6 ms·
> We've got things like 2009 - "Computers can recognize their owner's face from a picture or video. No." And ok, sure, but that has happened by 2026 and we have
by retsibsi 15d ago
> We've got things like 2009 - "Computers can recognize their owner's face from a picture or video. No." And ok, sure, but that has happened by 2026 and we have more than 2000 years of recorded history of people making predictions.
If he was often right-but-early about things that weren't even in the hypothesis space for everyone else, that would be huge, even though his dated predictions would technically be wrong. But this example seems way less exciting. Facial recognition was not a new or impossible-seeming idea, so the remarkable thing about his prediction was the part where he said "by 2009". (And yeah, 15 years is a short time compared to 2000 years, but 'recorded history of people making predictions' is not really a serious reference class for his predictions. He's a guy in the computer age making predictions about what computers will do.)