8 ms·

Metatrends shaping the next decade

45 points by yarapavan 6y ago

joubert 6y ago
Does he really mean "mega trends"? Or less marketing-y, simply "trends"?
- rm445 6y ago
  Agreed. Meta-trends would be 'trends will change faster' or similar; most of these are fairly specific predictions.
yarapavan 6y ago
20 "Mega Trends" from the article: 1. Continued increase in global abundance 2. Global gigabit connectivity will connect everyone and everything, everywhere, at ultra-low cost 3. The average human healthspan will increase by 10+ years 4. An age of capital abundance will see increasing access to capital everywhere 5. Augmented Reality and the Spatial Web will achieve ubiquitous deployment 6. Everything is smart, embedded with intelligence 7. AI will achieve human-level intelligence 8. AI-Human Collaboration will skyrocket across all professions 9. Most individuals adapt a -like “software shell” to improve their quality of life 10. Globally abundant, cheap renewable energy 11. The insurance industry transforms from “recovery after risk” to “prevention of risk 12. Autonomous vehicles and flying cars will redefine human travel (soon to be far faster and cheaper) 13. On-demand production and on-demand delivery will birth an “instant economy of things” 14. Ability to sense and know anything, anytime, anywhere 15. Disruption of advertising 16. Cellular agriculture moves from the lab into inner cities, providing high-quality protein that is cheaper and healthier 17. High-bandwidth Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCI) will come online for public use 18. High-resolution VR will transform both retail and real estate shopping 19. Increased focus on sustainability and the environment 20. CRISPR and gene therapies will minimize disease
- adrianN 6y ago
  I predict that nothing of this will happen in the next decade.
  - alex_anglin 6y ago
    Indeed. "7. AI will achieve human-level intelligence" should call in to question the whole analysis.
    - throw_away 6y ago
      Author's premise is entirely based on a > twenty year old book running at about a 19% accuracy rate for its current-decade predictions: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/NcGBmDEe5qXB7dFBF/assessing-kurzweil-predictions-about-2019-the-results https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/NcGBmDEe5qXB7dFBF/assessing-...
  - KKPMW 6y ago
    > 18. High-resolution VR will transform both retail and real estate shopping To me - this one sounds most plausible.
    - MR4D 6y ago
      You beat me to it. Actually, we are already pretty much there. [0] You might say these aren't 3D, but that's easy to add by following these instructions [1]. You might say there isn't true immersion, but that would be the next step, and already done in a music video. [2] [0] - http://members.har.com/cwsites/dispVirtualtours.cfm?id=21 http://members.har.com/cwsites/dispVirtualtours.cfm?id=21 [1] - https://www.harconnect.com/2020/07/14/har-virtual-tools/ https://www.harconnect.com/2020/07/14/har-virtual-tools/ [2] - https://nofilmschool.com/music-video-lidar-point-clouds-unreal-engine https://nofilmschool.com/music-video-lidar-point-clouds-unre...
      - MR4D 6y ago
        As for #2, note that it was done with the combination of a Leica LIDAR scanner, an iPhone, and pulled together ultimately in Unreal Engine.
- lqet 6y ago
  > AI will achieve human-level intelligence This would certainly surprise me very much. > Autonomous vehicles and flying cars will redefine human travel https://www.facebook.com/theseinfeldfriarsclub/videos/flying-cars/651760372302110/ https://www.facebook.com/theseinfeldfriarsclub/videos/flying...
- SideburnsOfDoom 6y ago
  > 7. AI will achieve human-level intelligence Instant eye-roll from me. Counterpoint: https://locusmag.com/2020/07/cory-doctorow-full-employment/ https://locusmag.com/2020/07/cory-doctorow-full-employment/
- SideburnsOfDoom 6y ago
  > 15. Disruption of advertising is advertising currently "rupted" ? in a steady state of calm non-disruption? My guess is no.
- SideburnsOfDoom 6y ago
  > 20. CRISPR and gene therapies will minimize disease Bear in mind that producing a vaccine to a new disease COVID-19 in 2 years would be simultaneously a) smashing existing records and b) far too slow to stop it being a catastrophe, then this prediction looks ridiculous.
- cblconfederate 6y ago
  17 nullifies 3, 5, 8, 9, 12, 18
witherk 6y ago
I think we would be pretty lucky for these to happen over the next 60 years.
paulintrognon 6y ago
This seems completely disconnected from reality. There is not even one mention of "climate change". > And as the world’s poorest countries are also the world’s sunniest, the democratization of both new and traditional storage technologies will grant energy abundance to those already bathed in sunlight. I would love to have that kind of optimism...
- mox1 6y ago
  I'm sure AI-inspired 5g cloud connected human brain interface gig economy algorithms will clean it all up in 2031, so why even mention it!?
  - tachyonbeam 6y ago
    > AI-inspired 5g cloud connected human brain interface gig economy You pair the app to your NeuraLink brain interface, you black out for five hours, and some amount of money appears in your bank account. Sometimes $50, sometimes $5000.
    - joquarky 6y ago
      This is a great opening pitch for a new Black Mirror episode.
      - toomuchtodo 6y ago
        http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=1439 http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=1439 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuromancer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuromancer
- jckl 6y ago
  A common theme in technological optimists seems to be a total dismissal of global warming. I see so many people in tech discuss how interruptive COVID-19 has been on humanity, but they see it as a sort of temporary problem to get over, where once dealt with, they can then go back to thinking about AGI or some other lofty technological goal. In reality, COVID-19 should be seen more as a "taste" of things to come. I don't know why more action, or at least discourse, regarding climate collapse exists in tech communites about this subject. Is it because it isn't as interesting to think about, when compared to working on self-driving cars, VR, human longevity, etc? Edit: I'm looking at you Lex Fridman and 90% of his guests.
redisman 6y ago
> 6. Everything is smart, embedded with intelligence I would just strike through this and type “cyber security job security will go through the roof” instead
dsiegel2275 6y ago
'The insurance industry transforms from “recovery after risk” to “prevention of risk:”' I understand insurance to largely already work like this: high premiums discourage risky behavior. For example, one might be dissuaded from building a home on a flood plain when one finds out what the flood insurance will cost.
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tomcam 6y ago
These are totally not like garden-variety “trends”. And certainly not like those much more important “megatrends“. No, these are metatrends. Makes all the difference. I of course am a step above all of this in abstraction, and only observe singularity trends.
maxwell 6y ago
Sounds like it was written by telco marketers in the mid '10s.
- kgin 6y ago
  "... you will"
FpUser 6y ago
And then he woke up ...
jmnicolas 6y ago
> Autonomous vehicles and flying cars will redefine human travel The flying cars were supposed to happen 20 years ago. Even if the tech would be possible, their massive energy consumption and loud noise would severely limit them to a small elite being able to afford using them (like helicopters really). We're not going to a world with cheap and abundant energy, quite the opposite actually. The article reads like the dreams of the author, not something based on reality.
- deepnotderp 6y ago
  That's entirely unclear though, flying cars would be able to avoid many energy wasting things with normal cars like not taking a direct route to the destination and n having to stop at traffic lights.
  - jmnicolas 6y ago
    Yeah but all this is compensated by having to float in the air.
deleted 6y ago
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subsubzero 6y ago
My 10 megatrends: 1. Resources especially water will become scarce in certain high population areas causing severe unrest and migration out of those regions. 2. Due to increased automation(spreading through all industries) income inequality will hit an all time high. 3. Due to climate change(fires/floods) and large insurance industry losses some areas will now be considered un-insurable. 4. Give the covid pandemic record amounts of money will be funneled to healthcare, expect some large scale diseases to be conquered, HIV, many forms of cancer. 5. Electric cars will be ubiquitous. 6. Large Media will suffer a near fatal collapse(changing consumer patterns ie cord cutting, distrust, polarization). 7. Military around the world will utilize more and more robots/AI in fights, most planes will be run by AI(no pilots), ground attacks will feature more robots also. Same with water, AI controlled submarines and boats. 8. Tech fatigue will set in with a significant part of the population with some people avoiding most forms of social media and smart devices. 9. A reverse of the people moving to big cities occurs, more people moving into smaller towns happens, this was triggered by covid but continues as more and more jobs are able to be done remotely. 10. Fusion reactors will become a reality with cheap power being achieved.
- vharuck 6y ago
  >2. Due to increased automation(spreading through all industries) income inequality will hit an all time high. >9. A reverse of the people moving to big cities occurs, more people moving into smaller towns happens, this was triggered by covid but continues as more and more jobs are able to be done remotely. These seem opposite, to me. I agree many jobs will eventually be automated. Especially manufacturing and other things small towns are known for. Can small cities survive with remote workers replacing the lost jobs?
  - subsubzero 6y ago
    This isn't really tied to techjob losses, some job loss will happen but more like blue collar industries that haven't been digitized. So more developers, less non-tech workers. That being said alot more people in tech will move to smaller towns.
  - bluGill 6y ago
fxtentacle 6y ago
"diamandis", "abundance", "mastermind" Sounds like an online marketing hustler who makes more money from selling his strategy to others, than from actually using his strategy. And indeed, the article ends with a call to action for you to sign up for his course to learn the "Abundance, Exponential, and Longevity Mindset". It's like Tony Robin's adapted for lifestyle startup founders. That's a good idea, if you ask me. The author can probably live handsomely from his online course. And for him, it won't matter if these predictions are correct or not.
- jlbnjmn 6y ago
  > It's like Tony Robin's adapted for lifestyle startup founders. I...uh...just remembered somewhere I'm supposed to be...
- deleted 6y ago
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Animats 6y ago
Wow, this guy has a whole conglomerate of hype companies.[1] Things he was hyping in 2012: - Dean Kamen’s "Slingshot," a technology which can transform polluted water, salt water or even raw sewage into incredibly high-quality drinking water for less than one cent a liter. Units actually cost hundreds of thousands of dollars at first. They became somewhat cheaper, but never cost-effective. Coca-Cola bought about 150 of them so they could clean up local water for use in beverage dispensers. - Qualcomm Tricorder XPRIZE which promises a low-cost, handheld medical device that allows anyone to diagnose themselves better than a board certified doctor. That turned into a wearable vital signs monitor for people recovering from surgery.[3] - Dickson Despommier’s "vertical farms" Other than for very high value crops, this seems to be going nowhere. [1] https://www.diamandis.com/ https://www.diamandis.com/ [2] https://www.diamandis.com/abundance https://www.diamandis.com/abundance [3] https://wefunder.com/updates/114506-vitaliti-makes-a-difference-for-post-surgical-monitoring https://wefunder.com/updates/114506-vitaliti-makes-a-differe...
vharuck 6y ago
>(11) The insurance industry transforms from “recovery after risk” to “prevention of risk:”... health insurance (which is really sick insurance) pays only after you get sick. In the US, health insurance plans will almost always have prevention measures. They give discounts for annual wellness screenings, they arrange transportation to checkups, they pay for cancer screening. But health insurance is an oddity among insurance types. I don't use my fire insurance to pay for routine things. The fire insurance company can do pretty well playing the odds of disasters. But my health insurer also has to pay for the boring stuff like lifelong medications and annual checkups. So they need to drive down the risk of an emergency enough to still be profitable. Also, the government really pushes prevention. Hard to say no to the entity with the biggest sticks and tastiest carrots.
superfrank 6y ago
> AI will achieve human-level intelligence I just have a passing interest in the AI space, but I feel like we've been hearing that this is "10 years away" for the last 20+ years. Maybe I'm wrong, but with technologies like AI and self driving cars we tend to make a lot of progress and then hit long plateaus of minimal improvement. It feels like someone makes a breakthrough and then everyone rushes to solve all the formerly hard problems that are now easy to solve because of that breakthrough, but once those dry up, we run into a different "unsolvable" problem. The general public keeps assuming we will advance in a linear (or logarithmic) fashion during those times of growth and fails to account for the fact that there are large plateaus of minimal growth in between them. I do think at some point we will achieve this, but 10 years feels like an incredibly optimistic timeline. Also, as a side note, over the years I've found that anyone who describes themselves as a "futurist" tends to have a bit of optimism bias toward how quickly we will reach certain technological milestones, which makes me believe this timeline even less.
- blamestross 6y ago
  AI passed human intelligence many times already. We just keep re-defining the problem to avoid that.
  - jlbnjmn 6y ago
    Redefining problems is good when flaws in the original definitions are found. AI has perhaps, maybe passed human intelligence in 0.005% of applications. It's 2020 and we still have steering wheels in cars. If we replaced the word "AI" with "statistics" we'd be a lot closer to describing where we are.
    - animal_spirits 6y ago
      "Statistically driven vehicles" sounds more correct, but less marketable
  - superfrank 6y ago
    Maybe I'm reading way too much into it, but when I read things like "AI will achieve human-level intelligence" I assume they mean that the AI will be fairly general purpose. Most of the applications I've seen, while impressive, have been pretty narrow.
thorwasdfasdf 6y ago
people keep assuming that technology just needs to be developed when in actually it's the cost that matters most. No technology will ever see widespread adoption without a low enough cost, not to mention it needs to be allowed legally as well.
- jlbnjmn 6y ago
  The second part of that whole "finding people willing and able to pay..." bit of business strategy seems to get ignored frequently.
Animats 6y ago
Trends for the next decade. - Areas of coastal cities abandoned due to repeated flooding - Areas of high fire danger abandoned in California and Australia. - Mass die-off in India due to excessive population and lack of water. - US, UK, and Israel classified as "failed democracies" due to autocratic leaders. - Terrorists cause a worldwide epidemic. - Apple announces IPhone 20. Nobody cares.
- petra 6y ago
  >> - Terrorists cause a worldwide epidemic. Scary. But how ? isn't the access to epidemiological viral knowledge and bio-manufacturing highly regulated?
  - Animats 6y ago
    Unfortunately, no.[1] It's much easier than making a custom IC. [1] https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/09/11/crispr-pandemic-gene-editing-virus/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/09/11/crispr-pandemic-gene-ed...
    - petra 6y ago
      Still, it requires RNA fragment synthesis, and DNA sequencing. Those seem like regulate-able technologies, right? And this is by Vivek Wadhwa, is he considered a serious analyst of such subjects ? Edit: this is the opinion of an expert in bioweapons, about DIY bioweapons : "“If you take risk as a factor of likelihood of impact, the most likely attacks will come from low-powered actors, but have a minimal impact and be based on traditional approaches, existing pathogens, and well characterized risks and threats,” Millett explains. DIY genome editors, for example, may be great in number but are likely unable to produce a biological agent capable of causing widespread harm." https://futureoflife.org/2018/10/12/genome-editing-and-the-future-of-biowarfare-a-conversation-with-dr-piers-millett/?cn-reloaded=1&cn-reloaded=1&cn-reloaded=1 https://futureoflife.org/2018/10/12/genome-editing-and-the-f...
      - Animats 6y ago
teekert 6y ago
It's all going to change, except for our entrepreneurial startup model and the urge to be Google sized. Don't know what to think of that. How can it be so glorious for everyone when the focus is still on creating an ultra rich elite? Will energy be cheap if it is completely owned by the next Google? Or will it be just at a price point where two hard working people in one home can afford it? Current trends and this guy's intro have me worried a bit.
aussiegreenie 6y ago
To quote subsbuzero: My 10 megatrends: 1. Energy is effectively free. Solar PV is already USD 13 per MW-h (Oil equivalent USD 22.1) and falling 2. China will fail. During 1919-1948 China was ruled be regional strongmen (aka Warlordism). The CCP will fail and return to Warlordism. 3. All the connected 'smart' devices will fail due to either a deliberate or accidental failure of the Internet. Many will never be reboot. 4. People get old. Most countries are ageing including China, Japan and most western countries. 5. Climate Change will cause water and food shortages. 6. Most countries taxes bases will be destroyed. Due to 'tax planning' by the rich and the inability of Governments to replace outdated taxes with modern ones. eg petrol tax on ICE cars with EVs 7. Politics will become even less relevant. Politics will continue to shrink with large donors the only voices heard. 8. Healthcare will become less equal, along with everything else. 9. Many nation states will fail including the America. 10. There will be a rise in extremism as displaced people fight for reduced resources.
aaroninsf 6y ago
This reads like it was written in 2006. I get the corporate cheerleading newoptimist TED talk breathless thing. And yes, some of these are reasonable extrapolations–at least, they would be, absent the entire apple cart being overturned by destabilizing forces which totally puncture the fragile globalist two-class equilibrium of the last decade or two. But's it's breathtaking in its lack of engagement with the forces that make such an upsetting of the cart highly likely: • ever vaster reach and cost of the surveillance state • accelerating wealth accumulation in a smaller oligarchy • unprecedented efficacy of sentiment and behavioral control • disruptive climate change and side effects like pandemics Just to name a few contemporary headlines. I mean... really. I have lived through decades of misguided utopianism around the tech side. So has this guy. Buck to be made and cottage industry aside, he should know better.
haversine02 6y ago
My prediction: pairing AI with high-resolution satellite data will allow us to find untapped reserves of high-quality timber in the Amazon basin, enriching the local populace and the wise investors who get in to this metatrend on time. But seriously, this list reads like an eerily accurate vision of the corporate hellscape that is to come. I can't tell if the author is genuinely naive to the effects of near-perfect surveillance and profiling in the hands of governments and megacorps, or if it's just dressed up in pleasantries because there's money to be made there.
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45 points by yarapavan 6y ago

joubert 6y ago

Does he really mean "mega trends"? Or less marketing-y, simply "trends"?

rm445 6y ago
Agreed. Meta-trends would be 'trends will change faster' or similar; most of these are fairly specific predictions.

yarapavan 6y ago

20 "Mega Trends" from the article: 1. Continued increase in global abundance 2. Global gigabit connectivity will connect everyone and everything, everywhere, at ultra-low cost 3. The average human healthspan will increase by 10+ years 4. An age of capital abundance will see increasing access to capital everywhere 5. Augmented Reality and the Spatial Web will achieve ubiquitous deployment 6. Everything is smart, embedded with intelligence 7. AI will achieve human-level intelligence 8. AI-Human Collaboration will skyrocket across all professions 9. Most individuals adapt a -like “software shell” to improve their quality of life 10. Globally abundant, cheap renewable energy 11. The insurance industry transforms from “recovery after risk” to “prevention of risk 12. Autonomous vehicles and flying cars will redefine human travel (soon to be far faster and cheaper) 13. On-demand production and on-demand delivery will birth an “instant economy of things” 14. Ability to sense and know anything, anytime, anywhere 15. Disruption of advertising 16. Cellular agriculture moves from the lab into inner cities, providing high-quality protein that is cheaper and healthier 17. High-bandwidth Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCI) will come online for public use 18. High-resolution VR will transform both retail and real estate shopping 19. Increased focus on sustainability and the environment 20. CRISPR and gene therapies will minimize disease

adrianN 6y ago
I predict that nothing of this will happen in the next decade.
- alex_anglin 6y ago
  Indeed. "7. AI will achieve human-level intelligence" should call in to question the whole analysis.
  - throw_away 6y ago
    Author's premise is entirely based on a > twenty year old book running at about a 19% accuracy rate for its current-decade predictions: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/NcGBmDEe5qXB7dFBF/assessing-kurzweil-predictions-about-2019-the-results https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/NcGBmDEe5qXB7dFBF/assessing-...
- KKPMW 6y ago
  > 18. High-resolution VR will transform both retail and real estate shopping To me - this one sounds most plausible.
  - MR4D 6y ago
    You beat me to it. Actually, we are already pretty much there. [0] You might say these aren't 3D, but that's easy to add by following these instructions [1]. You might say there isn't true immersion, but that would be the next step, and already done in a music video. [2] [0] - http://members.har.com/cwsites/dispVirtualtours.cfm?id=21 http://members.har.com/cwsites/dispVirtualtours.cfm?id=21 [1] - https://www.harconnect.com/2020/07/14/har-virtual-tools/ https://www.harconnect.com/2020/07/14/har-virtual-tools/ [2] - https://nofilmschool.com/music-video-lidar-point-clouds-unreal-engine https://nofilmschool.com/music-video-lidar-point-clouds-unre...
    - MR4D 6y ago
      As for #2, note that it was done with the combination of a Leica LIDAR scanner, an iPhone, and pulled together ultimately in Unreal Engine.
lqet 6y ago
> AI will achieve human-level intelligence This would certainly surprise me very much. > Autonomous vehicles and flying cars will redefine human travel https://www.facebook.com/theseinfeldfriarsclub/videos/flying-cars/651760372302110/ https://www.facebook.com/theseinfeldfriarsclub/videos/flying...
SideburnsOfDoom 6y ago
> 7. AI will achieve human-level intelligence Instant eye-roll from me. Counterpoint: https://locusmag.com/2020/07/cory-doctorow-full-employment/ https://locusmag.com/2020/07/cory-doctorow-full-employment/
SideburnsOfDoom 6y ago
> 15. Disruption of advertising is advertising currently "rupted" ? in a steady state of calm non-disruption? My guess is no.
SideburnsOfDoom 6y ago
> 20. CRISPR and gene therapies will minimize disease Bear in mind that producing a vaccine to a new disease COVID-19 in 2 years would be simultaneously a) smashing existing records and b) far too slow to stop it being a catastrophe, then this prediction looks ridiculous.
cblconfederate 6y ago
17 nullifies 3, 5, 8, 9, 12, 18

witherk 6y ago

I think we would be pretty lucky for these to happen over the next 60 years.

paulintrognon 6y ago

This seems completely disconnected from reality. There is not even one mention of "climate change". > And as the world’s poorest countries are also the world’s sunniest, the democratization of both new and traditional storage technologies will grant energy abundance to those already bathed in sunlight. I would love to have that kind of optimism...

mox1 6y ago
I'm sure AI-inspired 5g cloud connected human brain interface gig economy algorithms will clean it all up in 2031, so why even mention it!?
- tachyonbeam 6y ago
  > AI-inspired 5g cloud connected human brain interface gig economy You pair the app to your NeuraLink brain interface, you black out for five hours, and some amount of money appears in your bank account. Sometimes $50, sometimes $5000.
  - joquarky 6y ago
    This is a great opening pitch for a new Black Mirror episode.
    - toomuchtodo 6y ago
      http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=1439 http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=1439 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuromancer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuromancer
jckl 6y ago
A common theme in technological optimists seems to be a total dismissal of global warming. I see so many people in tech discuss how interruptive COVID-19 has been on humanity, but they see it as a sort of temporary problem to get over, where once dealt with, they can then go back to thinking about AGI or some other lofty technological goal. In reality, COVID-19 should be seen more as a "taste" of things to come. I don't know why more action, or at least discourse, regarding climate collapse exists in tech communites about this subject. Is it because it isn't as interesting to think about, when compared to working on self-driving cars, VR, human longevity, etc? Edit: I'm looking at you Lex Fridman and 90% of his guests.

redisman 6y ago

> 6. Everything is smart, embedded with intelligence I would just strike through this and type “cyber security job security will go through the roof” instead

dsiegel2275 6y ago

'The insurance industry transforms from “recovery after risk” to “prevention of risk:”' I understand insurance to largely already work like this: high premiums discourage risky behavior. For example, one might be dissuaded from building a home on a flood plain when one finds out what the flood insurance will cost.

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tomcam 6y ago

These are totally not like garden-variety “trends”. And certainly not like those much more important “megatrends“. No, these are metatrends. Makes all the difference. I of course am a step above all of this in abstraction, and only observe singularity trends.

maxwell 6y ago

Sounds like it was written by telco marketers in the mid '10s.

kgin 6y ago
"... you will"

FpUser 6y ago

And then he woke up ...

jmnicolas 6y ago

> Autonomous vehicles and flying cars will redefine human travel The flying cars were supposed to happen 20 years ago. Even if the tech would be possible, their massive energy consumption and loud noise would severely limit them to a small elite being able to afford using them (like helicopters really). We're not going to a world with cheap and abundant energy, quite the opposite actually. The article reads like the dreams of the author, not something based on reality.

deepnotderp 6y ago
That's entirely unclear though, flying cars would be able to avoid many energy wasting things with normal cars like not taking a direct route to the destination and n having to stop at traffic lights.
- jmnicolas 6y ago
  Yeah but all this is compensated by having to float in the air.

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subsubzero 6y ago

My 10 megatrends: 1. Resources especially water will become scarce in certain high population areas causing severe unrest and migration out of those regions. 2. Due to increased automation(spreading through all industries) income inequality will hit an all time high. 3. Due to climate change(fires/floods) and large insurance industry losses some areas will now be considered un-insurable. 4. Give the covid pandemic record amounts of money will be funneled to healthcare, expect some large scale diseases to be conquered, HIV, many forms of cancer. 5. Electric cars will be ubiquitous. 6. Large Media will suffer a near fatal collapse(changing consumer patterns ie cord cutting, distrust, polarization). 7. Military around the world will utilize more and more robots/AI in fights, most planes will be run by AI(no pilots), ground attacks will feature more robots also. Same with water, AI controlled submarines and boats. 8. Tech fatigue will set in with a significant part of the population with some people avoiding most forms of social media and smart devices. 9. A reverse of the people moving to big cities occurs, more people moving into smaller towns happens, this was triggered by covid but continues as more and more jobs are able to be done remotely. 10. Fusion reactors will become a reality with cheap power being achieved.

vharuck 6y ago
>2. Due to increased automation(spreading through all industries) income inequality will hit an all time high. >9. A reverse of the people moving to big cities occurs, more people moving into smaller towns happens, this was triggered by covid but continues as more and more jobs are able to be done remotely. These seem opposite, to me. I agree many jobs will eventually be automated. Especially manufacturing and other things small towns are known for. Can small cities survive with remote workers replacing the lost jobs?
- subsubzero 6y ago
  This isn't really tied to techjob losses, some job loss will happen but more like blue collar industries that haven't been digitized. So more developers, less non-tech workers. That being said alot more people in tech will move to smaller towns.
- bluGill 6y ago

fxtentacle 6y ago

"diamandis", "abundance", "mastermind" Sounds like an online marketing hustler who makes more money from selling his strategy to others, than from actually using his strategy. And indeed, the article ends with a call to action for you to sign up for his course to learn the "Abundance, Exponential, and Longevity Mindset". It's like Tony Robin's adapted for lifestyle startup founders. That's a good idea, if you ask me. The author can probably live handsomely from his online course. And for him, it won't matter if these predictions are correct or not.

jlbnjmn 6y ago
> It's like Tony Robin's adapted for lifestyle startup founders. I...uh...just remembered somewhere I'm supposed to be...
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Animats 6y ago

Wow, this guy has a whole conglomerate of hype companies.[1] Things he was hyping in 2012: - Dean Kamen’s "Slingshot," a technology which can transform polluted water, salt water or even raw sewage into incredibly high-quality drinking water for less than one cent a liter. Units actually cost hundreds of thousands of dollars at first. They became somewhat cheaper, but never cost-effective. Coca-Cola bought about 150 of them so they could clean up local water for use in beverage dispensers. - Qualcomm Tricorder XPRIZE which promises a low-cost, handheld medical device that allows anyone to diagnose themselves better than a board certified doctor. That turned into a wearable vital signs monitor for people recovering from surgery.[3] - Dickson Despommier’s "vertical farms" Other than for very high value crops, this seems to be going nowhere. [1] https://www.diamandis.com/ https://www.diamandis.com/ [2] https://www.diamandis.com/abundance https://www.diamandis.com/abundance [3] https://wefunder.com/updates/114506-vitaliti-makes-a-difference-for-post-surgical-monitoring https://wefunder.com/updates/114506-vitaliti-makes-a-differe...

vharuck 6y ago

>(11) The insurance industry transforms from “recovery after risk” to “prevention of risk:”... health insurance (which is really sick insurance) pays only after you get sick. In the US, health insurance plans will almost always have prevention measures. They give discounts for annual wellness screenings, they arrange transportation to checkups, they pay for cancer screening. But health insurance is an oddity among insurance types. I don't use my fire insurance to pay for routine things. The fire insurance company can do pretty well playing the odds of disasters. But my health insurer also has to pay for the boring stuff like lifelong medications and annual checkups. So they need to drive down the risk of an emergency enough to still be profitable. Also, the government really pushes prevention. Hard to say no to the entity with the biggest sticks and tastiest carrots.

superfrank 6y ago

> AI will achieve human-level intelligence I just have a passing interest in the AI space, but I feel like we've been hearing that this is "10 years away" for the last 20+ years. Maybe I'm wrong, but with technologies like AI and self driving cars we tend to make a lot of progress and then hit long plateaus of minimal improvement. It feels like someone makes a breakthrough and then everyone rushes to solve all the formerly hard problems that are now easy to solve because of that breakthrough, but once those dry up, we run into a different "unsolvable" problem. The general public keeps assuming we will advance in a linear (or logarithmic) fashion during those times of growth and fails to account for the fact that there are large plateaus of minimal growth in between them. I do think at some point we will achieve this, but 10 years feels like an incredibly optimistic timeline. Also, as a side note, over the years I've found that anyone who describes themselves as a "futurist" tends to have a bit of optimism bias toward how quickly we will reach certain technological milestones, which makes me believe this timeline even less.

blamestross 6y ago
AI passed human intelligence many times already. We just keep re-defining the problem to avoid that.
- jlbnjmn 6y ago
  Redefining problems is good when flaws in the original definitions are found. AI has perhaps, maybe passed human intelligence in 0.005% of applications. It's 2020 and we still have steering wheels in cars. If we replaced the word "AI" with "statistics" we'd be a lot closer to describing where we are.
  - animal_spirits 6y ago
    "Statistically driven vehicles" sounds more correct, but less marketable
- superfrank 6y ago
  Maybe I'm reading way too much into it, but when I read things like "AI will achieve human-level intelligence" I assume they mean that the AI will be fairly general purpose. Most of the applications I've seen, while impressive, have been pretty narrow.

thorwasdfasdf 6y ago

people keep assuming that technology just needs to be developed when in actually it's the cost that matters most. No technology will ever see widespread adoption without a low enough cost, not to mention it needs to be allowed legally as well.

jlbnjmn 6y ago
The second part of that whole "finding people willing and able to pay..." bit of business strategy seems to get ignored frequently.

Animats 6y ago

Trends for the next decade. - Areas of coastal cities abandoned due to repeated flooding - Areas of high fire danger abandoned in California and Australia. - Mass die-off in India due to excessive population and lack of water. - US, UK, and Israel classified as "failed democracies" due to autocratic leaders. - Terrorists cause a worldwide epidemic. - Apple announces IPhone 20. Nobody cares.

petra 6y ago
>> - Terrorists cause a worldwide epidemic. Scary. But how ? isn't the access to epidemiological viral knowledge and bio-manufacturing highly regulated?
- Animats 6y ago
  Unfortunately, no.[1] It's much easier than making a custom IC. [1] https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/09/11/crispr-pandemic-gene-editing-virus/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/09/11/crispr-pandemic-gene-ed...
  - petra 6y ago
    Still, it requires RNA fragment synthesis, and DNA sequencing. Those seem like regulate-able technologies, right? And this is by Vivek Wadhwa, is he considered a serious analyst of such subjects ? Edit: this is the opinion of an expert in bioweapons, about DIY bioweapons : "“If you take risk as a factor of likelihood of impact, the most likely attacks will come from low-powered actors, but have a minimal impact and be based on traditional approaches, existing pathogens, and well characterized risks and threats,” Millett explains. DIY genome editors, for example, may be great in number but are likely unable to produce a biological agent capable of causing widespread harm." https://futureoflife.org/2018/10/12/genome-editing-and-the-future-of-biowarfare-a-conversation-with-dr-piers-millett/?cn-reloaded=1&cn-reloaded=1&cn-reloaded=1 https://futureoflife.org/2018/10/12/genome-editing-and-the-f...
    - Animats 6y ago

teekert 6y ago

It's all going to change, except for our entrepreneurial startup model and the urge to be Google sized. Don't know what to think of that. How can it be so glorious for everyone when the focus is still on creating an ultra rich elite? Will energy be cheap if it is completely owned by the next Google? Or will it be just at a price point where two hard working people in one home can afford it? Current trends and this guy's intro have me worried a bit.

aussiegreenie 6y ago

To quote subsbuzero: My 10 megatrends: 1. Energy is effectively free. Solar PV is already USD 13 per MW-h (Oil equivalent USD 22.1) and falling 2. China will fail. During 1919-1948 China was ruled be regional strongmen (aka Warlordism). The CCP will fail and return to Warlordism. 3. All the connected 'smart' devices will fail due to either a deliberate or accidental failure of the Internet. Many will never be reboot. 4. People get old. Most countries are ageing including China, Japan and most western countries. 5. Climate Change will cause water and food shortages. 6. Most countries taxes bases will be destroyed. Due to 'tax planning' by the rich and the inability of Governments to replace outdated taxes with modern ones. eg petrol tax on ICE cars with EVs 7. Politics will become even less relevant. Politics will continue to shrink with large donors the only voices heard. 8. Healthcare will become less equal, along with everything else. 9. Many nation states will fail including the America. 10. There will be a rise in extremism as displaced people fight for reduced resources.

aaroninsf 6y ago

This reads like it was written in 2006. I get the corporate cheerleading newoptimist TED talk breathless thing. And yes, some of these are reasonable extrapolations–at least, they would be, absent the entire apple cart being overturned by destabilizing forces which totally puncture the fragile globalist two-class equilibrium of the last decade or two. But's it's breathtaking in its lack of engagement with the forces that make such an upsetting of the cart highly likely: • ever vaster reach and cost of the surveillance state • accelerating wealth accumulation in a smaller oligarchy • unprecedented efficacy of sentiment and behavioral control • disruptive climate change and side effects like pandemics Just to name a few contemporary headlines. I mean... really. I have lived through decades of misguided utopianism around the tech side. So has this guy. Buck to be made and cottage industry aside, he should know better.

haversine02 6y ago

My prediction: pairing AI with high-resolution satellite data will allow us to find untapped reserves of high-quality timber in the Amazon basin, enriching the local populace and the wise investors who get in to this metatrend on time. But seriously, this list reads like an eerily accurate vision of the corporate hellscape that is to come. I can't tell if the author is genuinely naive to the effects of near-perfect surveillance and profiling in the hands of governments and megacorps, or if it's just dressed up in pleasantries because there's money to be made there.

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