How accurate are these predicted 2024 headlines from iconic writer 50 years ago?
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From blind fortune-tellers to tech experts, many throughout the years have had a go at predicting the future – with varying levels of success. One such look forwards through time is a reader’s digest called Saturday Review World published in August 1974.
![[How accurate are these predicted 2024 headlines from iconic sci-fi writer 50 years ago? Saturday Review World: 2024 A.D. A Probe Into the Future]](https://metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/SEI_234709647-8d37.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=638)
The issue speculated on what the world would be like 50 years into the future – 2024 – and featured thought pieces from famous names like Neil Armstrong, Wehrner von Braun, and Jacques Cousteau. The 136-page issue features ‘Clippings from tomorrow’s newspapers’ written by iconic sci-fi writer Isaac Asimov, famous for introducing the ‘three laws of robotics’.
![[Editorial use only. No book cover usage. Mandatory Credit: Photo by Everett/REX/Shutterstock (568401aw) Isaac Asimov - circa 1950 VARIOUS - 1950S]](https://metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/SEI_234709653-716b.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=646)
He also wrote I, Robot, a collection of sci-fi short stories published in 1950, which inspired the 2004 film of the same name starring Will Smith. Asimov’s feature, imagining news stories written 50 years into his future, suggested he thought humans could have a colony on the moon – not quite a reality today.
But what did he get right, or wrong? Metro takes a look back. Quarter-millennial plans to feature nostalgic end of the United States. This speculative article imagines that a ‘global economic board’ was set up in the 1990s. It suggests that borders and divisions between countries have become much less important, reducing ‘the divisions of the world population on racial, linguistic, and cultural bases’.
