According to Swiss futurist Karin Frick, what did past predictions get right and what did they underestimate?

Robots, virtual worlds and AI were all predicted decades in advance. What was underestimated were the connecting systems: the internet, platforms and global supply networks. The world changes less through new technologies than through changes in the systems that connect them.

The point is about where to look. Futures fixated on technology look for the next device (the robot, the headset, the smart fridge). The real transformations of the last decades came from infrastructures and networks that change how people, goods, money and information move: the internet, platforms that sit between buyers and sellers, global just-in-time supply chains. These are less visible and less spectacular, so they were underrated.

For futures thinking, the lesson is to look at systems, relationships and everyday routines, not just at gadgets. Frick also observed that "for most people, the future is an extended present", which is the root of the extrapolation fallacy.

Go deeper:

• Cachelins Wissensfabrik: Falsche Zukünfte — the research project on "false futures" that collected Frick's observations (German).