Five of the worst predictions in history. This is Jim Denison's daily article for Monday,

December 31st, 2018. The Americans have need of the telephone, but we do not. We have plenty of

messenger boys. So predicted Britain's post office chief engineer in 1876. The horse is here to stay,

but the automobile is only a novelty. This advice was given to Henry Ford's

lawyer by the president of the Michigan Savings Bank in 1903. Daryl Zannick, a film producer and co-founder

of 20th Century Fox said, television won't be able to hold on to any market it captures after the

first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night. The FCC

commissioner said in 1961, there is practically no chance communication space

satellites will be used to provide better telephone, telegraph, television, or radio

service inside the United States.

And Ken Olson, founder of Digital Equipment Corporation, claimed there is no reason for any individual

to have a computer in his home.

Even machines get the future wrong.

IERA, Wells Fargo's artificial intelligence platform, was asked where Amazon would put its second

headquarters. The machine drew on a wide pool of data to predict that Amazon would choose Boston.

Chicago was IAIR's second choice, followed by Atlanta. The actual winners, New York and Northern

Virginia, were number four and unranked, respectively.

Now we're one day from a new year.

I could fill the rest of this article with predictions for 2019, but most will be as inaccurate

as predictions last year, that President Trump would resign, Paul Ryan would become president,

and the Patriots would win the Super Bowl.

The ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus noted that we cannot step into the same river twice.

...