Cash is a dubious thing … Cyberspace is where the bank keeps your money and to a real extent it’s where the stock market happens. I’m waiting for the Three Mile Island of computer banking – some unspeakable meltdown, although I’m hoping it really doesn’t come along. That will be when we discover the extent of our reliance on computation.
Predictor: Gibson, William
Prediction, in context:In a 1995 article for The New York Times, Peter Lewis interviews William Gibson, author of “Neuromancer,” the 1984 science fiction novel that first used the term “cyberspace.” Lewis writes: ”Mr. Gibson … confessed to being baffled by cellular phones and personal computers and intimidated by online information services. It is not that he finds the technology innately scary. Rather, he said, he prefers to minimize his exposure to technology most of the time and then absorb the full shock of it ‘in large, homeopathic doses.’ That way, he said, he can better convey the shock of it to his readers … ‘I can see one of the flaws in the realism of my work is that in my fiction, technology almost always works. I didn’t have nearly enough things that break or that don’t work and nobody knows why. It’s all so cranky.’ But, he added, ‘one thing I got partially right is that cash is a dubious thing … Cyberspace is where the bank keeps your money and to a real extent it’s where the stock market happens. I’m waiting for the Three Mile Island of computer banking – some unspeakable meltdown, although I’m hoping it really doesn’t come along. That will be when we discover the extent of our reliance on computation.”
Biography:William Gibson published the influential book “Neuromancer,” in which he coined the term “cyberspace,” in 1984. Through the early 1990s, he was asked to comment regularly on the coming age of the Internet despite the fact that he claimed to use it rarely, if ever. (Author/Editor/Journalist.)
Date of prediction: May 1, 1992
Topic of prediction: Economic structures
Subtopic: E-commerce
Name of publication: New York Times
Title, headline, chapter name: ON LINE WITH William Gibson; Present at the Creation, Startled at the Reality
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://web.lexis-nexis.com/universe/document?_m=13ac660051707a4adb36b74b2dfb8729&_docnum=1&wchp=dGLbVlb-lSlzV&_md5=2b23efb958392054451dad5f84750d70
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Garrison, Betty