Predicting the future of information technology and society [The Road Ahead]

A year ago, this column contemplated the road ahead for semiconductor-based products that build on basic design, test, process, and device technologies. In late 2011, a workshop on the "Future of IT and Society" presented several broad visions of how societal changes will build on semiconductor-based products and information technology in such contexts as social mobility, healthcare, security, and mankind's relationship to the environment. Prediction of "the road ahead" at a societal level - with a meaningful time horizon (and with causal connections to underlying product roadmaps that connect, in turn, to underlying technology roadmaps) - presents a daunting, yet invaluable goal for researchers, governments, and entrepreneurs alike. The author then discusses predictions for IT and society - right and wrong; how well can we predict the future; and how will we predict the future of IT and society. He ends by noting that he believes that a true "science of futurism" will be developed within the next decade. Not only are there strong incentives to better model and predict the interplay between information technology and human society, but there is a steady stream of enabling techniques from big data, machine learning, modeling, and simulation.