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This is Tom Frey’s list and it is a
pretty good one. All can be put on a
maybe yes, maybe no as we move forward. It
makes no provision for unknown but actually prospective game changers that will
act as accelerators and new directions.
We cover and uncover those on this blog as much as is possible.
I think that the real game changer
that will affect every human is the pending advent of bio engineering and bio sculpting. Everyone wants to be the healthiest they can
be, the strongest they can be within aesthetic limits and the best looking they
can be. This can all be achieved mostly
by DNA therapy which is already possible and is rapidly improving.
I expect that we will be well on the
way to a universal middle class with full access to all this by 2030 as all the
natural financial accelerators kick in and government largely gets out of the
way.
33 Dramatic Predictions for 2030
December 18th, 2013
Humanity will change more in the next 20 years than in all
of human history.
By 2030 the average person in the U.S. will have 4.5
packages a week delivered with flying drones. They will travel 40% of the time
in a driverless car, use a 3D printer to print hyper-individualized meals, and
will spend most of their leisure time on an activity that hasn’t been invented
yet.
The world will have seen over 2 billion jobs disappear,
with most coming back in different forms in different industries, with over 50%
structured as freelance projects rather than full-time jobs.
Over 50% of today’s Fortune 500 companies will have
disappeared, over 50% of traditional colleges will have collapsed, and India
will have overtaken China as the most populous country in the world.
Most people will have stopped taking pills in favor of a
new device that causes the body to manufacture it’s own cures.
Space colonies, personal privacy, and flying cars will all
be hot topics of discussion, but not a reality yet.
Most of today’s top causes, including climate change, gay
liberation, and abortion, will all be relegated to little more than footnotes
in Wikipedia, and Wikipedia itself will have lost the encyclopedia wars to an
upstart company all because Jimmy Wales was taken hostage and beheaded by
warring factions in the Middle East over a controversial entry belittling micro
religions.
Our ability to predict the future is an inexact science.
The most accurate predictions generally come from well-informed industry
insiders about very near term events.
Much like predicting the weather, the farther we move into
the future, the less accurate our predictions become.
So why do we make them?
In the segments below, I’ll make a series of 33
provocative predictions about 2030, and how different life will be just 17
years in the future.
I will also explain why predictions are important, even
when they are wrong.
“Our greatest
motivations in life come from NOT knowing the future.”
Why Understanding the Future is Important
Ignorance is a valuable part of the future. If we knew the
future we would have little reason to vote in an election, host a surprise
party, or start something new.
Once a future is known, we quickly lose interest in trying
to influence it. For this reason, our greatest motivations in life come from
NOT knowing the future.
So why, as a futurist, do I spend so much time thinking
about the future?
Very simply, since no one has a totally clear vision of
what lies ahead, we are all left with degrees of accuracy. Anyone with a higher
degree of accuracy, even by only a few percentage points, can achieve a
significant competitive advantage.
The Power of Prediction
If I make the prediction that “By 2030 over 90% of all
crimes will be solved through video and other forms of surveillance,” a
forecast like that causes several things to happen.
First, you have to decide if you agree that a certain
percent of crimes will be solved that way. If so, it forces you to think about
how fast the surveillance industry is growing, how invasive this might be, and
whether privacy concerns might start to shift current trends in the other
direction.
More importantly, it forces you to consider the bigger
picture, and whether this is a desirable future. If it reaches 90%, how many
police, judges, and lawyers will be out of a job as a result of this? Will this
create a fairer justice system, a safer society, or a far scarier place to
live?
Please keep this in mind as we step through the following
predictions.
33 Dramatic Predictions
- By 2030 over 80% of all doctor visits will have been replaced by
automated exams. Details here.
- By 2030 over 90% of all restaurants will use some form of a 3D food
printer in their meal preparations.Details here.
- By 2030 over 10% of all global financial transactions will be
conducted through Bitcoin or Bitcoin-like crypto currencies.
- By 2030 we will seen a growing number of highways designated as
driverless-vehicle only. Details here.
- By 2030, a Chinese company will become the first to enter the space
tourism industry by establishing regular flights to their space hotel.
- By 2030, the world’s largest Internet company will be in the
education business, and it will be a company we have not heard of yet.
- By 2030 over 20% of all new construction will be “printed”
buildings. Details here.
- By 2030 over 2 billion jobs will have disappeared, freeing up talent
for many new fledgling industries.Details here.
- By 2030 a new protest group will have emerged that holds
anti-cloning rallies, demonstrating against the creation of “soul-less
humans.”
- By 2030 we will see the first city to harvest 100% of its water
supply from the atmosphere. Details here.
- By 2030 world religions will make a resurgence, with communities of
faith growing by nearly 50% over what they are today.
- By 2030 over 50% of all traditional colleges will collapse, paving
the way for an entire new education industry to emerge. Details here.
- By 2030 we will see a surge of Micro Colleges spring to life, each
requiring less than 6 months of training and apprenticeship to switch
professions. Details here.
- By 2030 scientists will have perfected an active cross-species
communication system, enabling some species to talk to each other as well
as humans.
- By 2030 we will see the first hurricane stopped by human
intervention.
- By 2030 we will see wireless power used to light up invisible light
bulbs in the middle of a room.
- By 2030 we will see the first demonstration of a technology to
control gravity, reducing the pull of gravity on an object by as much as
50%.
- By 2030 democracy will be viewed as inferior form of government.
- By 2030 traditional police forces will be largely automated out of
existence with less than 50% of current staffing levels on active duty.
- By 2030 over 90% of all libraries will offer premium services as
part of their business model. Details here.
- By 2030 forest fires will have been reduced to less than 5% of the
number today with the use of infrared drone monitoring systems. Details here.
- By 2030 over 30% of all cities in the U.S. will operate their
electric utilities as micro grids.
- By 2030 we will have seen a number of global elections with the
intent of creating a new global mandate, forcing world leaders to take
notice. Details here.
- By 2030 traditional pharmaceuticals will be replaced by
hyper-individualized medicines that are manufactured at the time they are
ordered. Details here.
- By 2030 we will have seen the revival of the first mated pair of an
extinct species. Details here.
- By 2030 swarms of micro flying drones – swarmbots – will be
demonstrated to assemble themselves as a type of personal clothing,
serving as a reconfigurable fashion statement. Details here.
- By 2030 marijuana will be legalized in all 50 states in the U.S. and
half of all foreign countries. Details here.
- By 2030 cable television will no longer exist.
- By 2030 a small number of companies will begin calculating their
labor costs with something called “synaptical currency.” Details here.
- By 2030 it will be common to use next generation search engines to
search the physical world. Details here.
- By 2030 basic computer programming will be considered a core skill required
in over 20% of all jobs.Details here.
- By 2030 we will have seen multiple attempts to send a probe to the
center of the earth. Details here.
- By 2030 a form of tube transportation, inspired by Hyperloop and ET3, will be well on its way to
becoming the world’s largest infrastructure project. Details here.
Final Thoughts
Reading through the prediction above you will likely have
experiences a number of thoughts ranging from agreement, to amusement, to
confusion, to total disagreement.
As with most predictions, some will be correct and others
not. But the true value in this list will come from giving serious
consideration to each of them and deriving your own conclusions.
If you were expecting me to aggressively defend all these
predictions, then this column will certainly disappoint you. It has been a
lifetime journey for me to formulate my thoughts about the future, but there
are far too many variables to build a defensible case for any of them.
That said, I would love to hear your thoughts. What’s
missing, too aggressive, or simply misguided? Sometimes my crystal ball is far
too fuzzy, so I’d love to hear what ideas come to mind.
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