Buzz
It’s commonly believed that predicting the future is impossible in any true sense. However, even the most random, offhand, or absurd predictions can occasionally be accurate; we like to call this the “Accidental Prophet Effect,” which is closely tied to the “Even a Broken Clock Is Right Twice a Day” theory. Of course, some people claim to possess the ability to predict the future, but these individuals are almost always deceptive.
Note that we said “almost”. There are, in fact, instances of remarkably accurate predictions that defy the Accidental Prophet Effect (in case you missed that acronym), making figures like Nostradamus appear as amateurish as he truly was.
10. Roger Ebert
Predicted: High-tech displays and movie streaming back in 1987
In 1987, the renowned film critic Roger Ebert sat down for an interview with Omni magazine and was asked a straightforward question: how did he foresee the competition between movies and television evolving in the future? His response might have seemed like the musings of an intellectual at the time; today, it reads almost like the words of a true visionary:
“We will have high-definition, wide-screen televisions, and a system that lets you press a button to order the movie you want, exactly when you want it. You won’t be going to a video store anymore; instead, you'll be able to order films on demand and pay for them. Videocassettes will be a thing of the past, both for showing pre-recorded movies and for recording them. People will use 8mm film to record movies, which they’ll play back using laser-disc or CD technology... With this revolution in delivery and distribution, anyone, no matter where they live, will be able to watch the films they want to see.”
Today, the phrase “push-button dialing” feels a bit outdated, but consider the rest of his prediction. Back then, “on-demand” cable was practically nonexistent; cable TV itself was still in its early stages. The technology for video streaming was barely even a concept. Laser Discs and CDs existed, but the hybrid of the two—DVDs—wouldn’t be around for another decade. And the terms “high-definition” or “wide-screen” were not widely understood; people often mistook the black bars in widescreen home video releases as a flaw. It would be fascinating to hear Ebert’s thoughts on the same question today.
9. Elena Sheppard
Predicted: A flawless 2013 Golden Globe prediction record
Policymic, a political news and culture website/forum, was launched in 2011. In January 2013, their culture editor Elena Sheppard was tasked with live blogging the Golden Globe Awards, and achieved an extraordinary feat of prediction accuracy that no one else has been able to match.
Part of her assignment involved making predictions about which films and TV shows would win which awards—and, as with the Oscars and Emmys, there are always some surprises among the obvious winners. One would probably have better luck being struck by lightning on the red carpet than guessing every single win with absolute precision—yet that’s exactly what Elena managed to do.
A perfect 25 out of 25, and even though Elena is quite knowledgeable about movies and TV, so are many others. Professionals who are paid to make these predictions, yet somehow fail to get them all right year after year. We’re definitely curious to ask Elena a few questions before our trip to Las Vegas.
8. Robert Heinlein
Predicted: The Cold War. Also, waterbeds.
Heinlein isn’t the only science fiction writer to appear on this list; many authors in the genre are known for peering into the future and imagining what might lie ahead. Heinlein, in particular, made some remarkably accurate predictions about the future—but a few of them were incredibly specific.
In his short story “Solution Unsatisfactory,” Heinlein described a United States that develops nuclear weapons before any other country, becoming the world's only superpower and triggering a global race to build nuclear bombs. This, of course, mirrors the actual nuclear arms race and the Cold War, which began after the US dropped nuclear bombs on Japan in 1945. What’s mind-blowing is that “Solution” was written in 1940—before the US even entered World War II, at a time when the concept of nuclear weapons was still largely theoretical.
Even more bizarre is Heinlein’s near-creation of the waterbed. In his 1961 novel *Stranger In a Strange Land*, he provided a remarkably detailed description of such a bed—so specific that the eventual inventor of the waterbed struggled to get it patented. The patent wasn’t granted until 1971, and Heinlein himself claimed to have had the idea as early as the 1930s.
7. Colin Kaepernick
Predicted: The team he would play professional football for when he was just nine years old.
Colin Kaepernick was selected by the San Francisco 49ers in the 2011 NFL Draft, spending his entire rookie season on the bench behind Alex Smith, who was having a standout year. That season, the Niners would eventually lose the NFC Championship to the eventual Super Bowl champion New York Giants. Kaepernick threw for 257 yards, no touchdowns, and five interceptions in relief of Smith, and there was no indication that he could have foreseen becoming the Niners' starter the following season. In reality, he predicted this when he was just a grade schooler.
At the age of nine, Colin, who described himself as a “good athlete,” wrote in a school assignment about his intention to play for the 49ers, or possibly the Packers, “even if they aren’t good in seven years.” Sure, his spelling and math might have been a bit off, but his predictive abilities were incredibly impressive—though he did miss one detail; the cannon-armed quarterback’s breakout game in 2012 was a dominant 45-31 victory over the Green Bay Packers.
6. Arthur C. Clarke
Predicted: The iPad and online newspapers back in 1968.
Renowned science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke worked closely with Stanley Kubrick in an unprecedented collaborative process to bring both the film and novel versions of *2001: A Space Odyssey* to life. Clarke and Kubrick constantly exchanged ideas; the screenplay and novel were developed in tandem, with Kubrick making significant contributions to Clarke's writing and vice versa. One strikingly accurate prediction appears prominently in both versions: in the film *2001*, two astronauts are shown reading a newspaper on what closely resembles an iPad. Even more startling, Clarke’s novel describes— and names—this device in a way that is eerily prescient:
“When he grew weary of official reports, memoranda, and minutes, he would plug his . . . Newspad into the ship’s information circuit and browse the latest updates from Earth. One by one, he would summon the world’s major electronic newspapers . . . Each had a unique two-digit reference. Upon entering that, a postage-sized rectangle would expand to neatly fill the screen, allowing him to read comfortably. Once finished, he could zoom out to the full page and choose a new topic for deeper exploration . . . One could spend a whole lifetime simply absorbing the constantly shifting flow of data from the news satellites.”
This portrayal, along with its depiction in Kubrick’s film, was so spot-on that Samsung used it as part of its defense for the Galaxy tablet when Apple filed a patent infringement lawsuit—a legal battle still ongoing in U.S. courts.
5. The Onion
Predicted: The RIAA pressuring radio stations in 2002.
The satirical news outlet The Onion offers a wealth of humor that spans both intentional and unintentional comedy. While it consistently delivers laughs on purpose, there have been many instances where foreign news organizations—presumably perplexed by Western satire—have mistakenly treated Onion articles as factual. It’s less amusing, however, when one of these satirical pieces turns out to be eerily prophetic.
In 2002, the RIAA had just emerged victorious in its battle with Napster, and the heated conversation about online piracy was just beginning. Lawsuits against individuals for file sharing were on the rise, and The Onion published a timely article titled, “RIAA Sues Radio Stations For Giving Away Free Music.” At the time, the idea seemed absurd—until 2008.
The RIAA, having recently stopped targeting individuals (mainly due to lack of profitability), shifted its focus to radio broadcasting, claiming that radio could be considered a form of piracy, though not in the traditional sense we think of.”
We don’t believe that was their actual argument. The real point seemed to be that without radio exposure, the music industry, as we know it, wouldn’t survive. While the RIAA’s various extortion attempts have largely failed, they certainly haven’t lacked ambition.
4. Apple
Predicted: Touchscreen devices and Siri in 1987.
In 1987, a year that proved to be quite prophetic, Apple released a promotional video titled “Knowledge Navigator,” which took a glimpse into the future, imagining some of the technological advancements that would become part of our everyday lives in about 25 years. As the video progresses, the accuracy of these predictions grows increasingly uncanny.
The video shows a professor preparing for his afternoon lecture, working on a proto-iPad—a flat tablet PC (with an older version of Mac OS) featuring a touchscreen. Surprisingly, this is the least bizarre aspect of the video.
Most of the professor’s interactions are handled by the “Knowledge Navigator,” a voice-activated assistant that resembles some of Apple’s current products. While working, the professor receives a video call from a colleague, which is essentially Skype in its modern form.
The strangest moment comes when the professor retrieves a five-year-old article, dated 2006, with a calendar showing September as the current month. This suggests the video takes place in late 2011, around the time the iPhone 4S was launched, introducing Apple’s own voice assistant, Siri. If only Siri had the cool Steve Nye-style avatar from the video.
3. Ray Kurzweil
Predicted: Practically all modern technological developments.
Raymond Kurzweil’s life and work are too remarkable to capture fully in just a few lines. He’s created numerous groundbreaking inventions, including text-to-speech software and speech recognition devices, and has authored five bestselling novels. Currently serving as Google’s Director of Engineering, Kurzweil has also made countless predictions as a futurist, with an astonishingly high accuracy rate. His forecasts don’t just come true—they often unfold exactly as he predicted, down to the timing.
To highlight just a few of his many prescient predictions: in his book *The Age Of Intelligent Machines*, Kurzweil foresaw the collapse of the Soviet Union by 1991, a computer defeating top human players at *chess* by 2000, and the widespread availability of wireless internet in the early 21st century. In *The Age Of Spiritual Machines* (1999), he anticipated E-books, facial recognition software, and advances in nanotechnology—just a handful of his remarkably accurate forecasts.
Kurzweil reported that by 2009, 89 of the 108 predictions he had made were completely accurate. Of the remaining 13, he classified them as “essentially correct”—likely to be realized in the coming years. A review conducted in 2012 confirmed that Kurzweil’s forecasts are right an astonishing 86 percent of the time. The good news? This is the same visionary who has predicted that humanity will soon conquer death altogether.
2. Philco-Ford
Predicted: Online shopping and email in 1967.
Philco, a trailblazer in electronics since its inception in 1892 with carbon arc lamps, became the dominant early manufacturer of radios. In 1961, it was acquired by the Ford Motor Company, and to mark its 75th anniversary, the company created a short film envisioning life in the distant future. The film, titled *“Year 1999 A.D.”*, explored a future decades ahead.
Though the film’s style is very much rooted in the 1960s, and the finer details reflect the era, the technological predictions featured in the brief two-minute video are truly remarkable for their foresight.
In the 1960s, people imagined a world with online shopping, paying bills electronically, funds transfers, compact home laser printers, and even 'instant written communication between individuals anywhere in the world'—essentially what we now know as email, long before the Internet was even a distant thought. When this video circulated in the mid-2000s, its eerie accuracy led many to believe it was a hoax, until Snopes confirmed its authenticity. It wasn’t quite spot on enough to shed 1960s gender stereotypes, but that's another story.
1. John Elfreth Watkins, Jr.
Predicted: Television and mobile phones in 1900.
Mr. Watkins was a civil engineer and railroad man who, after an accident that left him disabled, became a curator at the Smithsonian Institute. In 1900, he penned an article for *Ladies’ Home Journal* titled *“What May Happen in the Next Hundred Years”*. In this article, Mr. Watkins made a variety of predictions about the century to come; some, despite seeming counter-intuitive at the time, were surprisingly accurate. Among the most impressive predictions—and keep in mind, this was over 100 years ago—were:
'Man will see around the world. Persons and things of all kinds will be brought within focus of cameras connected electrically with screens at opposite ends of circuits, thousands of miles at a span.' — This could easily apply to satellite television, the Internet, or possibly both.
'There will probably be from 350,000,000 to 500,000,000 people in America.' — At the time, many were predicting a much higher population, especially since the American population was rapidly growing.
'Ready-cooked meals will be bought from establishments similar to our bakeries of today.' — Freeze-dried foods, packaged meals, and electric refrigerators were still a distant idea at this point in time.
'Photographs will be telegraphed from any distance. If there is a battle in China a hundred years hence, snapshots of its most striking events will be published in newspapers an hour later... Photographs will reproduce all of nature’s colors.' — A clear prediction of digital photography and image sharing. And perhaps the most remarkable of all:
'Wireless telephone and telegraph circuits will span the world. A husband in the middle of the Atlantic will be able to converse with his wife sitting in her boudoir in Chicago. We will be able to telephone to China as easily as we now talk from New York to Brooklyn.' — At the time, nobody but Tesla might have been thinking along these lines, but Mr. Watkins had already envisioned it.
Sadly, Watkins passed away in 1903, never having witnessed any of his predictions become a reality.
