Seeing how things are today, the major focus of humans for the next age is AI (Artificial Intelligence) and space exploration. This century is dominated by more technology-oriented inventions. The Internet kicked in and revolutionized the world, social media has made people interconnected. Future can’t be predicted but it is sure to be surprising with new inventions. For some futurologists, how the future will be has worried them in an astonishing way. The environment, education, transportation, entertainment, and people’s lifestyle will be changed.
Technology will make education possible all around the world by 2050. But this growing number of inventions and technologies will pollute the environment and could take away a lot of important matters too. For the last hundred years, the biggest spurt of scientific and technological revolution has been done. And what differences will be in technology in the next hundred years? In this article, we will evaluate the possible future scenarios.
Just a few days ago, we saw Elon Musk’s Mars project taking advancement where he made promises at the International Astronautical Congress last week that his Space X company is going to start sending people to Mars by 2024, and by 40 to 100 years, he will have millions of us living there. NASA has challenged designers to develop a conventional drone to work inside a space station, navigating with no ‘up’ or ‘down’. Similarly, we have IBM’s Deep Blue beat World Class Champ quite a while ago.
We have seen Japan and the US making impressive movements in AI. Robots are conversation-friendly and have shown impressive signs of intelligence. Google’s AI has been progressing and making human life easier as a helpline. AI advancement has attracted the attention of a large number of people to take notice of AI, Machine learning, and Deep Learning. With the advancement of genetics and genetic engineering, human evolution will be interesting to see. Simple holograms exist today and virtual reality games are popular and it’s predicted to see, smell and touch the things that we see on TV.
Cars will have computers to control the speed and the chances of an accident will diminish. Spaceplanes will take people halfway around the world in two hours. Also, there will be technologies to conquer many diseases. Experts like Ray Kurzweil, Aubrey de Gray believe in the theory of immortality, and researchers like Calico and The 2045 Initiative are working to make aging reverse. There are electronic devices that connect directly to the brain to help people hear. Scientists will be able to produce clones of people and decide their appearance and the intelligence they possess. Life seems to be relaxing and interesting in the future right?
All these advancements aside, world data has been increasing at an exponential rate. Noting the advancement in AI, maybe the Sci-Fi movies of a few years ago might be the reality in a short space of time. Terminator, Matrix has shown us how AI advancement might go against us. The great Stephen Hawking too believes such a future is possible and says humanity has only about 100 years to escape Earth. “ The human species has to populate a new planet within 100 years if it is to survive”, says Hawking. Global warming will become an even bigger problem. Australia is facing ozone layer depletion. Water levels will continue to rise, freshwater sources will be polluted and become a major issue hence environmental destruction will increase significantly.
From another perspective, dictator tendencies, chiefly in Asia will destabilize the world. Nuclear alarmed countries like China, North Korea will become major security threats to the entire world. Technology can increase loneliness and cause social isolation, and cause unemployment problems. Robots will replace human jobs and employees may become redundant. We might become excessively reliant on technology for even some basic calculations and spelling errors and that makes us too dependent on modern tools and decrease our creativity and intelligence. The high risk of cybercrime, stealing information and data is obvious with no surprise. Expenses will be high and security will be in doubt. Aside from issues creasing work production like system failures, interruptions and distractions can include instant messages, email, online games, music, and videos will kill user’s time and cause more unproductive time than spending time on books and conferences.
The use of technology certainly needs new rules and new laws. Unless well handled, nuclear-alarmed countries will facilitate increased regional wars, and terrorist groups will dominate major regions of the world. All of this may seem like science fiction, but it isn’t. The future is happening faster than we think and changing important parts of our existence. Next-generation video-conferencing technologies are using multiple screens and spatial user interfaces to allow people in different locations to collaborate and share electronic information in a science fiction-like setting. The exploitation of non-renewable resources needs the attention of the government.
The Maldives has been predicted to be the first country to sink and become underwater if global warming doesn’t decrease. Scientists are planning to make the desert habitable for the solution of survival. Also, Elon Musk’s project to colonize Mars by 2050 could be the vital solution if things go as he has intended to. As for AI, we can test how easy life has been by checking our phone’s assistant, Google Assistant, Cortana from Microsoft, or Siri from Apple. But again, it’s totally up to us where we want to take the whole thing; use AI for NLP (Natural Language Processing), robotics, or use to make our acne disappear. The waste we are producing is enormous and the impact it has is yet to be seen.
With the available tech and resources, should the priority be to mitigate poverty or test a space rocket for space exploration? Should it be focused on incurable diseases or weapons for self-destruction? Whichever path we take, we should be smart enough to be prepared for the possible outcomes. It could be a bleak situation or a really promissive one. Could be total destructing new species taking over humans as the ‘superior’ being at the top of the ecosystem. Could it be alien evasion, series of World war, food, water, and resource crisis, media brainwash, trend and social status, or something unexpected.