CFOs ON SAFARI TO THE FUTURE On 24 February, finance and HR professionals gathered online for the Fearless Future Summit, hosted by CFO South Africa, during which they explored how accurate science writer Arthur C Clarke’s predictions from the 70s were, and then had the opportunity to live one of his predictions themselves.
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rofessor Ian Glenn, research associate in communications sciences at the University of the Free State and emeritus professor of media studies at the University of Cape Town, kicked off the virtual Fearless Future Summit by sharing some of science writer Arthur C Clarke’s predictions of the future that he made in the 70s.
The future, today Clarke worked on the famous film in 1968 called “2001: A Space Odyssey”. “In this movie we are introduced to a computer called HAL, which takes over a spaceship and attacks the humans on board. So the notion of our uneasy relationship with artificial intelligence is also there,” Ian said. In 1976 Clarke gave a talk in which he looked at what the future held and said, “the basic ingredients of the ideal communications device are therefore already in common use, even today. The standard computer console with keyboard and visual display, plus hifi sound and TV camera, will do very nicely. Through such an instrument one can have face-to-face interaction with anyone, anywhere on Earth, and send or receive any type of information.” Ian said that, after rereading Clarke’s book “The view from Serendip” during lockdown, one of the predictions jumped out at him. Clarke had said, “We are already
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approaching the point where it will be feasible, not necessarily desirable, for those engaged in white-collar jobs to do perhaps 95 percent of their work without leaving home… Apart from the saving in travel time, there will be astronomical economies in power and raw materials.” Clarke foresaw some of the psychological problems that came with these advances. He said, “The trouble is, that [the easy and constant accessibility to information] is going to turn some of us into ‘infomaniacs’.” Arthur even predicted virtual safaris, something attendees of the evening had a chance to experience during the last hour of the event. “How nice to be able to make a trip to the Amazon with a few dozen unknown friends scattered all over the world, with perfect sound and vision, being able to ask your guide questions, suggest detours, request closeups of interesting plants and animals. In fact, sharing everything except the mosquitos and the heat,” he wrote.
The future is already possible Once the audience had made their predictions, they returned to the main “room”, in which TomorrowToday Global founder and futurist Graeme Codrington outlined possible technology of the future. “Any useful idea of the future must appear ridiculous at first,” Graeme said. “The reason it has to appear ridiculous at first, is that if we just take what we are already
