What lies ahead
I’ve compiled a list of assorted predictions of what we can expect to experience across society in the relatively near future. I likely won’t be around to see just how many I’ve nailed, but at that point I suppose it really won’t matter.
Day to day, general medicine will be practiced largely through remote doctor’s visits using the Internet. Covid-19 has already set us on that path.
Artificial intelligence will play a major role in the development of pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines, as well as other new and innovative products.
Restaurants fortunate enough to survive the pandemic nightmare will increasingly rely on delivery, takeout and covered patio dining.
Thanks also in large part to the covid pandemic, many more of us will work from home rather than entering commuter nightmares along streets and highways. And workers will be just as productive in that environment. The same will happen with schools as distance learning and Internet instruction become commonplace. The impact of this, combined with video diversions, will greatly affect socialization in society.
Shopping malls, already in a state of decline, will be converted into other functions, perhaps such as retirement villages or perhaps corporate villages.
What we know as basic auto repair shops will steadily disappear as electric vehicles are improved upon and become widely accepted by 2030. Gasoline pumps also will slowly fade as electric power takes center stage.
The state and nation will become dotted with electrical recharging stations as coal and oil companies fold.
Homes increasingly will produce and retain their own abundant electrical energy. What they don’t use will be sold back to the power grid.
By the time they’re 60, today’s infants will see personal vehicles only in museums.
Bye-bye cameras and film. That change is already evident. Kodak employed 17,000 in 1998 and sold 85 percent of photo paper on the planet. Its business model evaporated and it filed for bankruptcy in 2012, and reorganized, and it now is in danger of declaring bankruptcy again. Look how many already have traded their cameras for cell-phone versions.
On a related note, digital cameras were invented in 1975. As with all exponential technologies, digital photography was a disappointment for a time before becoming far superior, and became mainstream in a few short years.
So many other once familiar industries will suffer similar fates in coming decade. Most folks don’t see it coming.
Uber, a software app, owns not a single car but became the largest taxi company in the world in a matter of several years. Think the taxi drivers saw that coming?
Airbnb is bigger than the five largest hotel companies worldwide although it owns no properties. Think Holiday Inn, Marriott and Hilton saw that in the cards 20 years ago?
Anyone else remember the clumsy physical push mowers we used in the 1950s? Mowing one’s yard will become passe as fully automated mowers supplied with artificial intelligence already are in existence. Operating much like the popular Roomba robot house vacuums, we will turn them loose on the lawn and return to find it perfectly mowed and the smart mower back in its charging stall preparing for the next job.
Brace further for the revolutions wrought by artificial intelligence. Computers are becoming exponentially better at understanding the world. In 2016, a computer beat the best Go player in the world, 10 years earlier than expected.
Young lawyers already are feeling the dramatic impact in their profession from computers. One can get basic legal advice on the Internet within seconds. The prediction is we can expect to see fewer lawyers in the future. Only specialists will remain.
Computer programs will play a significant role in identifying and diagnosing disease. They already are helping accurately diagnose cancer.
Facebook has pattern-recognition software that can identify faces better than humans.
Because of autonomous cars, the very young children of today will never get a driver’s license and will never own a car. This also will change cities because we will need 90-95 percent fewer cars and can transform former parking lots into green parks.
About 1.2 million people die each year in car accidents worldwide including distracted or drunk driving. We now have one accident every 60,000 miles. With autonomous driving that will drop to 1 accident in 6 million miles. That will save more than a million lives worldwide each year
Accordingly some traditional car companies will doubtless go bankrupt.
Insurance companies will have massive trouble because, without human-caused accidents, costs will become cheaper. The auto insurance business model as it exists today will radically change or disappear altogether. Cities will be less noisy because new cars will be operating on electricity as well as leaving much cleaner air in their wake. Electricity will become incredibly cheap and clean.
Solar energy production has been on an exponential curve for 30 years, but we already are seeing the burgeoning impact. And, stay tuned, it’s only getting ramped up.
Cable television will fade away as streaming becomes the norm. That’s already happening in a number of regions.
Higher water levels, more powerful tropical storms, and increased energy use across the globe will lead to widespread power outages. In the U.S., the effects will be worst in crowded, northeastern cities like New York and Philadelphia.
Wish I could hang around another 30 years to see just how right or wrong these predictions prove to be, but as mentioned above, my biggest prediction of all is that I won’t.
Now go out into the world and treat everyone you meet exactly like you want them to treat you.