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While I'm on an early 90s nostalgia kick, and since a Twitter exchange today reminded me I've meant to do this for awhile, let's revist the AT&T "You Will" commercials.
As far as I'm concerned, these are iconic commercials. Maybe I was just the right demographic at the right time, but they sank deep, deep into my brain, becoming one of the main standards by which the future was judged. And they're a perfect snapshot of the futurism of the day, caught in an awkward transition from an 80s vision of a dirty CRT future to the happy consumer, information-centric view we're still working from.
They're even pretty good in terms of predictions.
"Have you ever sent a fax from the beach?" Um, yuck, who would want to? Typical mistake of assuming new tech will slavishly mimic the old tech. But one could do this if they wanted to, and the much more socially acceptable act of sending an email from a tablet or laptop certainly fulfills the intent.
"Have you ever crossed the country without stopping to ask directions?" GPS renderings aren't quite as fly-through-3D yet, but the interface shown is pretty stupid. I'll take the Google Maps/StreetView enabled GPS directions on my Android over that any day.
"Have you ever borrowed a book from thousands of miles away?" Borrow? Again, stuck in the paradigms of the past. I can certainly have access to a wide range of books, and better yet, they aren't silly video of a book with its pages turning, but searchable text. There are a lot of books missing still, but that's due to legal issues and not technological limitations.
"Have you ever paid a toll without slowing down?" Very standard most places with tolls, and you don't have to swipe your credit card each time either. Tollbooth architecture isn't quite that cool yet, though.
"Have you ever bought concert tickets from a cash machine?" This is almost as funny as the fax one. Why would I want to do that at an ATM? I can do that from my phone, from every computer I sit down at. We've not only met the goal, we've done it a way that is roughly 1000x times better.
"Have you ever attended a meeting in your bare feet?" and "Have you ever learned special things from far-away places?" and "Have you ever tucked your baby in from a phone booth?" Yeah, we have videoconferencing -- and no one really bothers. My head would have exploded, had I known. Also: phone booths, lol. Also also, most people I know could attend meetings in bare feet in person if they really wanted to. Not having been a professional in 1994, I don't know if this is actually new or not.
"Have you ever opened doors with the sound of your voice?" We fail this one. I mean, I could set it up if I wanted to, but we're a long way from residential use of electronic locks, much less biometric ones. And that's probably just as well.
"Have you ever carried your medical history in your wallet?" Well, the US is 10-15 years behind the rest of world when it comes to electronic medical records. Of course, the commercial isn't clear if this is a universal system or not, so it depends where you live. Pretty big fail all around, safe to say.
"Have you ever watched the movie you wanted to the minute you wanted to?" We've managed this even better than the book one, since movie piracy is far more comprehensive than book piracy. But Netflix streaming is close. A bit of extra work using Bittorrent, and you're there.
Overall, pretty good. But not without flaws. Most obviously, our devices are far, far better. They didn't get cell phones/mobile tech at all -- they still have payphones! The only mobile device we see is a tablet that sends pretend paper over fax for some reason. They missed being able to carry all the music you own around with you at all times. They missed the average person having a device that can (incidentally!) record and edit and upload video at any where, any time.
Worse, everything seems to be done with giant centralized systems, which would suck. This is the future without net neutrality. AT&T might think to invent ATM ticket sales, but it would never come up with Craigslist or IM or Twitter or YouTube or Bittorrent or Wikipedia or Chatroulette or any a million crazy, insane projects. The You Will future doesn't have lolcats, it has a daily joke automatically faxed to your refrigerator. There are no RSS feeds, but you can read your local newspaper using your dedicated Newspaperotron 5000 -- at least until the Newspaperotron 6000 is released next month. It doesn't have webcomics, it has the Family Circus beamed in fake-3D onto your CRT virtual reality headset for 50 cents a day. You Will is not binary compatible with any other future.
I also find it interesting how often legal/IP issues came up when I was writing my mini reviews above. That, above all else, is something I think we all missed. The impact of digital communication on IP has been the real singularity of the last 15 years. That's where futurism becomes real science fiction, looking at the feedback of how technology changes societies, and how societies choose to implement technology. We're left living in what is, by any objective standard, a bizarre world that is post-IP in just about every practical way, except legally. You can get a copy of anything you want, except when a political party in Sweden fails to get a seat in parliament and the server is taken down. You can download all the music you ever want for free, except most people just pay because it's cheap and easy. (And when you do download, it's easier to download the entire discography of the artist than a single song.) We're more cyberpunk than Gibson ever dreamed.
As far as I'm concerned, these are iconic commercials. Maybe I was just the right demographic at the right time, but they sank deep, deep into my brain, becoming one of the main standards by which the future was judged. And they're a perfect snapshot of the futurism of the day, caught in an awkward transition from an 80s vision of a dirty CRT future to the happy consumer, information-centric view we're still working from.
They're even pretty good in terms of predictions.
"Have you ever sent a fax from the beach?" Um, yuck, who would want to? Typical mistake of assuming new tech will slavishly mimic the old tech. But one could do this if they wanted to, and the much more socially acceptable act of sending an email from a tablet or laptop certainly fulfills the intent.
"Have you ever crossed the country without stopping to ask directions?" GPS renderings aren't quite as fly-through-3D yet, but the interface shown is pretty stupid. I'll take the Google Maps/StreetView enabled GPS directions on my Android over that any day.
"Have you ever borrowed a book from thousands of miles away?" Borrow? Again, stuck in the paradigms of the past. I can certainly have access to a wide range of books, and better yet, they aren't silly video of a book with its pages turning, but searchable text. There are a lot of books missing still, but that's due to legal issues and not technological limitations.
"Have you ever paid a toll without slowing down?" Very standard most places with tolls, and you don't have to swipe your credit card each time either. Tollbooth architecture isn't quite that cool yet, though.
"Have you ever bought concert tickets from a cash machine?" This is almost as funny as the fax one. Why would I want to do that at an ATM? I can do that from my phone, from every computer I sit down at. We've not only met the goal, we've done it a way that is roughly 1000x times better.
"Have you ever attended a meeting in your bare feet?" and "Have you ever learned special things from far-away places?" and "Have you ever tucked your baby in from a phone booth?" Yeah, we have videoconferencing -- and no one really bothers. My head would have exploded, had I known. Also: phone booths, lol. Also also, most people I know could attend meetings in bare feet in person if they really wanted to. Not having been a professional in 1994, I don't know if this is actually new or not.
"Have you ever opened doors with the sound of your voice?" We fail this one. I mean, I could set it up if I wanted to, but we're a long way from residential use of electronic locks, much less biometric ones. And that's probably just as well.
"Have you ever carried your medical history in your wallet?" Well, the US is 10-15 years behind the rest of world when it comes to electronic medical records. Of course, the commercial isn't clear if this is a universal system or not, so it depends where you live. Pretty big fail all around, safe to say.
"Have you ever watched the movie you wanted to the minute you wanted to?" We've managed this even better than the book one, since movie piracy is far more comprehensive than book piracy. But Netflix streaming is close. A bit of extra work using Bittorrent, and you're there.
Overall, pretty good. But not without flaws. Most obviously, our devices are far, far better. They didn't get cell phones/mobile tech at all -- they still have payphones! The only mobile device we see is a tablet that sends pretend paper over fax for some reason. They missed being able to carry all the music you own around with you at all times. They missed the average person having a device that can (incidentally!) record and edit and upload video at any where, any time.
Worse, everything seems to be done with giant centralized systems, which would suck. This is the future without net neutrality. AT&T might think to invent ATM ticket sales, but it would never come up with Craigslist or IM or Twitter or YouTube or Bittorrent or Wikipedia or Chatroulette or any a million crazy, insane projects. The You Will future doesn't have lolcats, it has a daily joke automatically faxed to your refrigerator. There are no RSS feeds, but you can read your local newspaper using your dedicated Newspaperotron 5000 -- at least until the Newspaperotron 6000 is released next month. It doesn't have webcomics, it has the Family Circus beamed in fake-3D onto your CRT virtual reality headset for 50 cents a day. You Will is not binary compatible with any other future.
I also find it interesting how often legal/IP issues came up when I was writing my mini reviews above. That, above all else, is something I think we all missed. The impact of digital communication on IP has been the real singularity of the last 15 years. That's where futurism becomes real science fiction, looking at the feedback of how technology changes societies, and how societies choose to implement technology. We're left living in what is, by any objective standard, a bizarre world that is post-IP in just about every practical way, except legally. You can get a copy of anything you want, except when a political party in Sweden fails to get a seat in parliament and the server is taken down. You can download all the music you ever want for free, except most people just pay because it's cheap and easy. (And when you do download, it's easier to download the entire discography of the artist than a single song.) We're more cyberpunk than Gibson ever dreamed.
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