I have previously written a
series of articles
about Technology Advancements and Life
in
2050. In this article a
first
attempt is made to project even further into time and make
predictions about life by the end of the century –
Year 2100.
By then we will have completed the transition from a
Type 0 to a Type 1 Civilization. (Revisiting this article again during the coronavirus pandemic of 2020, the predictions seem to be right on target.)
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Predictions
for the Year 2100
The
following are a preliminary set of high level predictions of life in
the Year 2100:
Global Population
It
is predicted that the global population will be close to 12
billion by 2100,
barring any unforseen major pandemic or major extinction event.
Over 80%
of the world’s population will live in urbanized areas where
‘Smart Cities’
will house the bulk of the world's population. Networks
of metropolitan regions linked by new forms
of government, transportation,
communication, and
economic systems.
By 2100, governments
around the world will
be using various forms of
population control, e.g.
preventive medical solutions, legally approved coercion,
re-engineering social norms. Technology
will allow us to overcome language barriers allowing people to
communicate anyone in the world – and to communicate
telepathically. Read the
Future
of Human
Population
Agriculture
Demand
for Food and Water resources will grow substantially as the global
population increases substantially
by the end of this century. High-tech
solutions, precision farming systems, use
of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO), expansion of urban farming
techniques… will all
be
needed
to boost yields several times over to meet the growing global demand.
Expect to see widespread use of drones, robots,
artificial intelligance (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), autonomous
self-driving farming vehicles, global
weather control, and
many
other new technologies designed
to meet the needs of the
large
scale corporate farms
of the future.
Today’s
scarce fresh water resources will be vastly expanded by low-cost
desalinization technologies
that will convert sea water into potable water. Read
Future
of Food
and
Agricultral
Demand in 2050
Business
& Manufacturing
Global
standards will be in place for all sectors of the economy, e.g.
technology, medicine, manufacturing, transportation,
telecommunications. Use
of Smart 3D Printers, Robots,
Artificial Intelligence
(AI), the Internet of
Things (IoT), Advanced
Manufacturing Techniques... will dramatically
transform manufacturing
by the end of the
century. Many new and
almost unimaginable
‘smart’ materials
and technologies
for building
housing, making
clothing, manufacturing
cars... will be
developed and put into
use. Much of the
workforce will
use augmented and virtual reality technologies to perform their work
remotely in most
industries, e.g. education, healthcare, research, manufacturing,
retail, transportation...
both on Earth and
off-planet. Read
Future
of Retail
& Manufacturing
and Future
of Work
Finance
A
new global
‘digital’ currency
and a more
secure monetary system will have emerged and taken hold by the end of
the
century. Use of coins
and paper money will be a distant memory. New
and continuously evolving
global financial
systems
will draw heavily upon the use of new technologies, e.g. Blockchain,
‘Bitcoins’,
Artificial Intelligence (AI),
Crowdfunding, Implantables, Sensors, Smart ‘Wallets’...
Tens of thousands of bank branch offices will close and most accounting jobs will disappear. Collaboration, 'Open'
Solutions, and Continuous
Innovation will remain
key management
strategies for success
throughout the
21st century. Read
Future
of the Economy
and
Banking
in 2050
Education
Education
will be free for everyone and human
illiteracy will have
been
eliminated
around the world.
Access to free,
continuous
life-long learning opportunities
will be available for all
as
the rate of change continues to accelerate. humans
to adapt to the global economy. Many new technologies like
implantable
computer-brain interface technology, artificial
intelligence (AI), 5G
Internet, virtual
and augmented reality systems, free
and ‘open
access’
to
research
and educational materials… will
all
play
a
role
in revolutionizing
the education system, and eliminating
the cost
of
acquiring knowledge and becoming more productive in the future. Read
Future
of Education
and
Education
4.0
Energy
The
official end of the 'Oil Age' and use of fossil fuels on Earth will
have occurred
back in
2050. A
range of renewable energy sources will
provide 100% of the world’s energy,
e.g. wind, solar, hydro, fuel
cell, nuclear fusion –
and maybe still a
little oil and
natural gas.
Continent-wide ‘smart
supergrids' will be used to help manage the world's energy needs.
Both the high cost and scarcity of energy on Earth will be a thing of
the past. Roofs, windows, painted surfaces, clothes… will
all be used to collect energy for home and office devices, with
excess unused energy being fed into the country’s smart supergrid.
Wireless energy transmission systems will be in common use. Read
Future
of Energy
and Energy
& Environment in 2050
Environment
Average
global temperatures will have risen by more than 5°F
by 2100.
Ongoing climate change will
make storms far more intense around
the world, e.g.
hurricanes, tornados, cyclones, monsoons.
Sea levels across the globe
will rise by a little over 3 feet, flooding many coastal areas
around the world.
Major extinctions of many
animals and plant life will have occurred. For
example, deep ocean
mining operations around the world will become widespread further
disrupting sea life. Nearly
half of the rain forests and jungles in
the world today will
have vanished,
but global efforts to halt de-forestation, clean
up the seas, restore
coral reefs… will have finally taken hold.
Many displaced people will have migrated to Antartica as the snow cap
melted and it became habitable. Read
Future
of Climate
Change
and Energy
& Environment in 2050
Health
The
rise
of 'Regenerative Medicine', Genetic Engineering, Stem Cell Research,
and the development of 'Human Augmentation' technologies will
dramatically alter people's health
for the better over
this next century.
New
technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Robotics, Internet
of Things (IoT), and the Invisible User Interface (IUI) will all be
incorporated into Health
4.0 systems of the future.
Use
of DNA
biorepositories
and genomic information systems will further transform healthcare,
help lower costs, combat
diseases, reduce
child mortality, and extend human lifespans to well over 100 years.
Look to see the emergence
of a new health industry focused on BioEngineering
human
organs
and
new
lifeforms and dealing with recurring global pandemics. Read
Future
of Health
and
Searching
for Godot: Health 4.0
Technology
There
will be more than a
1,000-fold increase in computer processing
power, data collection
and storage,
information analysis
and dissemination...
By the year 2100, there will
be widespread use of
robots, drones,
virtual reality,
smart appliances, 5G
Internet, artificial
intelligence (AI),
Internet of Things
(IoT),
nano-bots,
brain-computer interfaces (BCI), unmanned autonomous vehicles (UAV),
3-D printers, Quantum Computers,
Invisible User
Interface (IUI), teleportation,
and many other
technologies
in every
industries, e.g. agriculture, manufacturing,
military, government, transportation… Wearable
and implantable
technologies, not
to mention teleportation and telepathy systems,
will also
be widely used in
all facets of daily
life,, e.g. healthcare,
education, security,
... All will be needed
to solve many of the
challenges brought
about by a growing
world population, rapid urbanization, climate change, pandemics... Read
Future
of Computers and Future
of the Internet
Transportation
Electric
and
Hydrogen Fuel
Cell powered
vehicles
will have
long
since replaced
fossil fuel powered vehicles.
Hi-tech
unmanned
autonompus vehicles
(UAV) will
be the
dominant form of transportation with
very few people owning their own cars.
High speed Maglev trains
and Hyperloop systems will be completed
between major cities across the U.S. and around the world. These
will all have a dramatic impact on the trucking and airplane
industries as we currently know them. Finally, the
commercial space transportation
industry will continue to grow and
evolve as
mankind begins to colonize outer space. Read
Future
of Transportation
Government
& Society
The
vast majority of countries will have adopted some form of democratic
government. New alliances and partnerships between countries
will lead to reinventing
regional and global governance systems. Many non-state
actors will take
the lead from
governments in
confronting major
global challenges,
e.g. climate,
pollution, healthcare…
Building leadership in government and business that can be 'trusted',
that is not corrupt, is citizen-centered, and not built on greed and
the quest for money and power... will continue to be a major
challenge for society to
achieve.
By
the end of the 21st
century, real time language translation technology will greatly
improve global communications between individuals and organizations
around the world. There will be continued progress towards the
eradication illiteracy and global poverty levels. Women
will have assumed a
significantly growing
role in
public and private
sector organizations
across the
world. Racial, religious, and gender discrimination
and intolerance will
have also been largely
eradicated in the US and many other parts of the world. Finally,
each
individual will receive some guaranteed form of Universal
Basic Income (UBI)
from government which will
meet the
minimum
requirements to
sustain their
lives,
especially when changing jobs or looking for new work. Read
Future
of Government,
Government
& Society by 2050, Future
of Human
Evolution
Military
& Warfare
It
will be highly unlikely that war will go extinct, though its
frequency, nature,
and scope will continue to change and adapt to the future
we will inhabit.
Many wars will be fought in the ‘virtual world’. It
is expected that rapid
changes and shifts in ‘power’ may ultimately lead to more smaller
intra-state and inter-state conflicts around the globe.
There
will be widespread use of new
technologies in weapon
systems, e.g. Unmanned
Autonomous Vehicles (UAV),
artificial intelligence
(AI),
laser weapons, drones,
robots, human
augmentation technology, teleportation, telepathy...
Also, expect
to see the
use
of military weapons
and warfare spreading
to outer space as the quest to colonize the moon and other planets
across
our solar system becomes
a reality. See
Top Secret
Weapons – DARPA Hard, Forecasting Change in Military Technology 2020-2040
Space
Travel & Colonization
Spaceflight
technology will have
taken
a major leap forward allowing for Inter-Planetary travel. Millions
of humans will
make
up
the first wave of immigrants
populating permanent
colonies on
other planets and moons in our Solar System. Large scale
geoengineering
construction
in
support of these steadily growing colonies will have begun. Public
and private sector organizations will be aggressively moving forward
to further
explore
and exploit resources on nearby planets, moons,
and asteroids
in outer-space well
into the 22nd
century.
Plans
for the
first unmanned
journeys
to potentially habitable planets in the nearest
solar systems of
our
Galaxy will
be initiated. See
Future
of Space Exploration - Video
Conclusion
We
are in the midst of the transition from the ‘Industrial Age’ of
the 20th century into the ‘Information Age’ of the
21st century. We are also in the midst of the transition
from a Type 0 Civilization into a Type 1 Civilization. It’s an
amazing time to be living and the world is in some turmoil as it
struggles to deal with these momentous transitions. To help people
deal with the rapid pace of change all around the, this article
attempts to paint a preliminary picture of the future to help make
some sense of the seeming chaotic times we are living through. I
hope you find this article informative and brings some clarity about
the rapidly changing world you, your children, and your grandchildren
are living in.
Links
to Selected Resources & Reports
