"LA 2013" Futurist Article by LA Times Magazine from 1988

[Locutus of Bored]

Now that 2013 has come to a close, this seemed like a timely article to share. In 1988, LA Times Magazine published an article taking a look forward 25 years into the future to the Los Angeles of 2013. They consulted futurists, scientists, city planners, educators, engineers, doctors, police, etc. on the article and it was illustrated by the great artist Syd Mead of Blade Runner (also set in a very different Los Angeles of 2019, just five years away) and Aliens fame (among many other projects). As with most future predictions, they were a tad enthusiastic on many things to put it mildly, and missed some of the major developments that are ubiquitous today and we take for granted, but were undiscovered or in their infancy at the time. However, it's still interesting to see where they thought we were headed back then, and they at least avoided clichés like everyone having flying cars and jet packs.

This article had a profound effect on me as a teen. I was always interested in science fiction (TNG had just started airing less than a year earlier) and the future and so forth, but it was rare to see it from the perspective of portraying a future glimpse of the area I lived in in such detail. Because of that, I still have my copy of the magazine to this day, because I hoped to check on it when 2013 came to pass.

The LA Times was nice enough to post the article online in its entirety. It's an interesting read and well worth the time, or it's at least worth sorting through for the illustrations if you're a fan of Mead's work. Enjoy.

http://documents.latimes.com/la-2013/


ETA: Since this topic would be kind of limited in scope by itself, if anyone has any other interesting futurist articles or artistic visions about the recent past, present day, or near future they'd like to share, feel free to do so. I've always found the subject fascinating. We've almost reached the future of Back to the Future 2, for example, though (besides being done mostly for comedic effect) it's pretty far out in some respects.

 

[Spot's Meow]

Interesting. I didn't read every word but I was skimming it and the parts I read actually weren't that crazy. Like the wife being an information specialist with a degree in library science who telecommutes. I know people who do exactly that.

What's always interesting to me is the advances in education that are predicted. Such as the individual 3" x 5" devices that students carry to contain their work. Of course such things exist now but they are hardly used primarily for educational purposes. If you visit many classrooms they don't really look much different today than they did 25 years ago, or even 50 years ago in some cases.

I also find it interesting how much stock predictions place in computers and robots. They always seem to predict them having some sort of sentience that allows them to think for us. If anything, advanced computers actually require more human interaction, thought, and analysis (i.e. computers can spit us out so much information that we struggle to figure out how to make sense of it all).

 

[sojourner]

The home robot is always 25 years away. Like fusion power.

(No, a Roomba is not a robot. It's an automated appliance)

 

[Greylock Crescent]

Thanks for sharing that. It's interesting to see the juxtaposition of a personal home robot - and a personally printed newspaper. A lot of the automation mentioned in the article is certainly possible nowadays, but not necessarily in the slick, streamlined fashion illustrated in the article. Also, the rather optimistic view of LA in general would have necessitated a great deal more civic spending then it has had (or any metropolitan area has had, for that matter).

As a teacher, I was amused by the "wall-sized computer displays" it predicted in classrooms. With the advent of the SMART Boards, that's actually starting to happen. Many schools have access to laptops and tablets for student use, instead of pencil and paper. And the "smart cards" are reminiscent of thumb drives.

Cool.

 

[Amaris]

I love reading these, thanks for the link, Locutus. I think they pretty much nailed cars, which is good, but anything involving changing major public infrastructure doesn't seem to have come anywhere close. Making small changes, like to a car, is pretty simple over time, but changes to infrastructure? Those take ages because of public policy, and motivation. Sure, one or two brand new high rise buildings might pop up every so often, but what we saw of LA in those "future" images just wasn't going to happen. Now, if they would have said 250 years into the future? Sure, I would expect to see such major changes, but it's rare that an entire city would change that drastically in a mere 25 years.

Of course, what makes these predictions fun are all the little embellishments here and there, like having a robot would be normal, but reading a printed newspaper would still be commonplace (as Sam mentioned above). At the time, personal computing was growing, but I don't think anyone predicted the internet, or what it would do to information technology. Still, they did hit the mark on telecommuting, and live video conferencing with people around the globe.

It's hard as hell to predict the future by progressing current technology past its limits. Who the hell thought back in 1988 that the 5 lbs brick they used to call the office would evolve into such a ubiquitous, multimedia information powerhouse? Social factors play such a key role in it as well. By now, we could have had high speed rails all across the country, robots in every home, schools with video wall screens, and computer integrated into school desks, but schools move slowly; town councils can be glacial; governments can drag their feet if they don't like the prospect of doing these things, and these things do cost lots of money. The assumption that technology and social order will progress together, at the same rate, is what usually knocks these predictions so far off course.

Still, it's a lot of fun to read when you live in the "future" they can't wait to see.

 

[Ramicus]

I only skimmed it, and did the same with your initial post. A few things I noticed.

- You mentioned Back to the Future 2. In 2010, Nike actually filed for a patent on a self-lacing system. And then you had the Nike Air Mags, which were worn in the show and also sold commercially. Plus the fact that Miami now has an MLB team, even if they can never play the Cubbies in the Series.
-The article mentions video-conferences. That's very real. In ninth grade, I did a semester of school online, and that was all by video and the like. So there's that.
-Instantaneous conversing between distant places. We have email, we have instant messenger systems, and we have texting.
-The classroom computers. We have those. My school has a SMARTboard in all but one or two classrooms. They also bought a whole bunch of iPads, which many students use for online classes (which also references the video conferences and the instantaneous conversations).
-Tall buildings. 73 floors? We've gone much further recently.
-Mandatory workouts. Yeah, right. Welcome to 'Merica. In the words of Ron Swanson, "The whole point of this country is if you want to eat garbage, balloon up to 600 pounds, and die of a heart attack at 43, you can. You are free to do so. To me, that's beautiful."

 

[Sector 7]

Some predictions were rather accurate, for wealthy people and private schools. However, most of it was indeed science fiction.

Many private schools issue or require laptops or tablets for their students. Most public schools do not.

Smart Houses are a reality, if you can afford the exorbitant prices. For the 99%, it is out of their reach.

Home robots with artificial intelligence is still in the realm of science fiction today.

 

[TheMasterOfOrion]

What has come to be in LA - long lines of traffic, rage of forest fires, gay rights debates, violent street crime such as robbery and aggravated assault, higher drug rates? no abortion or pro-choice? property bubbles and job shortages, more political corruption, more tax and gun restrictions, large number of illegals, Spielberg and mayor Eric Garcetti warning of 'state of emergency' as production in Hollywood shuts.....basically the same ol' S- for LA

and just to stay on topic

Aus had a funny show
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDeS8Sco07k
Beyond 2000

 

[Marc]

W]

and just to stay on topic

Aus had a funny show
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDeS8Sco07k
Beyond 2000

nothing funny about it - that comments shows ignorance.

it evolved from another highly regarded show called Towards 2000.

before being derailed by commercial interests it was a look at where things were going with technology done by people with journalistic backgrounds and would travel around the world filming their reports.

when beyond 2000 first went to air, the onscreen talent set up a production company called Beyond Intenational which amongst other shows produces Mythbusters.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

What has come to be in LA - long lines of traffic, rage of forest fires, gay rights debates, violent street crime such as robbery and aggravated assault, higher drug rates? no abortion or pro-choice? property bubbles and job shortages, more political corruption, more tax and gun restrictions, large number of illegals, Spielberg and mayor Eric Garcetti warning of 'state of emergency' as production in Hollywood shuts.....basically the same ol' S- for LA

and just to stay on topic

Would have been nice if you had thought of that before taking a giant dump on the thread with your usual misanthropy, apathy, bitterness, offensiveness, and your astonishing level of willful ignorance. Thanks for your contribution, though! At least the second part after you decided to "stay on topic" was somewhat worthwhile.

I'd ask you to expand on and explain your stream of consciousness rant, since some of the things you said are so far out of left field or wildly inaccurate (No abortion or pro-choice? WTF? Or the fact that illegal immigration is currently at net zero. Or that crime is vastly on the decline in almost all categories since 1988), but then I realized, I honestly don't care what your opinion is in any way now, except for how it negatively affects my thread and others.

What's funny is, a few of your comments about logistical concerns, infrastructure demands, social trends, and so forth could actually have been topical and legitimate points for discussion in this futurism thread, but since they're framed amid such a bitter, offensive, inaccurate, and negative rant (OMG, the GAYS dare to demand equal civil rights and the Mexicans are coming!) about current events that irritate you, I'm no longer interested in discussing it with you, since it would likely just be a gateway to more hateful or ignorant nonsense.

So, I'll ask others to please not engage him and just stick to the topic too. I'm sure you'll complain about how mean old Locutus just randomly picked on poor unfortunate innocent you who was just trying to contribute constructively to the discussion when he was randomly attacked out of the blue for no Earthly reason whatsoever, since that seems to be the preferred narrative, but please spare me.

 

[mari]

@Sector7 I believe the LA Unified School District just issued iPads to all (middle school? too lazy to google) students. Said students immediately unlocked them and started using banned apps like Facebook and YouTube. The school district is calling it "hacking"... I call it "administrators not understanding how iPad settings work".

My favorite part of the article was how utterly inept the home robot was. Absolutely not worth the trouble. I'm on grandma's side in that argument.

I think the "house calling 911 every time it detects smoke" would quickly turn into a taxpayer revolt. Every time the robot burns dinner they send out the fire trucks? That's a bit expensive. Although we do have home security systems that will do that, they usually have someone call the house first just to check it wasn't grandma smoking in bed.

And since you mentioned BTTF2, those printed personalized newspapers reminded me of all the dot matrix fax machines Marty's boss fired him by.

 

[Greylock Crescent]

^ That BTTF2 bit is pretty funny now. And speaking of the film, here's an interesting article: 11 Predictions That Back to the Future Part II Got Right

Personally, I think our HD TVs get are one way in which we exceeded the film's vision of the future.

 

[B.J.]

-Mandatory workouts. Yeah, right. Welcome to 'Merica. In the words of Ron Swanson, "The whole point of this country is if you want to eat garbage, balloon up to 600 pounds, and die of a heart attack at 43, you can. You are free to do so. To me, that's beautiful."

Actually, the changes that my company has made in the last few years to our health care options makes me believe that mandatory workouts will be a very real possibility soon, at least if you want to stay employed. Not only have they instituted mandatory health assessments (including blood work, weight, nutrition, and exercise questionnaires), but they put you in contact with a health adviser to help you plan how to improve all those things. Now I don't mind having those things available, but it really annoyed me when they made them mandatory. Also, it used to be that they offered a $50 gift certificate to take the health assessment. Now, they charge you an extra $200 a month from your paycheck if you don't.

 

[B.J.]

ETA: Since this topic would be kind of limited in scope by itself, if anyone has any other interesting futurist articles or artistic visions about the recent past, present day, or near future they'd like to share, feel free to do so.

Here's one I just came across in my FB feed: Isaac Asimov predicts in 1964 what the world will look like in 2014

I liked this statement: "Robots will neither be common nor very good in 2014, but they will be in existence." Does seem to be true for the most part!

 

[Marc]

Also, it used to be that they offered a $50 gift certificate to take the health assessment. Now, they charge you an extra $200 a month from your paycheck if you don't.

Probably found a) people really didn't give a shit about the $50 gift certificate so it wasn't much of an incentive and b) the company would still have had to pay for it.

Hitting you $200 means the company doesn't have to pay out for gift certificates and it's a bigger incentive to take the assessment (and let me guess - you have to take it on your own time).

Now come to think of apart from the mandated exercise routing did the article linked in the OP say much about health care?

Afterall Trek has had biobeds since 1966 and I'm sure there are other sci-fi examples of similar medical technologies.

I guess we now have MRI and Cat scans which probably own just as much to advances in computing as they do medicine.

 

[trekkiedane]

illustrated by the great artist Syd Mead

It sure was

Easily recognizable so even

 

[scotpens]

Home robots with artificial intelligence is still in the realm of science fiction today.

If by "robot," we mean a machine that looks, walks and talks like a human being and possesses artificial intelligence, it will probably always be science fiction. Such a machine would basically be an expensive toy.

 

[Amaris]

Home robots with artificial intelligence is still in the realm of science fiction today.

If by "robot," we mean a machine that looks, walks and talks like a human being and possesses artificial intelligence, it will probably always be science fiction. Such a machine would basically be an expensive toy.

A lot of things we have today would have been considered expensive toys 25+ years ago. I think there will be robots, at least for utility purposes, within the next 50 years or so.

 

[scotpens]

A lot of things we have today would have been considered expensive toys 25+ years ago. I think there will be robots, at least for utility purposes, within the next 50 years or so.

Aren't all machines, by definition, for utility purposes? There are millions of robots in use today, but their design is optimized for specific tasks.

It's like the old science-fiction predictions of telephones with live 2-way video. The technology exists now -- in fact, it's been around for at least the last couple of decades -- but how many people use video for everyday phone conversations? There's simply no need for it. The telephone was invented for voice communication, and that's what we still use it for.

 

[Amaris]

A lot of things we have today would have been considered expensive toys 25+ years ago. I think there will be robots, at least for utility purposes, within the next 50 years or so.

Aren't all machines, by definition, for utility purposes? There are millions of robots in use today, but their design is optimized for specific tasks.

It's like the old science-fiction predictions of telephones with live 2-way video. The technology exists now -- in fact, it's been around for at least the last couple of decades -- but how many people use video for everyday phone conversations? There's simply no need for it. The telephone was invented for voice communication, and that's what we still use it for.

I'm talking more about commercial utility rather than industrial utility. Think the FedEx robot from "I, Robot."