July 29, 2024, 2:11 pm | Read time: 4 minutes
Steve Jobs is one of the co-founders of Apple and essentially the face of the company. However, the former Apple CEO, who passed away in 2011, was not only a pioneer of computers but also a visionary often ahead of his time. This is demonstrated by a video that was recently published.
Previously unknown footage shows how Steve Jobs could “foresee” the future and his thoughts on the relationship between humans and computers. The Steve Jobs Archive released a speech by the former Apple CEO from 1983, which took place at the International Design Conference in Aspen, USA. Below, you will learn what the genius already knew and predicted back then.
Overview
The Computer Is Indispensable
In the early 1980s, computers or PCs were still largely unknown. The few existing models were enormous and intended for purposes other than private use. However, Steve Jobs was convinced that by 1986, people would spend more time with PCs than with cars. He predicted that people would spend two to three hours daily interacting with a PC–and he was right.
Today, many people work with a PC or laptop both professionally and privately. In a speech, Jobs said: “These devices will be found in every workplace, as well as in educational institutions and homes.” For people of that time, these predictions seemed partly unthinkable and absurd.
Portable Devices for Everyday Use
Steve Jobs also predicted that during the lifetimes of subsequent generations, the computer would become the “dominant communication medium.” Additionally, the topic of “design” was of great importance to him. He aimed to transform large computers into increasingly smaller models that function wirelessly. This description clearly points to portable devices, including small laptops and especially smartphones, like the iPhone.
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Fascinated by the Truck That Captures Streets
Additionally, Steve Jobs talks in his speech about a project or experiment by MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) conducted in Aspen. A truck equipped with a camera drove through the city’s streets, photographing every intersection, building, etc.
Steve Jobs did not invent this, but in 1983 he described what we now know as Google Maps. The Google car regularly drives through almost every city in the world, photographing streets, buildings, etc. Through Street View, users can then click through the streets and explore new areas. Not his invention, but an interesting prediction and vision.
Steve Jobs and AI
The former Apple CEO was ahead of his time. This also applies to the topic of artificial intelligence, which only really gained momentum at the end of 2022. For Jobs, it was already clear in the 1980s that something like AI would develop. In his speech, he mentions that he often read Aristotle and Plato. But the problem was that he couldn’t ask Aristotle any questions. He says: “I think if we look at the next 50 to 100 years, if we can really find machines that can capture an underlying mind, an underlying set of principles, or an underlying kind of Aristotle, then one day we can ask the machines: What would Aristotle have said?”
Additionally, the archive’s founders published another video in which Steve Jobs talks about AI and predicts this technology. Here he says: “The main difference between both machines is only that humans are obviously self-aware. We are aware that we are conscious. And to our knowledge, no computer has ever said: ‘I think.’ In artificial intelligence, there is intense work being done to understand what consciousness is and whether a computer can ever be self-aware.”