"We predicted cell phones, but not women in the workplace": Futurism's cultural blindspot

Every day we tell ourselves stories about 'disruptive technologies' – self-driving cars, drones, AI-enabled voice recognition, etc. – but history has shown that these technologies are rarely life-altering in the way we imagine they will be. When has a labour-saving device actually reduced the amount of labour we do overall?

This article describes the human habit of imagining radically different futures, and our myopic focus on technological advances. The author mentions spittoons – a piece of technology that lets you spit out tobacco slightly less disgustingly. You don't see spittoons around much these days because our behaviour has changed, not because a technological advance made it obsolete. (Although the iSpittoon is obviously a fabulous piece of tech.)

In our work in designing future products and services, it’s helpful to remind ourselves that technology will rarely result in the cultural and behaviour transformation that we imagine.

– Priscilla Hough-Davies, Senior Design Researcher