JUMP IN, LET’S GO BACK TO THE FUTURE YET AGAIN
Hit movie got a lot right about 2015; what will 2045 look like?
In our sequel to 1985’s Back to
the Future, director Robert Zemeckis and I, with our talented crew, took on the challenge of depicting the world of 30 years in the future, specifically, Oct. 21, 2015. As demonstrated by the cover of this edition, which replicates a key element in the sequel, we made it optimistic and entertaining.
In Back to the Future Part II, we particularly focused on motifs from the original film. The 1955 Cafe became Cafe 80s, the old gas station became a robotic fuel station, the ordinary movie theater became a 3-D Ho- lomax theater, the skateboard chase became the hoverboard chase, and the McFly home received a technological upgrade.
We got a lot right. Today, there are 1980s themed restaurants featuring ’ 80s arcade games. Robotic gas pumps are being tested around the world, movies are presented in IMAX 3-D and magnetic hoverboard technology is real. We accurately predicted drones
that could photograph the news. And much of our imagined home technology — voice-activated appliances, flat-screen televisions and videoconferencing — is reality.
Of course, we got a lot wrong. Thankfully, we don’t have fax terminals in every room. Food hydrators are non-existent, our fashion predictions were way off, and we don’t have fusion energy devices. We completely missed the smartphone, perhaps the most transformative device in the past 30 years. And flying cars? No, we didn’t seriously think they’d exist today, but then, we weren’t trying to be serious.
For this edition, I was asked to again predict life 30 years in the future. I hope I’ll be around to see what I get right.
In 2045, people will own fewer things. This is already happening through media cloud storage and the sharing economy. Improved rideshare apps will make it easier to function without owning a car, and public self-driving cars in our business districts will accelerate that trend.
As virtual reality makes it simpler to work from home, there will be fewer cars on the road, less wear on our infrastructure but less revenue from car and gasoline taxes. So our governments will find new ways to tax us and “feed the beast.”
Virtual reality will allow people to be comfortable in smaller living spaces and will also lead to some interesting developments in the sex industry (Google “virtual reality sex” to see what I mean). Our birthrate will continue declining, but there will be fewer jobs necessary to run society.
A fast-food restaurant will be operated by just two people, and some of that food will be soy, processed to taste like chicken and beef. Cashiers will be a thing of the past because transactions will be made via smartphone, and meals will be prepared and packaged by robots. Already, store checkers are being replaced by self checkout, and both they and restaurant waiters will become endangered species. Advanced robots will handle almost all factory and warehouse labor, and consumers will manufacture smaller items in their own homes with 3-D printers.
By 2045, robotic systems will construct buildings and roads. And the most important job in society will be “repair person.” We’ll have “Google MD,” a system using biometrics and data crunching to diagnose us from our own homes — a good thing, given an aging population and a likely shortage of doctors. We’ll have less privacy, but people won’t care because, as a defense mechanism, they’ll be less judgmental and have less shame.
Although I still don’t expect flying cars, we’ll have hoverboard parks, similar to today’s skateparks.
Finally, the people of 2045 will be nostalgic about life 30 years ago and wish for a DeLorean Time Machine to experience the simpler life of 2015.
“Flying cars? No, we didn’t seriously think they’d exist today, but then, we weren’t trying to be serious.”
Screenwriter Bob Gale