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Predictions for 2030
In my opinion, there are five primary industries that follow common missions with defined outcomes. If these industries succeed in implementation, it will have a predictable effect on civilization.
1. Autonomous taxis will change urbanization by allowing for reduced transit times and a more productive commute; shifting living from dense urban centers to more concentrated environments, expanding the suburbs.
2. Robotics technology will replace a good portion of the US labor force, as investments into robotics advances to more sophisticated AI models similar to Tesla's Dojo.
3. Agriculture productivity will increase significantly per acre and grow more sophisticated, thus lowering the need for many foreign and domestic farming, and eventually reducing their costs. New species will be introduced as traditional agriculture is increasingly unsustainable in a changing climate.
4. Humans will adapt to become reliant upon technology integrated into their lives, particularly in VR + AR which they will spend equal or more of their time in these environments for productivity or play.
5. Human genetic engineering will be a serious subject, but may be far longer away, particularly as every generation has gotten increasingly liberal in their beliefs, likely first to mitigate disease and the second for cosmetic reasons.
These are assumptions premised on factors that may accelerate or decelerate their outcomes that are both predictable (e.g. business cycles) or more random (e.g. epidemics).
- AnimalMuppet 4y ago#2 has been predicted forever. What is your basis for saying that this time it will replace "a good portion of the US labor force"? Why will the next 8 years be different from the last 100? Technologically, what do you think is going to drive #3? It isn't going to happen on its own; there has to be some (human, technical) cause. Sociologically, what do you think is going to drive #4? People are already craving genuine human contact, as society becomes more and more dehumanizing. Why would they want even more virtual stuff and even less real human contact?
- transfire 4y agoMaybe 2040 though.
- simonblack 4y agoI'm very sorry, but all of that is 'pie in the sky'. The costs of doing all those things would be enormous, and the US is in deep shit economically. Where would the money that would be required for the all of the 'pie' be coming from? Not going to happen. Live with it.
- throwawayarnty 4y agoThese are fine predictions, but how much money at what odds are you willing to bet that they will come true? Just talking without any real substance is no different than pundits on TV spewing their daily nonsense. they are incentivised to make grand predictions because being wrong has no penalty.
- ggm 4y ago1) no chance. The faked "level #x" model of vehicular autonomy is like Asimov's three laws of robotics: Its rei-ified fiction of what will emerge, and its going to take a LOT longer than 8 years to work through the mixture of states of being on a road. 2) this has been happening since the 1970s. It has little to do with AI. It's continuance of a trend, which anyone in auto-industry has been aware of for decades. The question would be does it have an asymptote yet. 3) partly, but also robotics will reduce spray burden, and in some cases yield will rise by reduced field losses, not genetics. Fertilizer is a real longterm concern, as is the capacity of soil to carry our expectations of yield. A tonne of soil is sometimes lost, growing a tonne of wheat. 4) VR sucks. Nothing is going to move here until the delay drops massively. We're not moving to VR in 8 years. 5) it already is. But mainly for breaches of protocol and inflated claims. Post birth genetic treatments need to be stable for a decade or two before pre-birth genetic treatments emerge.