I have a book, July 20, 2019: Life in the 21st century, written by Arthur C Clarke, published in 1987, long forgotten.

I was going to mention the book on the 50th anniversary of the moon landing, because it was the anniversary.

But I broke the ban I set for myself, because rereading the book gave me new insights.

Clark is a science fiction writer and a good predictor of the future.

His fictional HAL 9000 computer in his book "2001: A Space Odyssey", which he co-authored, predicts A lot of worry about artificial intelligence today.

He was also a real scientist who had put forward communications satellites in an article in 1945.

Unless the situation changes over the next 23 months, July 20, 2019, will be almost all wrong.

Clark believes, for example, "amplifier" will make us more intelligent, but did not mention at that time in the development of the Internet - and the Massachusetts institute of technology (MIT) Joseph, Clyde (Joseph Licklider) in the book have predicted 15 years ago to the Internet, at the time Clyde work in the United States department of defense.

A prediction error is just one of my views on clark's book.

Like most future predictions, the book looks at the future from a technological perspective.

If clark's vision is to move to the present moment, it would be the equivalent of preaching that technology is the savior of mankind.

This is overdone, but it is gaining momentum today.

Indeed, such chatter is like the overshoot of some arrogant, premature silicon valley master.

With their messianic tone, our descendants will surely laugh.

"For example, by 2045, we will have...

The human biological machine intelligence of our civilization has increased by a factor of 1 billion, "said Ray Kurzweil of Google (GuGe).

Technology is amazing.

But it has nothing to do with the best things in the world.

It will only play a secondary role in driving away the worst of mankind (poverty, ignorance and madness).

What's the nicest thing I'm talking about?

Prohibiting racism from the law;

The rights of disabled persons;

Women's liberation.

Reason is supreme;

Superstition is wrong.

Democracy, social security, animal rights, life expectancy, yes, capitalism.

Belongs to the category of science and technology, health and medicine, of course, but the fruit of them through the water pipes, social medical treatment and cold storage is transmitted to all mankind, can only rely on human empathy and creativity.

From electric lights to washing machines to the Internet, technology has propelled human progress.

But technology is only part of the future.

Machines help solve "how to", not "what" and "why".

I like the help of technology to the developing world, where progress is most needed.

I recently wrote about the idea of Ugogo Africa (an online service proposal designed to allow artisans with no bank accounts to sell their works around the world).

Brilliant idea.

But for the developing world, the better things will be the education, the elimination of corruption, the rule of law, and perhaps the democratic system, even though this is at last on my list of B.

Technology will play its part, but it is not indispensable.

Not long ago, I made this provocative argument to two thoughtful people.

The first was Marc Demarest of Oregon, a digital thinker and author.

Silicon valley, he argues, has been preaching for personal gain.

"As with the President of the United States, it is too extreme, too extreme, too low to be declared to these people," he said.

But he thinks the technology's flood of data tells us the truth, "minus our tendency to be distracted, to miss the pulse of The Times, and to distort data in the way we want to."

"In most ways, technology is a better version of ourselves.

In general, humans have been perfected in some way.

However, he said the analysis would remain human activity.

"For a long time in the future, we will be better at judgment than any machine we can build.

Technology is just the agent we crave.

It's not the future;

We are the future."

Then I had a few drinks with a friend who was working on a product with a tech company.

"I shouldn't have said that," she said after drinking the third cocktail. "but we're just making people's favorite fashion junk.

You're right.

We have not promoted human progress, nor have we changed the world, haven't we?

That is the role of thought, the machine has no thought."

Interesting.

Even clark was afraid to predict the imaginative machines.