The future is obviously not predicable. But strategic foresight studies allow to build hypotheses of development in particular for production issues. You can find below some examples of such studies dedicated to the future of production:

Article Will technology improve health and safety at work

Book Modes and methods of production in France in 2040

Conference Paper (Strategic) Foresight: an help for decision making tomorrow…...

Conference Paper Regulating the OSH impact on online platform economy (OSHA S...

Book Preview: Platformisation 2027

There are probable, possible, preferable, and prospective futures. Probable, possible, preferable, and prospective futures are all subject to cultural, psychological, and sociological influences but cannot be explored in the same way: the first (one future) entails trend analysis; the second (many futures) calls for imagination and flexibility; the third (an “other” future) springs from value positions, both critical and ideological; the fourth (futuring) hinges on preparedness to act, rooted in self-reliance and solidarity. The research methods associated with probable, possible, preferable, and prospective futures differ too.

Here's a recent paper (2018) focused specifically on the question you asked:

Article Wisdom and foresight in Chinese thought: Sensing the immediate future

In the prediction of the future, sentiment analyzes carried out on large collections of information downloaded from the Internet and collected in Big Data database systems should help.

I described these issues in my publications below:

Article APPLICATION OF DATA BASE SYSTEMS BIG DATA AND BUSINESS INTEL...

Article The Big Data technologies as an important factor of electron...

Article The Technological Solutions Big Data and the Importance of B...

I invite you to discussion and cooperation.

Best wishes

Engineers attempt to predict 'A' future, but make no effort to predict 'THE' future. It's like Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principal - we can either know magnitude or timing. Engineers design for a specific magnitude, typically based from past trends. I will make a structure that can withstand the forces expected during the 1:100 year flood, with very high confidence. I am not going to have any confidence that I know what forces it will experience on the 18th of September, 2032.

The issue is the 'past trends'. People haven't really changed, but we dont have a long time series with good data on people so to predict future human behaviour, we would need to fill in a lot of blanks. Climate is proving to be a moving target, but maybe not outrageously, everywhere. Material properties are well understood - it's all been tested in detail. But put those materials in unique settings, and you'll be guessing again. Without those past trends, yeah, it's just guessing.

Ben Levin

Future is not predictable. But some general rules can be well established so than the future to become a bit better known.

Some time future is prdictable but not alwayes. Prediction or forecast, is a statement about a future event. A prediction is often, but not always, based upon experience or knowledge. Source (Wikipedia)

I think future is not predictable

At least to a certain level but not always.

Although clairvoyance and prediction of future events has been a tradition , forecasting the impending events with exactitude has not always been possible.

I don't think so.

Not everything is, but some actions have reactions in the future

Definitely, according to the trend, similar history, and present conditions, one could predict what is the future status.

“The future is an unknown, but a somewhat predictable unknown. To look to the future, we must first look back upon the past. That is where the seeds of the future were planted. I never think of the future. It comes soon enough”.

Albert Einstein

yes only by mathematical modeling

Hmmmm, some how

Yes and no, like the future this answer is also complicated.The future is messy and complicated. It also depends on our actions, which make it scary. It is no wonder that we try to get a glimpse into the future, whether it is just for security, to know that we will be all right, or to know that we are making the right decision and are on the right track.

@ Is the future predictable?

The only way to predict the future with certainty is to determine the possible futures. The only possible futures are those that are logically possible. This gives you too many possibilities because everything that does not entail a contradiction is logically possible. Given that there are so many possible futures, you cannot say that any one outcome is destined to happen.

I will recommend to all who are interested to read a book by Nassim Nicholas Taleb “The Black Swan” and than reflect about limits and challenges to predict the future. But science can or should do is to give better options and alternatives for the future.

The direction of technological evolution is in a generational line (e.g. wheel---coach---car) foreseeable, in terms of the tech-know-logical development of technical tools.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerhard_Lenski

Other related predictions remain informed guesses and belong to the systemic art of forecasting. We are dealing, concerning the nature of human societies, with non-deterministic and non-linear processes, which are governed by high degrees of uncertainty and not knowing. However, we can communicate with complexity and chaos by a prudent step-by-step strategy to avoid greater detours.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2018/12/02/drucker-forum-2018-a-major-transformation-of-management-is-already-under-way/#42d701006727

At the outset the future is unpredictable as this being a part of our destiny .However we all human being have with us the grace from our creator provided the person has a worthy life where he may arrange to take action for his career life .With this with our inner development of our living within to the grace of inner urge & divinity we can take the advantage of our silent peaceful mind which may direct to take the recourse of intuition & will power thereby we mail suddenly receive the unexpected environment or in the said case we may take the advantage of our dream & it is not much easy for which you have to make our individual life thru the religion,power of prayer & meditation .

It is the fact that future can be predictable with the help of Science of Astrology with the details calculation whereby you have to study your birth chart only yourself & not by professional or any knowledgeable person in the line of Astrology .

It is very likely that the latter cannot offer you justice in an impartial way .

This is my personal opinion

The past constrains the future. And then what isn’t constrained will happen freely.

So there is no absolute determinism. But also, no absolute spontaneity. Given how much past has already accumulated, the world is highly organised and very restricted in the accidents that can occur.

No one can predict the future. But we all create our future.

The future belongs to God!

We can assist the future by the past and experience. One can guide somehow the future depending on many factors, one of them is the education and knowledge.

Your questions are mixture of many things and can be answered from many directions. However, though future is somewhat unpredictable actually, but we can get some short of predictability from previous data and experiences. Suppose, if you want to predict the probability of occuring an earthquake of a given magnitude, you have collect data of previous earthquakes to get knowledge about the seismicity of the region. And then you can predict the probability of occuring the earthquake of given size or magnitude with some sort of uncertainty. You may suggests about reliability of aging infrastructure against given hazard for enhanced life cycle. But all of these have uncertainty, so in engineering we must be concerned about the uncertainty, probability and reliability with every prediction.

Yes, if you have advanced research tools that help in carrying out prognostic analyzes. For example, tools that allow you to conduct sentiment analyzes on large collections of information downloaded from the Internet and collected in Big Data database systems. If this type of analytics merges with advanced information processing instruments on Business Intelligence analytical platforms, then it is possible to build accurate research tools that enable to carry out precisely completed prediction analyzes of predicted processes for subsequent periods in the future.

Dear Colleagues and Friends from RG The key aspects and determinants of applications of data processing technologies in Big Data database systems for predicting future processes are described in the following publications: Article APPLICATION OF DATA BASE SYSTEMS BIG DATA AND BUSINESS INTEL...

Article The Big Data technologies as an important factor of electron...

Article The Technological Solutions Big Data and the Importance of B...

I invite you to discussion and cooperation.

Best wishes

Thank you all for your predictable and unpredictable answers. Honestly, about half of them were unpredictable to me.

; )

Its a multi-dimensional question. I would quote Nilola Tesla about the future: "Let the future tell the truth and evaluate each one According to his works and accomplishment. The present is theirs, the future, for which i really worked is mine".

"It’s not enough to think about the future – you have to build it !" - Alexander van Boetzelaer

Research futures Drivers and scenarios for the next decade - Full report

The ability of the research community to thrive in this new world will depend on understanding the opportunities and the challenges these changes offer and what steps need to be taken now. To assess how today’s trends might shape the research landscape in the decade ahead, Elsevier joined forces with Ipsos MORI, the global market and opinion research specialist. Together, we conducted a large-scale, future-scoping and scenario-planning study. The focus of this study was not which topics will be researched 10 years from now, but rather how that research might be conducted and its findings communicated...

We can never be fully aware of the what the whole future will be like. But in the same breath we must say that we can never be aware of what happened in the whole past, and whats happening now in the present. i beleive memory (our thoughts of the past ) is symmetrically flawed with our thoughts of the present and the future. this question could easily have been "is the past knowable" and to what extent.

yes only by mathematical modeling

to some extend is the future predictable. However -as the past has shown a lot- some new innovations cannot be predicted. Such innovations can have severe implications and make the future happen very differently than it appears from today's perspective. As innovations happen at shorter intervals it can happen that already in a few years live looks very different than it is predicted right now.

I don't think that the future is predictable. Too many innovations that can change the entire path of the future. If 100 years ago someone would have predicted how life is today he/she would have been declared mad. Since then technological innovations happen much, much faster...

I agree with colleague Eberhard Weber. I think that the future is not predictable; only, perhaps, very partially. One need only think in vision of the future which cinema (and scientific films) has been anticipating, over the years. Documentary Future Shock (1972, Alexander Grasshoff), narrated by Orson Welles, has in this regard a disturbing actuality.

Thank you Carlos, maybe another aspect I consider important: people need to have visions, ideas of what kind of future they wish, and at times they imagine. Of course that does not mean that the future will become the way people imagine it, but but reflecting on visions one reflects on what is important, or what is not that should happen. This has a very important ethical dimension.

I agree Eberhard, the ethical dimension is very important. One example of this reasoning/vision, about a future should be avoided: 1984' George Orwell.

Science theorizes that future is predictable, but we are in no place or condition to do so. We may have access to this power later, or science may be able to develop a machine, which can accurately predict the future. But, neither is likely to happen in our lifetime. So, the best thing we can do it stop worrying about, enjoy the present, and make our own future...

http://www.knowledge.info/is-future-predictable

Dear Ahmad Bandarchi has avoided to cite the original resource in his answer. It is a MUST in order to avoid plagiarism!

"The only way to predict the future with certainty is to determine the possible futures. The only possible futures are those that are logically possible. This gives you too many possibilities because everything that does not entail a contradiction is logically possible. Given that there are so many possible futures, you cannot say that any one outcome is destined to happen. "

The author of his answer is Purple Pond!

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/3417/how-is-the-future-predictable

Dear Ljubomir Jacić

Thank you for your reminder. As you mentioned, I did non-professional behavior.

the future is not exactly predictable as there are too many unknown unknowns. Too many thinks we do not even know that maybe even in 10 years they play an important role in forming the time then.

There are many scientific articles regarding the prediction of future, or better say, modelling the future in different areas. There are many methods available for like cellular automata approach. Different scenarios of future may be obtained.

agree with Ljubomir Jacić .

What do these models of the future say, which Ljubomir Jacić mentions???

@Eberhard Weber Here's an example:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/258628206_Monitoring_and_predicting_land_use_change_in_Tripoli_Metropolitan_City_using_an_integrated_Markov_chain_and_cellular_automata_models_in_GIS

Extrapolated trend in scientific or statistical predictions with respect to tolerance is accepted

The level of predictability of the future is directly proportionally correlated with the ongoing process of improving the ICT instruments Industry 4.0. and inversely proportional to the future measured by the predictive analysis measured in the years.