Footage shows kids in the 1960s imagining what life will be like in the year 2000

A old BBC clip from the 1960s in which school children speculate on the state of the world in 2000 has gone viral on Twitter - and the youngsters' predictions have generated a lot of reaction.

The black and white clip originally aired on Tomorrow's World, which ran from 1965 to 2003, and showed a selection of British youngsters sharing their thoughts on what life would look like at the turn of the century.

The predictions were both thoroughly depressing and eerily accurate - you can see for yourself below:

The kids, interviewed in 1966, didn't seem particularly optimistic about the upcoming millennium, as they all seemed to be apprehensive about how technology and automation would affect their futures.

One lad said of the milestone year: "I think people will be regarded more as statistics rather than as actual people", whilst another girl lamented: "I don't think it will be so nice. Machines everywhere and everyone doing everything for you. You'll get all bored and I don't think it will be so nice."

Another pessimistic youth was similarly suspicious of technological advances: "Computers are taking over now. In the year 2000, there just won't be enough jobs to go around and the only jobs will be for people with high IQ. Other people are just not going to have jobs."

BBC/Tomorrow's World

Twitter users were struck by the accuracy of the kids' predictions and complimented them as being very 'articulate'.

One user tweeted: "These kids are more articulate than the average adult today," only to be reminded by another Twitter commenter: "They are the average adult today."

One person replied: "They're right. It's hard to get a job nowadays and even if there is one available, they don't reach out back after filling in the application."

Another wrote: "These kids were insanely smart with their predictions. Computers taking over many jobs was pretty much 100 percent right when they said that."

BBC/Tomorrow's World

Technological developments and automation have been linked to significant job losses in recent years and have been predicted to replace more in the coming years.

According to a 2019 report by the Office For National Statistics, 25 percent of supermarket checkout assistant jobs disappeared between 2011 and 2017 as a result of self-checkouts.

Another study by The Centre For Cities found that towns in some areas of the UK could lose up to a quarter of their jobs by 2030.

Towns like Mansfield, Sunderland and Dundee are predicted to be hit hardest by the growth of artificial intelligence.