Imagine tumbling back in time to 1 January, 2000. You pick up the 70p Saturday Guardian, with its spectacular photograph of Earth from space and a headline that hails the dawn of the new millennium. Soon you are reading a host of predictions for how the 21st century will play out – across science and sport, lifestyle and life itself – many of which oscillate between the fantastical and the terrifying.
By 2010, a newborn will have a robot pet, you learn from Andy Beckett’s brilliant essay Born to be Wired. By 2030 they will be “in brain-to-brain contact, via electronic implants, without needing to speak with family members, lovers and friends”. If that is not wild enough, one expert reckons that by the end of the 21st century, “it is not clear whether we will be people or robots”.
