Arthur C. Clarke, inventor of satellites, accurately describes the 21st century...in 1976
While other futurists predicted flying cars and robots everywhere, Clarke was more interested in where communication was headed, and his predictions are remarkably accurate decades later.
Eric Mack Cnet.com February 5, 2015
Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick
This week, AT&T released another Clarke video from its archives that was recorded at a conference in 1976. In a brief interview, Clarke expands on his vision of the time we're living in now, with a focus on communication. He nails almost everything, from the Internet and email to smartphones, Google and even smartwatches...
Clarke on the set of 2001
...A few things Clarke saw still have yet to come to pass. He imagined that our new telecommunications technologies would render all commuting moot. Both in 1964 and 1976, he talks about all travel being solely for pleasure rather than work or business..
Complete article: http://www.cnet.com/news/arthur-c-clarke-describes-the-21st-century-in-detail-in-1976/
Published on Feb 3, 2015
Arthur C. Clarke, science fiction author and futurist, crossed paths with the scientists of the Bell System on numerous occasions. In 1945, he concurrently, but independently, conceived of the first concept for a communications satellite at the same time as Bell Labs scientist, John Robinson Pierce. Pierce too, was a science fiction writer. To avoid any conflict with his day job at Bell Labs, Pierce published his stories under the pseudonym J.J. Coupling.
In the early 1960s, Clarke visited Pierce at Bell Labs. During his visit, Clarke saw and heard the voice synthesis experiments going on at the labs by John L. Kelly and Max Mathews, including Mathews’ computer vocal version of “Bicycle Built for Two”. Clarke later incorporated this singing computer into the climactic scene in the screenplay for the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, where the computer HAL9000 sings the same song. According to Bob Lucky, another Bell Labs scientist, on the same visit, Clarke also saw an early Picturephone, and incorporated that into 2001 as well.
In 1976, AT&T and MIT held a conference on futurism and technology, attended by scientists, theorists, academics and futurists. This interview with Clarke during this conference is remarkably prescient—especially about the evolution of communications systems for the next 30+ years.
The interview was conducted for an episode of a Bell System newsmagazine, but this is the raw interview footage.
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