A fun fact for cinephiles: August 27th is the 20th anniversary of when Terminator’s fictional Skynet supposedly came online. While Sarah Connor duked it out with an alchemic puddle in 1992, the characters were trying to thwart the oncoming apocalypse, scheduled for 1997’s August 27th. Luckily for us, The Terminator didn’t predict the future. Or, if Elon Musk’s musings are anything to go by, they at least didn’t get the date right.
When browsing through your Dad’s VHS collection, it’s fun to watch all the throwback movies that attempted to predict the future. While most of them got it wrong, there are a few that did manage to get a few things right. 3D printed limbs, robot vacuum cleaners — even self-driving cars were all predicted years before they existed outside of the silver screen. While we’re waiting for the lightsaber to replace household scissors, check out out the following infographic that chronicles the 14 times that pop culture predicted future tech:
