In his recent essay on the troubles of the British Labour government, former Prime Minister Tony Blair argues that the core issue is not personality or communication but the lack of a "worked-out coherent plan for a country in a fast-changing world." He emphasizes the need for "long-term strategic thinking which is alien to the way most modern democracies function." However, Watson counters that historical democracies were no better at strategic planning.
The Illusion of Predictability
Watson proposes a thought experiment, dubbing it "2001: A Time Odyssey." He asks readers to cast their minds back a quarter of a century. In 2001, mobile phones were primitive—Nokia or Motorola devices with monochrome screens. One model even offered an FM radio, which was considered cutting-edge. The Ericsson T39 featured Bluetooth, an innovation most people had never heard of. Steve Jobs had returned to Apple only four years prior, and the company's flagship product was the iPod, with a capacity of 1,000 songs. The iPhone and iPad were still years away.
Watson challenges readers to honestly assess whether, in 2001, they could have foreseen the smartphone-dominated world of 2026. He asks: Who predicted that people would spend hours daily on their phones, dating, gambling, texting, sexting, watching TV and movies, taking HD photos, making HD movies, posting personal content online, following others' lives, and doom scrolling to the point of considering smartphone bans for children? He notes that children often know technology better than their parents, contradicting common assumptions.
"If you're honest, and aren't suffering tech-nesia—the tendency to forget how things once were as soon as they're not that way anymore—you'll admit you had no idea all this was coming," Watson writes. He acknowledges that retroactively, some 2001 predictions may appear accurate, but the vast majority of forecasts were wildly off the mark. How could a well-meaning government have bet on the right predictors?
The Scale of Change
Watson concedes that Blair understands the magnitude of potential change, quoting Blair: "Think of how Britain was in 1826, and how different it was in 1926. And then in 2026. This is the scale of change but in dramatically faster time." Yet Watson questions how one can plan for unknown societal convulsions. He imagines a historical figure remarking on the steam engine's revolutionary impact and proposing a welfare state—a plan that would have seemed absurd at the time.
Watson concludes that governments should adopt neutral policies that assume nothing about the future's specifics, recognizing the fundamental human condition of uncertainty. He argues that hubris and humbug characterize many AI strategies, which pretend to foresee what is inherently unforeseeable.
