I suspect there are still many of us around who remember the man. Back in the late 1960s a friend was writing for a student publication for an institution then known as Miami Dade Junior College. He asked me if I wanted to go with him as he interviewed a man who gave lectures in his house in the evenings four days a week: Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
The man, according to my friend, was a futurist who talked about his vision of a coming world. His name was Jacque Fresco. We drove over together to a small tar covered house located in the Coral Gables area and knocked on the door. Out came a small, bald, rather funny looking man in his fifties, wearing a goatee beard. He gave us the once over, looked theatrically at his watch, and said “the lecture starts at 7:00.” We got the hint and left. I did return after my first abrupt meeting to attend his lecture and I attended many times after.
Eventually I ended up renting a room in his house. Jacque, I found out, cobbled together a living by renting rooms and lecturing. We became friends. Jacque Fresco was someone who flew under the radar but was not invisible. On the days he lectured his house would fill up with a variety of local citizens. His house was a salon. Folks would come to hear him discuss his vision for the future. The attendees made up a cross section of the social stratas of Miami.
In the Miami area Jacque was known, not widely, but known. He was interviewed a number of times by a local talk show host: Larry King. He lectured at various colleges in the area. And, of course, there were lectures four nights a week in his home. His personal vision had many names: first it was Project Americana. Then, when I first met him, it was called “Sociocyberneering.” Then eventually, named after the area where he eventually relocated,The Venus Project.
Jacques has passed but the organization still exists today and his lectures can be found online. His vision was not of Buck Rogers and laser guns. But of cities specifically designed for and built for people. He visualized how food would be delivered and how everything would be built with no or minimum human intervention. While artificial intelligence was not explicitly on his radar I am sure implicitly it was part of what he envisioned. The old meme “a man ahead of his time” certainly fit Jacque Fresco.
Jacque, in his lectures, would foretell of a future time where technology would evolve to where many if not most jobs would be eliminated. It was, he insisted, where we would live in abundance. His vision was detailed and compelling and it strongly resembles the point we are currently entering. Artificial Intelligence is predicted by many to evolve. That predicted evolution reminds me of the man I knew. No doubt there are others living in Miami that remember him as well.