Future predictions.

[B V Marlon]

robotics, and human dolls that are well "replacing partners" for both genders...

Heh, I'm now thinking of what I'd need to do to start the first robot brothel

 

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[grindmode]

Heh, I'm now thinking of what I'd need to do to start the first robot brothel

LOL I've looked into it before... technically since its not a human its very hard to find much regarding laws on such... I don't think your limited to just Nevada

I live in the midwest and when I drive to Chicago or St. Louis when you are in the flat highway completely in the boonies you will always see TONS of signs for "adult arcades" which I never knew what they were... How can I describe this, basically a interactive computer animated character that talks does things depending on what options you choice via touchscreen catered specifically to truck drivers... Now I've never been to such a place only driven by and googled it out of boredom but its only 2D...

Now with VR or a latex robotic doll its 3D and well some people call it "taboo" but the adult industry IS one of the biggest out there....

 

[Brian C.]

Solar Roadways may be a stretch, but I see the application working for parking lots, walking paths, driveways, etc. in the future.

 

[c_morris]

Not being a pervert or "locker room talk" but how about the overall population declining? In parts of Asia people just because of technology social media/video games/virtual worlds/etc. the marriage and dating is basically non existent in the younger current generations...

This goes against conventional thinking but I think it's valid. Even in the Western world, people are putting off having families well into their 30's and even then only having 1 or 2 children at the most. Never really thought how tech would factor into an Asian population decline. It's an interesting angle.

The book "The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century" by George Friedman touches on population decline, among other things. It's a good read if you are interested in an expert's view of geopolitics in the 21st century.

 

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[ApparentHorizon]

In 1998, Kodak had 170,000 employees and sold 85% of all photo paper worldwide. Within just a few years, their business model disappeared and they went bankrupt. What happened to Kodak will happen in a lot of industries in the next 10 years - and most people don't see it coming. Did you think in 1998 that 3 years later you would never take pictures on paper film again? Yet digital cameras were invented in 1975. The first ones only had 10,000 pixels, but followed Moore's law. So as with all exponential technologies, it was a disappointment for a long time, before it became way superior and got mainstream in only a few short years. It will now happen with Artificial Intelligence, health, autonomous and electric cars, education, 3D printing, agriculture and jobs. Welcome to the 4th Industrial Revolution. Welcome to the Exponential Age.

Graphene...

Long lasting batteries

Electronics 1 atom in thickness

Spray on electronics

Wallpaper TV​

First person/company to figure out how to produce graphene will make billions replacing the silicon chip.

They'll be the Andrew Carnegie of the information age

 

[LifeTransformer]

Graphene...

Long lasting batteries

Electronics 1 atom in thickness

Spray on electronics

Wallpaper TV​

First person/company to figure out how to produce graphene will make billions replacing the silicon chip.

They'll be the Andrew Carnegie of the information age

We May Finally Have a Way of Mass Producing Graphene
Next Big Future: Physicists patent detonation technique to mass-produce graphene

I find these articles on my aggregator site quite often.

 

[ApparentHorizon]

We May Finally Have a Way of Mass Producing Graphene
Next Big Future: Physicists patent detonation technique to mass-produce graphene

I find these articles on my aggregator site quite often.

Saw this one...now if they can figure out how to remove the impurities and turn the lumps into sheets at scale...

These articles have been coming out twice a month for the past 10 years.

Forgot who said it: "You know how we don't know anything about a subject? We keep writing about it."

This seems to be our best chance yet: MIT researchers have developed a way to mass produce graphene sheets
tldr: Inject graphene vapor into a chamber where it settles onto a sheet. The sheet spools at the end and can do so without interruption.

 

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[LifeTransformer]

Saw this one...now if they can figure out how to remove the impurities and turn the lumps into sheets at scale...

These articles have been coming out twice a month for the past 10 years.

Forgot who said it: "You know how we don't know anything about a subject? We keep writing about it."

This seems to be our best chance yet: MIT researchers have developed a way to mass produce graphene sheets
tldr: Inject graphene vapor into a chamber where it settles onto a sheet. The sheet spools at the end and can do so without interruption.

Haha! Reminds me of carbon nano-tubes. They've still not really "gone mainstream" yet.

Another one I've just found re automation: Forget Autonomous Cars—Autonomous Ships Are Almost Here

EDIT: And another Graphene link: Fractal 'snowflake' design to improve graphene photodetectors | Graphene-Info

 

[LifeTransformer]

Soon you won't need to buy a bike either: Next Big Future: App enhanced bikesharing that let you leave bikes anywhere will saturate China and Europe by 2018

 

[Justin W.]

3D printing: The price of the cheapest 3D printer came down from $18,000 to $400 within 10 years. In the same time, it became 100 times faster. All major shoe companies started 3D printing shoes. Spare airplane parts are already 3D printed in remote airports. The space station now has a printer that eliminates the need for the large number of spare parts they used to have in the past.

I recently read somewhere on the internet that the first 3D house was printed in Russia for about $10,000. It was a small house, maybe 400 square feet IIRC.

Autonomous Cars: In 2018 the first self-driving cars will appear for the public. Around 2020, the complete industry will start to be disrupted. You don't want to own a car anymore. You will call a car with your phone, it will show up at your location and drive you to your destination. You will not need to park it, you only pay for the driven distance and can be productive while driving. Our kids will never get a driver's license and will never own a car. It will change the cities, because we will need 90-95% fewer cars for that. We can transform former parking space into parks. 1.2 million people die each year in car accidents worldwide. We now have one accident every 100,000 km, with autonomous driving that will drop to one accident in 10 million km. That will save a million lives each year.

I can not disagree more. With the dangers of self driving cars, it will take a few more years for it to reach maturity. California has banned them entirely. They do not work on country roads. I don't see them becoming mainstream, partially due to affordability, for the next 20 years at least. As @TTG SS mentioned, the auto industry doesn't change that rapidly. As for electric cars, they are entirely dependent upon batteries. Until batteries are substantially increased in power storage, they will remain limited in range. The Nissan Leaf has a 220v recharge rate of 8 hours (double that for a standard wall socket) and is limited to 107 miles. Only Tesla has reasonable range in their electric vehicles with a hefty price tag. Until a recharge is reduced down to under an hour, people will continue using fossil fuels. Electric cars will take at least 10 years to really compete with fossil fuels, and that's an optimistic estimation.

With the slow progression of robots, we won't see them around for quite some time. They barely started to walk and take an extremely long time to do anything, such as pour a glass of water. I don't expect affordable efficient household robots to be available for at least another 50 years, and again, that's an optimistic guesstimation.

This post is just as optimistic as Spielberg's Minority Report. I don't share the same optimism with current patent laws (Patents being held by the owner for 25 years), legislation & slowly evolving industries. Just my opinions based on what I've seen.

 

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[LifeTransformer]

I recently read somewhere on the internet that the first 3D house was printed in Russia for about $10,000. It was a small house, maybe 400 square feet IIRC.



I can not disagree more. With the dangers of self driving cars, it will take a few more years for it to reach maturity. California has banned them entirely. They do not work on country roads. I don't see them becoming mainstream, partially due to affordability, for the next 20 years at least. As @TTG SS mentioned, the auto industry doesn't change that rapidly. As for electric cars, they are entirely dependent upon batteries. Until batteries are substantially increased in power storage, they will remain limited in range. The Nissan Leaf has a 220v recharge rate of 8 hours (double that for a standard wall socket) and is limited to 107 miles. Only Tesla has reasonable range in their electric vehicles with a hefty price tag. Electric cars will take at least 10 years to really compete with fossil fuels.

With the slow progression of robots, we won't see them around for quite some time. They barely started to walk and take an extremely long time to do anything, such as pour a glass of water. I don't expect affordable efficient household robots to be available for at least another 50 years.

This post is just as optimistic as Spielberg's Minority Report. I don't share the same optimism with current legislation & slowly evolving industries. Just my opinions based on what I've seen.

You may find this article interesting: The Robot Revolution Will Take Your Car, Your Mom’s Car, and All the Oil in 13 Years

As you can tell from the title, that article is suggesting 13 years.

 

[Justin W.]

You may find this article interesting: The Robot Revolution Will Take Your Car, Your Mom’s Car, and All the Oil in 13 Years

As you can tell from the title, that article is suggesting 13 years.

Thanks for sharing the article. I didn't see any mention of robots in the article, and overall seemed to be very optimistic on all fronts. It was interesting nonetheless.

Solar Roadways may be a stretch, but I see the application working for parking lots, walking paths, driveways, etc. in the future.

Seems like a good idea, but what will the solar panels be made of? I imagine this wouldn't work with traditional photo-voltaic solar collectors, those need to be kept clean in order to function properly and driving on glass sounds dangerous. It might work with thermal energy collectors, but are there any that work at low temperatures? The only thermal energy collectors I know of work at extremely high temperature in the thousands of degrees.

 

[Brian C.]

Seems like a good idea, but what will the solar panels be made of? I imagine this wouldn't work with traditional photo-voltaic solar collectors, those need to be kept clean in order to function properly and driving on glass sounds dangerous. It might work with thermal energy collectors, but are there any that work at low temperatures? The only thermal energy collectors I know of work at extremely high temperature in the thousands of degrees.

Fantastic idea in theory, but extremely difficult in terms of engineering, practicality, and longevity.

I've seen some solar roadways made up of concrete slabs with solar cells mixed in, while the majority seem to be made up of some form of tempered glass. Others are coated with a thin sheet of silicon to bear the weight of vehicles.

There's a firm based in France with a model that will actually do better in lower temperatures. For them, when the temperature increases, efficiency of the solar cells tend to decrease. You can check them out via the National Geographic video below:

 

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[Justin W.]

Fantastic idea in theory, but extremely difficult in terms of engineering, practicality, and longevity.

Agreed, one video said there were some disgruntled citizens in Normandy with the installation of the new road there. It won't capture as much energy as traditional solar panels because of the road covering & the panels aren't angled towards the sun. Not only that, Normandy has less than 50 days of good sunshine annually, whereas some nearby cities have up to 174 days annually.

Driving on tempered glass would freak me out, isn't it only shatter resistant, as in it could still break under severe stress? What happens if a big rig fractures the glass and leaves a piece of glass sticking up in the road, blowout anyone? That layer of silicone sounds a little safer, assuming it provides proper traction.

This reminds me of the story of Garry Hoy, a lawyer who demonstrated that the safety glass in his 24th story law firm in Toronto is unbreakable. He did prove his point, although the window he demonstrated on eventually popped out of its frame...

 

[OldFaithful]

You may find this article interesting: The Robot Revolution Will Take Your Car, Your Mom’s Car, and All the Oil in 13 Years

As you can tell from the title, that article is suggesting 13 years.

Interesting article, if perhaps a bit overly optimistic. Actually, while I don't think the speed of integration will be anywhere near this fast...after reading this article, I'm actually hoping it might be.

Imagine the possibilities...according to the article:
Traffic congestion is gone.
Gas prices have plummeted.
Privately owned gasoline vehicles are still around, particularly in rural areas.

If you want to take a self driving electric vehicle...go ahead.
If you want to drive your own gas powered vehicle using cheap gas & open roads...go ahead.
What's not to love? I might be changing my mind on this one, so long as I still have a choice between the 2.

 

[Andreas Thiel]

I feel like bumping this thread. Are there others like it that cover exponential technologies?

An interesting concept is that 1% is Halfway

Solar is on that trajectory, but I don't know about 2025:

• Are We Halfway to Market Dominance for Solar?
• https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/06/the-deal-with-solar.html

Due to geopolitical reasons (keeping many western automotive related companies alive) fuel cells might play a bigger role in cars than one would expect (considering it is has the value attributes of a "fool cell").

There are many more Predictions made by Ray Kurzweil - Wikipedia
that are not covered in the OP.

Most people (me included) will probably think that most of them are too optimistic.

An interesting thing to look at is that most disruptive technologies did not lead to disruptive growth right away. Systems and processes needed to be establish for them to pay off.
I think it was "The Second Machine Age" that outlines this, but not sure.
Once humans cannot keep up with that, the "Law of Accelerating Returns" - the more generic version of Moore's Law - will falter.

That is why I like Jordan Peterson's way of thinking about archetypical chaos and order in that context.
I feel that "creating order" is something that needs to happen in the IT world on a large scale.
The book "High Output Management" stresses the role of managerial leverage, and if there was a whole industry around managerial leverage (say: "Continuous Modernization") that develops systems and processes, that would be huge. People see a lot of value in "diversity" and having options - but that is very misguided in many cases.

I think

• the fact that we have not implemented a semantic infrastructure that unifies APIs is a trillion dollar oversight
• there is a lot we could do to improve managerial leverage before AGI becomes viable. For example, not having a SaaS for Computer Aided Procedural Engineering is another oversight

Anything we could do but don't do means that disruptive potential adds up. Maybe we even stretch the growth curve a lot, which could be a good thing, because people are ill prepared for a Zero Marginal Cost society. Getting closer to it will have extreme political consequences.

Soon it will be important to create systems. Most people who try to get exponential solutions going still think this will work with traditional business mechanisms.
The thing is, companies will have to synergize and integrate solutions like crazy. That is also something that needs to change and that change is unlikely to keep up with exponential technologies.

There are quite a few opportunities in there if the theories are even partly correct.

 

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[ApparentHorizon]

the fact that we have not implemented a semantic infrastructure that unifies APIs is a trillion dollar oversight

Can you expand your thoughts on this?

 

[Andreas Thiel]

Can you expand your thoughts on this?

Sure.

On a very generic level it is just about the rules in management that

• you should never lose oversight to a point where you have two teams working on the same problem - that is just wasted resources
• you should build pipelines rather than carrying buckets

The cost of those issues across a whole industry is what I see. Consulting firms are happy because they are paid for hundreds of consultants doing very repetitive things for big companies.

The LAMP technology stack shows the potential of a standardized infrastructure.
Linux as the operating systen, with Apache to serve websites, MySQL as a database and PHP as the scripting language.
Those who used it became productive relatively fast because there were a lot of tutorials, solutions for the most common challenges and advice.
A standardized solution to define, fetch and modify data models (an important part in any software product) should have been possible to implement years ago.
An extension to that could have turned API creation into a configuration issue. Currently most of it is done with code.

Imagine software developers never decided to use a standardized database and wrote their own solution for persisting data instead. That just would not have worked.
Still there is a lot of the following going on when it comes to anything related to data models: xkcd: Standards

Have you heard about Kubernetes? That is one case where the potential progress was not realized for quite a while, disruptive potential developed and then a technology made thousands of jobs in the Blue Chip software operation field obsolete.
BUT ... containers and Kubernetes have created chaos in the development realm.
There are now thousands of different ways to do things again. People have to carry buckets elsewhere now. It is like with the difference between using a Framework or a Toolkit.
The toolkit gives you options and comes with chaos. Creating a framework around the Toolkit introduces order. Frameworks can have a bad reputation because it can be tyrannical order, but that is a design challenge and no valid excuse not to create them.

Today we see thousands of solution for storing metadata. Too much time of relatively scarce programmers goes into data conversion solutions, API design aspects, duplicate checking and batch processing implementations ... all things that could be solved problems already (if I am correct). The solution are never as good as a really mature solution could be. We deal with bugs, performance issues and longer development times, all things that compound (which is the main reason why I think the trillion dollar claim is not completely crazy).

Then try to think about the future. We will want to have computers that can design a car automatically. You want to drag and drop the car from one application into another "Minority Report" or "Iron Man" style?
What will it take to exchange data between two applications? The "state of the art" are BS solutions like deep linking if you do not write your own solution that connects two custom APIs and converts from one proprietary data model to another. Now, many technologies are starting to converge that could have been developed properly right away. A data model infrastructure could have been designed to be distributed and we could have created a "Knowledge Graph" that all applications can align their data model with.
Machine Learning could benefit from that. Because incoming data models and output data models play a huge role in neural networks, standardized data models would make trained models a lot more valuable.

As I see it, we could be a lot further with a semantic web with regards to automating the full software lifecycle. We are getting there with baby steps (see anything labeled "Continuous" like Integration, Deployment and Testing) but I see the disruptive potential where a company suddenly churns out business software like crazy and everybody wonders how they can develop new software solutions with perfect integration capabilities so fast.

I know a bit about the state of data migrations. It is pretty much one huge joke.
Too many APIs are horrible. 90% of the work that is done in a data migration project should be a solved problem. That is just one more symptom of the root cause, if I am not completely wrong about this.

I could go into the technologies that I have considered for some kind of solution alchemy to create a prototype, but I feel that I my concepts are a little to vague and it would be a little technical.

 

[RedBaron]

ok i for sure agree with some of these predication. However the time frame may be a little short.

Did anyone listen to the Elon podcast with Rogan?

Also I know this is a different topic for the future prediction, but what do you all think of the future of the Cannabis and Hemp business in 20 years?

 

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