Editorial comment
Thirty years ago, the BBC broadcast an edition of its ‘Tomorrow’s World’ programme that predicted what life would be like in 2025. For the uninitiated, Tomorrow’s World was a British television series that ran for 38 years between 1965 and 2003, exploring contemporary developments in science and technology. The programme introduced its audience to a selection of new technology that would become commonplace, from home computers and mobile phones to compact disc players and robotic vacuum cleaners. And in 1995, the programme focused in on the impossibly futuristic-sounding year that we have just entered into. So, how did the team of experts and leading scientists – including Professor Stephen Hawking – think we would be living our lives today?
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Well, aside from a few dud predictions (e.g. the introduction of a gigantic foam gel to slow down space junk), the team at Tomorrow’s World successfully foresaw a number of advancements, including the prevalence of smart speakers, VR headsets and automated banking.1 On other occasions, the predictions were pretty close, although a little too advanced (even for 2025). For example, in the healthcare sector, Tomorrow’s World predicted that patients would be operated on by robots that are remotely controlled by leading surgeons in far-off locations. While this hasn’t quite materialised, it is certainly true that robotic surgery is helping to improve treatment for patients. The Tomorrow’s World team also offered a vision for self-driving cars that could become a reality in the future, although it did inaccurately predict that society would have given up on the prospect of electric vehicles by 2025.
Of course, the internet was starting to gather momentum back in 1995, and the Tomorrow’s World team anticipated both the huge advantages and significant risks that it presented. They predicted that “business barons” and banks would take control of the internet and establish a restricted-access ‘supernet’, which would lead to hacks, viruses and even violent riots. And while the internet has remained mostly open and cyberspace riots have not materialised, hackers (including nation state hackers) are a real problem in 2025, and cybersecurity is extremely important.
Although it is fair to say that Tomorrow’s World was hit and miss with its predictions for life in 2025, the number of technological advancements that we have seen in the last 30 years is startling. And the intrigue, excitement and concern surrounding the prospect of the internet back in 1995 can be mirrored by the rise of AI today – a topic that we cover in detail in this issue of Hydrocarbon Engineering. As we look to the next 30 years, the words of Stephen Hawking to Tomorrow’s World back in the 90s are just as relevant in today’s world: “Some of these changes are very exciting, and some are alarming. The one thing that we can be sure of is that it will be very different, and probably not what we expect.”
- 1. FRASER, G., ‘30 years ago Tomorrow’s World predicted 2025 – how did it do?’, BBC, (1 January 2025).
