When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. – Sherlock Holmes
In 2006, the internet was booming with new websites, such as YouTube, where people can create and upload cool contents. Desktop computers with AOL and yahoo were becoming a household staple-with laptops in the business and IT sector. online banking and college applications, although in its infancy, were a real start- with mobile phones and 3G network in a few years, and Netflix becoming popular. Flat screen televisions were sure replacing those box-tv’s and it was a prime time for cartoon-networks.
14 years later, we are living in a world where there is a whole another world inside, in our pockets. Almost 60% of the population is online and thriving and its so embedded in our lives that it would be alien to not be online. Its so versatile, that you can use it as a map, as a recipe booklet, a music player, an encyclopaedia, a digital camera, a projector… you name it it does it. its so important that it affects our daily life, from being connected with loved ones, to knowing every news in-detail live in your city/county/state/country/world. with this progressive rate, what would live look like 14 years from now? would it look like the same or would it be drastic like from 2006 to 2020?
Here are my predictions for 2034. You can also predict it via the comments down below! :
Sub-human level Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) would be revolutionary as it could do a wide number of tasks, instead of a narrow ‘one purpose’ task, so it can play chess, other games, and would be a cool chat-bot. It could very well do self driving too as currently in the 20’s, self driving is becoming more and more accurate, and could make driving more of a handling task than actual driving. Moreover, the AGI can very well change healthcare to make it more personalized and available to the public, with advanced scanners, to detect any future illness, while talking in a friend like manner.
Video games will experience a big leap, due to stagnating effects of mid-late 20’s as the computers are already powerful enough to simulate real graphics in games, so these new video games would use Virtual reality and augmented reality to play games in a much immersive environment. current games such as “Minecraft earth” and “Mario kart home” already achieved it, but it doesn’t look graphically realistic yet. These VR and AR(augmented reality) devices could be compact enough to fit in glasses or watches, which can have other side applications such as in medical devices where ‘semi holographic’ films can be projected right on the surgery-locations.
Fashion would largely remain unchanged, but will adapt a more casual ‘work from home’ style, following the post pandemic scenario of the 20’s , smart clothes will be introduced around 2026 where it would charge itself using body heat, and is safe to wash- while monitoring simple steps/ calories burnt. smart glasses or contact lens would be fashionable as its directly linked with AR devices for wide functions, such as displaying a workstation computer on a table (I mean no one expected a galaxy Z flip 2 – phone in 2006). Interestingly, you would unknowingly use “Mirror mirror on the wall / magic mirror on the wall” to decide what clothes you would wear and what online shopping offers. Very analogous to Amazon’s Alexa.
The tech-gap between generation wouldn’t be as noticeable as between GenX’s and GenZ’s, because most of the millennials and GenZ’s are already grown up in the internet world, so adapting would be easy. Unlike GenX’s, the field of online banking and e-shopping, and simulated working environment would be super convenient to current GenZ’s, because its easy to click a few buttons online.
Education would finally be revolutionized, with rise of personal education than industrial level education, and the online network of free courses, (which presently, many youtubers are teaching for free, in a wide variety of topics, from coding to arts, to dancing to finance), this rise of self-learning would make some high schools and colleges useless, as why would anyone pay crates of money for something free, therefore these high schools and colleges will become more decentralized and more ‘open’, where teambuilding skills and hands-on topics are taught, which could be interdisciplinary for better future prospects, and almost instant feedbacks would be given. this is already taking effects in a pandemic 2020 world, and a full effect might take place in a decade.
The entertainment industry will largely become more adaptive, with less actors and more CGI creators, movies would look more artificial yet real because of, again, powerful computers to create it. cinema halls will remain the same, if they find a way to make popcorns cheaper than diamonds.
Good news for the climate!, global warming causes are finally stagnating and are slowly reversing! with new carbon negative materials created in 2020 and better filters & manufacturing processes in 2023, with successful fusion by 2027, earth is finally experiencing global stable climate, although the hurricanes are more powerful than before, it will become less and less powerful.
Gene- editing will exist but will be severely restricted to curing patients with terminal/permanent illness and would now way be used to create GMO babies. Gene-editing CRIPSER tech will be useful to test newer vaccines more effectively and much quickly, as the 2020’s coronavirus pandemic proved that vaccines can be created within an year, this, combined with CRISPER, can make future vaccines within a few months , eliminating any future pandemics.
Currency would be an interesting topic to discuss, as it is unpredictable whether we will shift to crypto currency or digital cash-cards. UBI – Universal basic income will be introduced in the early 2025 and will permanently increase the GDP by around 10%, which is a win-win situation!
Beyond 2034
Well, the future isn’t written. Predicting life beyond the 34’s is like predicting what a smartphone is, in the 1970’s.
anyway here are some suggestions
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- world government
- poverty partially solved
- possible food replicators, as from startrek,
- AGI self awareness– (no skynet/age of ultron scenarios),
- renaissance of art and philosophy
- “intelligent” alien life discovered, and contacted?!
This reminds me of the Schreyer application essay from last year ” Describe daily life in the year 2050.” Interesting to note that even with all these advancements, you still have poverty and famine listed. I wonder if our continued technological evolution will exacerbate or relieve that problem to some extent. Your prediction for technology in glasses, contact lenses, or smart clothes reminds me of Tony Stark’s EDITH glasses. The prediction for cinema halls makes me think of Fahrenheit 451 when the Montag’s wife can’t stop staring at the 3 TV walls. It’ll be interesting to see how many of these predictions come true. Let’s hope technology will evolve in ethical ways and humans won’t loose themselves in it!
I was thinking the exact thing as Lauren about the Schreyer essay. I spent most of mine talking about what the future might look like in the medical field. I think it’s super cool to think of how entertainment will become even more immersive and realistic, but it also scares me to think that people could become addicted to a virtual world that is even better than our real one. It could be like the matrix, but people willingly succlude themselves to digital worlds because it’s a better reality. Hopefully you are right about the climate!
This was a great way to finish off this blog. I think a lot of what you said sounds extremely crazy looking at it from now, but once we get there my guess is a lot of it will be true. I think we will see a big push towards self-driving and electric cars. Also, I hope that we see I push towards a greener footprint. Contrary to you, I think we will see a big change in fashion, I think the way we dress is constantly changing, I admit it may still be similar, but I think we will see a lot of difference. I really can’t wait to see what the future holds. This was a great blog post thanks for sharing!