Ask your cousin where he got that, my in-laws were passing around a similar version not attributed to an auto exec but some professor. I couldn't find a source but the 2018 date is kind of suspiciously in the future when it was written and now just around the corner.

Auto insurance predictions like that are missing details and the claim that by 2020 the whole auto industry will be disrupted? Will they be forcing us to turn in our old cars? The prediction for accidents per mile are based on testing at 25mph vs us real people driving in all kinds of conditions at 60mph. Humans will have to keep the cars up, be responsible for driving if a sensor is bad or the car needs assistance.

The whole thing is entertaining reading but heartily flawed in the logic when each claim is taken on it's own. Many facets of law are tedious research and many times potential clients are just in for consultation. Computers could do that. Now anyone tell me how the computers will decide the details of the constitution and bill of rights, since us stupid humans can't?

Most of these predictions will happen, like electric cars, when the battery to run them is finally perfected and affordable. Solar and wind power is not really viable yet. So what, we have LED lightbulbs that save more energy by not consuming. Panels cost a big number and the defending pundits say "but you get a tax credit" sure, who pays for that tax credit, it doesn't fall from the sky. Higher taxes to subsidize individual power, which over 30 years, might break even. At that time, or sooner, it's going to fail and need to be replaced.

Tricorder X price was not announced yet, the PRIZE winners were announced April 2017. Artificial veal in 2018 will be cheaper than the real thing. Then it goes on to talk about cows taking up land? Does anyone here eat veal on a regular basis, and would you buy some grown in a chemical factory or lab? The expected life span is not rising, three months every year, as claimed.

What I'm getting at, is it's interesting and fun reading, some parts are true but based on those parts, the rest is fantasy.

When we were younger, remember the Popular Science stories, about how we would be flying to work in our car/planes? How the shuttles (like on the Jetsons) would take us to work and back, in little glass pods? We'll cook with solar heat. Wood brick and stone will no longer be used for construction of homes. There will be solar powered cruise ships. We'll fly from NY to LA on a rocket, in two hours.

Better yet, we'll have video phones - hey a winner, except it's a computer or a phone that we carry in our pocket. How cool is that. Would anyone have said, yeah, we'll have phones that connect via radio and satellites, and we can carry them in our pocket? The Internet, not predicted but here we are and it's amazing. They were right about the SST but called it a rocket plane.

"The population of CA will be 10 million by 2000." Guess what? It was 33 million. Oops, under estimated. But the Fax will compete with the mail, another winner, now also nearly gone. Railroads will still carry freight but passengers will be scarce. Another one right. Computers ran with vacuum tubes, 1951, Pilot ACE used approximately 800 vacuum tubes. Its main memory consisted of mercury delay lines with an original capacity of 128 32-bit words.

Imagine this... the first working version of the transistor was invented, April 12, 1950, after this article was written. Which could bring this whole thing in a strange circle (maybe?)

Polio vaccine announced safe April 12, 1955
first manned space flight to orbit the Earth April 12, 1961
First Shuttle Launch 12 April 1981
Tricorder X Winners announced April 12, 2017