The Future Is Now? Pretty Soon, at Least

"Do you have trouble sticking to a diet? Have patience. Within 10 years, Dr. Kurzweil explained, there will be a drug that lets you eat whatever you want without gaining weight." Right. Yet, this guy—Ray Kurzweil—gets it right a lot. Hmm. "He makes his predictions using what he calls the Law of Accelerating Returns. . . . Two decades ago he predicted that “early in the 21st century” blind people would be able to read anything anywhere using a handheld device. In 2002 he narrowed the arrival date to 2008. Recently, he pulled out a new gadget the size of a cellphone, and when he pointed it at the brochure for the science festival, it had no trouble reading the text aloud." Seriously, anyone who scans trends and tries to predict the future should spend a little time learning about the Law of Accelerating Returns. It's partly about how hard it is to see acceleration when you're linearly stuck in a short time frame.