[ExI] What's Wrong With Academic Futurists?

[Kelly Anderson]

On Sat, Jan 25, 2014 at 6:09 PM, Robin D Hanson <rhanson at gmu.edu> wrote:

>  I said:
>
>  If we want accurate estimates of the future, why wouldn't people who want
> to get paid by large organizations be a good source? Why would people who
> use stat, math, and formula be unreliable estimators, relative to people
> who are visionary and innovator/entrepreneurs?  Does data on past
> predictions support this choice?
>
>
>  To elaborate, take the example of medicine. Medical innovators might be
> the folks who know best what seem to be the most promising new treatments.
> But if you want to instead predict the general nature of medicine and its
> social position in a half century, I'd think you'd rather listen to people
> who study long term trends in medicine and their causes.
>

If I were thinking about long term trends in medicine, I would be
interested in what nonmedical people would have to say as well. For
example, if I asked you what the most important tool in medicine would be
in 2010 in 1960, would you have answered "The Computer"? I don't think it
is overstating the matter to suggest that the computer IS the most
important tool in medicine today, and it is becoming ever more so.

It could well be that the answer in 2060 will be nanotechnology, but who
knows for sure. It could be some entirely different off shoot of
information technology. It is hard for me to believe that people heads-down
in the current state of the art of pharmacology and surgery to address
cancer concerns would be at all interested in nanotech, but I would not be
surprised if it is the primary way to address cancer in 2060. I would be
surprised if medicine in 2060 were still so focused on pharmaceuticals and
surgery, though targeted pharmaceuticals likely will still have an
important purpose. Surgery will likely not involve breaks in the patient's
skin for the most part by then.

-Kelly
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