Technologically, the jump to 2035 will be huge. Some elements of our world will change beyond recognition while others will stay reassuringly (or disappointingly) familiar.
It would be tempting to roll out the clichés – food pills, flying cars and bases on the moon – but the reality will probably be less exciting. The world in 2035 will probably be much like it is today, but smarter and more automatic. Some innovations we might not notice, while others will knock us sideways, changing our lives forever.
The future of food
What it won’t be like: The scene in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971) where Violet Beauregarde has a three-course roast dinner in a stick of chewing gum.
What it could be like: In an article for Time1, Ray Kurzweil said: ‘The next major food revolution will be vertical agriculture in which we grow food in AI-controlled vertical buildings rather than horizontal land: hydroponic plants for fruits and vegetables and in-vitro cloned meat.’ This change is already happening. Green Spirit Farms grows kale, spinach and other greens under LED lights in an old plastics factory near Chicago.
Vertical farming, genetically modified (GM) crops and synthetic meat will be responses to the growing need for greater food efficiency as populations continue to grow. But there will also be a reluctant realisation that we all need to eat a better diet, one that is more plant-based and less reliant on processed foods. Meatless Mondays are a start. If that doesn’t work, we could be eating insects in 2035. Already popular in parts of Asia, insects are protein-rich, low in fat and a good source of calcium. Hey, don’t knock a roasted grasshopper until you’ve tried one.
The future of love
What it won’t be like: The movie Her (2013), where Joaquin Phoenix falls in love with an artificial intelligence (AI) operating system that has Scarlett Johansson’s voice.
What it could be like: The internet has forever changed the way people meet and fall in love. Online dating and location-based services have opened up possibilities that allow people to look beyond their immediate friends, friends of friends, and co-workers.
We are becoming more independent and less constrained by the old social norms. This will have an impact on the relationships we form, with fewer people choosing traditional marriage, a rise in official (and unofficial) civil partnerships, and more people remaining single for longer, if not forever.
Dr Helen Fisher, a senior research fellow at The Kinsey Institute for research in sex, gender and reproduction and an adviser to dating website Match.com, shared where she thinks relationships are heading in an article for The Wall Street Journal2.
‘Singles are ushering into vogue an extended pre-commitment stage of courtship,’ she wrote. ‘With hooking up, friends with benefits, and living together, they are getting to know a partner long before they tie the knot. Where marriage used to be the beginning of a partnership, it’s becoming the finale.
‘Any prediction of the future should take into account the unquenchable, adaptable and primordial human drive to love,’ she added. ‘To bond is human. This drive most likely evolved more than four million years ago, and email and computers won’t stamp it out.’
The future of work
What it won’t be like: The film Metropolis (1927), where battalions of sullen workers tend hulking machines in mind-numbing ten-hour shifts.
What it could be like: Rather than humans working with machines, automation is likely to make some jobs redundant: taxi drivers replaced by self-driving Uber cars; receptionists replaced by robots; doctors outclassed by algorithms that can plug into vast medical databases; and travel agents wiped out by trip-planning, flight-booking web services.
Even writers are threatened by companies such as Narrative Science, which currently uses AI to automate the creation of sports reports and financial updates.
Obviously, there will also be new jobs created: the computer engineer/mechanic who fixes the self-driving Uber taxis; programmers; genome mappers and bioengineers; space tour guides; and vertical farmers. Technology will continue to disrupt businesses and eliminate jobs, creating new professions we can’t yet envisage.
Those of us who work probably won’t do so in a traditional office either. We’re already seeing a shift in the definition of work: it’s now a task you perform, not a place you go to. Productivity is no longer measured by sitting at a desk. There’s no nine to five. No job for life.
In MYOB’s report The Future of Business – Australia 20403, chief technology officer Simon Raik-Allen suggests we will see a return to more vibrant local communities as people work within walking distance of their homes.
‘Rather than the office, or even the remote workspace, localised centres will emerge as the home of business – giant warehouses, which are used by employees from many different companies, spread around the globe… Within each will be rooms filled with giant wall-sized screens allowing us to work in a fully virtual, telepresence model. Banks of 3D printers would be continually churning out products ordered by the local community,’ Raik-Allen predicts.
The future is… unpredictable
Predicting the future is notoriously risky, especially if you claim to be an expert and then get it spectacularly wrong. In 1883 Lord Kelvin, president of Britain’s Royal Society, declared ‘X-rays will prove to be a hoax.’ Arthur Summerfield, the US Postmaster General in 1959, predicted that mail would be ‘delivered within hours from New York to Australia by guided missiles’. And we should be glad that Alex Lewyt’s 1955 notion of ‘nuclear-powered vacuum cleaners’ never made it to the drawing board.
But whatever happens next, it will be a great time to be alive.
No one can predict the future, but it can still be a good idea to be prepared for yours. A Suncorp Bank savings account could be a good place to start.
Written by 'SUNCORP' Australia.
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