change is the only constant in our world, or so he believed.
I can think of one major exception.
The author of Lamentations prayed: “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness”…
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