That 1999 article claiming we'd all have robot butlers by 2025
Found a scanned copy of a tech magazine from 1999 in my dad's garage last week. The writer swore we'd all have robot butlers doing our dishes and laundry by now. Meanwhile I'm still arguing with my smart speaker about the weather. The funny part is they got the small stuff right, like video calls, but missed the huge stuff like phones being our whole lives. I keep wondering what 2025 predictions we're making now that will look just as dumb in 25 years. Anyone else got a favorite old prediction that aged like milk?
The pattern I keep seeing is that we always guess the flashy stuff right and the boring stuff wrong. Nobody in 1999 said we'd spend 6 hours a day staring at a glass rectangle, but here we are. Same thing happened with flying cars, we got the tech for self driving but nobody wanted to give up their own steering wheel. My guess is the 2025 predictions that will look dumb are the AI ones, like how we'll all have AI friends and doctors. We already trust bots to pick our music and answer questions, but a real robot butler? My Roomba still gets stuck under the couch every single day.