Tau.Neutrino said:
The Most Futuristic Developments We Can Expect In The Next 10 Years
With the decade winding down it’s time for us to set our sights on the next one. The 2020s promises to be anything but dull. From the automation revolution and increasingly dangerous AI to geohacking the planet and radical advances in biotechnology, here are the most futuristic developments to expect in the next 10 years.
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> here are the most futuristic developments to expect in the next 10 years. Making predictions is easy; it’s getting them right that’s tough.
I’m finding it harder to make predictions than I used to. I’m still waiting for 3-D TV to be done correctly. Where is George Jetson’s car in a suitcase to take care of my parking problems?
Predictions of technology seem to be the easiest, of sociology the second easiest.
> research from 2018 predicted the loss of 75 million jobs around the world by 2022 as a result of automation, with an associated creation of 133 million jobs over the same period, for a net increase of 58 million jobs.
Nah. I don’t see automation on the rise anywhere any more. I see the rise of cottage industries – one off unique products hand crafted.
> we’re going to spend a good part of the 2020s finding new ways to adapt, recover and take full advantage of the ensuing social and technological changes. That will involve adjustments to new modes of work, altered socioeconomic dynamics, and novel ways of living and moving in our environment.
Nope. Same old same old. The computer revolution is over – personal computers now are no faster than they were 10 or perhaps even years ago. And that means no new modes of work.
> the impact of widespread autonomous vehicles, or AVs, will be enormous.
I don’t see it. Even if it becomes widespread – which it may – the impact would be negligible. I once made a list of what I want to see in software for an AV, and i can’t see any of it actually happening.
> Everyone and everything will move in fleets, Fleets of taxis, UPS trucks, bikes and drones. No vehicle ownership in cities.
Ugh, no. Although I’d like to see fewer vehicles being used more often, what I’m talking about here is Uber.
> new home offices, exist wherever internet access is available. Every home will be an office, and vice versa
Nope. I was telecommuting by internet in the 1980s, too many distractions in the home. The home-office is great for a new rise in cottage industries, but not much else. PS. I’d love to see beds in every office, but I don’t see it happening except where it’s already happened, eg. trucking.
> Our ability to tell if something is an AI generated fake news story or a deep fake video will be no better than random guessing. This will have an unprecedented impact on our democracy and social cohesion as well as privacy, safety and security issues
Nah. Fakes have been around forever. Churchill’s and Monty’s stunt double for instance. A latex face mask these days produces a better fake than AI ever will. I once went to a stage play in which one actor played three roles and was in three places at once on the same stage. Only the paranoid will care.
> Inching closer to artificial superintelligence
Super-stupidity more like.
> we will feel ever more threatened, afraid that our technological children will surpass us, and perhaps even destroy us
Nope. No more now that in the year 1816.
> By the 2020s we should, sadly, witness an increasing number of related discomforts and disasters, from more heatwaves and droughts through to rising sea waters, storms, floods, and wildfires.
Nope. Total crap. Now it they’d said 2200s … it would still be too soon … perhaps in the 2300s.
> Proposed solutions include efforts to increase the reflectivity of clouds, the construction of giant space reflectors, ocean fertilisation, introducing stratospheric aerosols, among other ideas.
Humph. Ocean fertilisation is the only one of those that makes practical sense. It makes more sense than planting trees, for instance. But I don’t see it happening. We’ve been working in the exact opposite direction – keeping fertiliser out of the oceans – for the past 50 years.
> Biotechnologies will continue to advance during the 2020s. It will likely take another generation or two before we see genetically modified “designer babies”. The CRISPR gene-editing tool will continue to make waves — and headlines — in the coming decade.
First thing the article has said that isn’t pure rubbish.
> the next decade will see a dramatic increase in our understanding of the cosmos — and possibly even extraterrestrial life. Next generation telescopes, like the James Webb Space Telescope and the European Extremely Large Telescope, are poised to redefine our knowledge of the galaxy. And as Vakoch explained to Gizmodo, advances in computing power will provide a big boost to SETI.
I don’t see it happening. The telescopes and computing power, yes, but unless extraterrestrial life is actually discovered – which looks less and less likely as time goes on – our understanding of the cosmos isn’t changing. Perhaps i can put it this way. Since 1970 there has been very little change in our understanding of the cosmos apart from cosmic inflation (1982), dark matter (1980), dark energy (1998) and the formation of the Moon (1974). Instead we’ve had a series of failures – supersymmetry has failed, string theory has failed, unifying QM and GR has failed, explanations of dark matter have all failed, etc.
In other words. This article in Gizmodo is the worst piece of rubbish i’ve ever seen on predictions of the future.