On Saturday morning cartoons in my childhood, we watched the Roadrunner and the Jetsons. The Jetsons started each episode by introducing George Jetson as the breadwinner in a futuristic world where everyone has a flying car.
George’s job at Spacely Space Sprockets was titled “digital index operator.” George pushed buttons to direct all the manufacturing. He often complained of being overworked when he had to push a button five times an hour, three days a week. George had a typical future family. He had a stay-at-home wife, Jane; a teenage daughter, Judy; a precocious seven-year-old son, Elroy; a talking dog named Astro and a robot maid named Rosie. Rosie had a distinct personality, loyal but with a haughty attitude. Jane managed the household with her maid. All the appliances were automated. Think of today’s Smart Appliances and robo vacuums on steroids. George commuted from their apartment in Orbit City to work in a flying saucer-like car which was totally autonomous.
Last week, I attended my high school reunion. Meeting old friends and comparing our present lives to those crazy senior class predictions got me to thinking about the future generation. Remember the pronouncement that computers would eliminate the need for paper? See how well that worked out. How about making salt water drinkable and pumping it uphill to cities? Dick Tracy communicator watches are real but sugar substitutes still need some work. I wonder, are we coming closer to the Jetson’s version of the future? Or perhaps the animated movie, “Wall-e”? A colony of people are on a never-ending journey in a spaceship. It is kind of an automated luxury ocean liner in space. People travel the hallways on levitating lounge chairs fitted with a drink dispenser, cup holders and a monitor screen to entertain them constantly. After generations of no exercise, everyone is obese and has no muscles for walking. The ship’s computer commands an army of robots to do everything for the humans.
Some of our 1950s-imagined Sci-Fi devices have already been made, they just aren’t economically practical yet! The future I predict will have Autonomous Helicopter taxis, holographic computer displays that interact with our hands, drone deliveries to your house, drone porch pirates to remove deliveries from your house, instant communication to another planet. Quantum computers and robots that do all our manufacturing. Five thousand entertainment channels with still nothing worth watching. The only exercise we will get be from picking up the remote control. Farms with flying drones to tell the drone tractors where fertilizer is needed. Dairy operations will have no workers at all.
Not all jobs will disappear. There are some things even robots will refuse to do. Bureaucrats, plumbers and lawyers have safe careers in the future. They are as eternal as cockroaches, politicians, death and taxes. Soon there will be no paper money. Coins and stamps will only be found in hobby collections. Fresh water will be 100 percent recycled, diverting it back to agriculture to make raw organic material for food synthesizers. We will have sonic showers and dish cleaners in every home. We can make all this happen. All we need are unlimited nonpolluting power sources, unlimited non-toxic minerals, and of course, a perpetual motion machine. Oh, and George Jetson’s flying car? Nah, it will never happen!
By ED PECK