The original call
Original year: 2021
2026 assessment
Scorecard verdict: Hit
Hit. Autonomous equipment that runs through the night, with a human supervising from a screen rather than a seat, is no longer hypothetical. And the people running these operations really are the generation that grew up managing virtual resources on a glowing display. The instinct for dashboards, telemetry, and continuous optimization came pre-installed. By 2026 the round-the-clock, screen-managed farm is a reality on the leading edge, with the rest of the industry following.