Predictions for the future?

GTP

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Auto repair shops will go away.

A gasoline engine has 20,000 individual parts. An electrical motor has 20. Electric cars are sold with lifetime guarantees and are only repaired by dealers. It takes only 10 minutes to remove and replace an electric motor. Faulty electric motors are not repaired in the dealership but are sent to a regional repair shop that repairs them with robots. Your electric motor malfunction light goes on, so you drive up to what looks like a Jiffy-auto wash, and your car is towed through while you have a cup of coffee and out comes your car with a new electric motor!

Gas stations will go away. Parking meters will be replaced by meters that dispense electricity. Companies will install electrical recharging stations; in fact, they’ve already started. You can find them at select Supercheap (Australia) Auto locations.

Crime will go down. Ram raids will become a thing of the past and criminals will no longer be able to make a quick getaway in an autonomous vehicle they hired like a taxi as they will all be trackable. Parking fines will disappear. Speeding and traffic fines will become a thing of the past and State governments will need to find a new way to tax people as will the Federal government who will no longer benefit from fuel and excise taxes.

Most (the smart) major auto manufacturers have already designated money to start building new plants that only build electric cars.

Coal industries will go away. Gasoline/oil companies will go away. Drilling for oil will stop. So say goodbye to OPEC!

Homes will produce and store more electrical energy during the day and then they use and will sell it back to the grid. The grid stores it and dispenses it to industries that are high electricity users. Has anybody seen the Tesla roof?

A baby of today will only see personal cars in museums.

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. Who would have thought of that ever happening?

What happened to Kodak will happen in a lot of industries in the next 5-10 years and, most people don't see it coming.

Did you think in 1998 that 3 years later, you would never take pictures on film again? With today’s smart phones, who even has a camera these days?

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 time, before it became way superior and became mainstream in only a few short years. It will now happen again (but much faster) with Artificial Intelligence, health, autonomous and electric cars, education, 3D printing, agriculture and jobs.

Software has disrupted and will continue to disrupt most traditional industries in the next 5-10 years.


UBER is just a software tool, they don't own any cars, and are now the biggest taxi company in the world!

Airbnb is now the biggest hotel company in the world, although they don't own any properties.

Artificial Intelligence: Computers become exponentially better in understanding the world.


This year, a computer beat the best Go-player in the world, 10 years earlier than expected.

In the USA, young lawyers already don't get jobs. Because of IBM's Watson, you can get legal advice (so far for right now, the basic stuff) within seconds, with 90% accuracy compared with 70% accuracy when done by humans. So, if you study law, stop immediately. There will be 90% fewer lawyers in the future, (what a thought!) only omniscient specialists will remain.

Watson already helps nurses diagnosing cancer, its 4 times more accurate than human nurses.

Facebook now has a pattern recognition software that can recognize faces better than humans. In 2030, computers will become more intelligent than humans.


Autonomous cars: In 2018 the first self-driving cars are already here. In the next 2 years, the entire industry will start to be disrupted. You won't want to own a car anymore as 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 will only pay for the driven distance and you can be productive while driving. The very young children of today will never get a driver's license and will never own a car.

This will change our cities, because we will need 90-95% fewer cars. We can transform former parking spaces into parks.

1.2 million people die each year in car accidents worldwide including distracted or drunk driving. We now have one accident every 60,000 miles; with autonomous driving that will drop to 1 accident in 6 million miles. That will save a million lives plus worldwide each year.

Most traditional car companies will doubtless become bankrupt. Traditional car companies will try the evolutionary approach and just build a better car, while tech companies (Tesla, Apple, Google) will do the revolutionary approach and build a computer on wheels.

Look at what Volvo is doing right now; no more internal combustions engines in their vehicles starting this year with the 2019 models, using all electric or hybrid only, with the intent of phasing out hybrid models.


Many engineers from Volkswagen and Audi; are completely terrified of Tesla and so they should be. Look at all the companies offering all electric vehicles. That was unheard of, only a few years ago.

Insurance companies will have massive trouble because, without accidents, the costs will become cheaper. Their car insurance business model will disappear.

Real estate will change. Because if you can work while you commute, people will move farther away to live in a more beautiful or affordable neighborhood.

Electric cars will become mainstream about 2030. Cities will be less noisy because all new cars will run on electricity.

Cities will have much cleaner air as well. (Can we start in Los Angeles, please?)

Electricity will become incredibly cheap and clean.

Solar production has been on an exponential curve for 30 years, but you can now see the burgeoning impact.

Fossil energy companies are desperately trying to limit access to the grid to prevent competition from home solar installations, but that simply cannot continue - technology will take care of that strategy.

Health: The Tricorder X price will be announced this year. There are companies who will build a medical device (called the "Tricorder" from Star Trek) that works with your phone, which takes your retina scan, your blood sample and you breath into it. It then analyses 54 bio-markers that will identify nearly any Disease. There are dozens of phone apps out there right now for health purposes.



WELCOME TO TOMORROW – it actually arrived a few years ago.
 
I enjoyed the discussion but your timeline is very optimistic in many areas.

Cheap electricity? Heh - That's what they said in the 1950s about nuclear. You won't even need a meter it'll be so cheap. Infrastructure takes generations to change. Nuclear plants are still the same design even though there are other better systems available. Solar on every roof? Have you seen the global warming prediction on that much solar due to reflected sunlight? Huge! Have you walked a wind farm? The magnitude of dead birds is sickening. We have no way to take the huge energy needs of transportation and make them electric in our lifetime.

Our Interstate system finally got finished this year (started in the '50s) - heh
 
Crime will go down.
Not as long as there is a Gang and Drug problem - anywhere! I live in an area where there are (almost) 1 - 3 homicides every single night. Most are due to gang and drug issues.

Oh and let's not forget about one of the biggest jokes around my part of the country - getting guns off the streets. The police want everyone to turn in their guns, but the criminals don't care. They won't but will find that many of us are easier targets now!
 
A gasoline engine has 20,000 individual parts. An electrical motor has 20.

Ive never owned a car that you had to replace all 20k pieces of the car in its lifetime. I do suspect that when your battery needs to be replaced in those electric cars we will see a glut of used electric cars on the market though.

Faulty electric motors are not repaired in the dealership but are sent to a regional repair shop that repairs them with robots.

Not if companies like Crapple have their way "Sir, Looks like you need a new car..."

Coal industries will go away. Gasoline/oil companies will go away. Drilling for oil will stop. So say goodbye to OPEC!

Where do you think electricity comes from? Oil will continue to dominate the energy sector because it is the cheapest form of energy a long side coal and gas that one can power a car with. Besides that, There are more engines than just cars that use oil as fuel. Those big ocean liners and cargo ships - You put electric only motors in those and you will have to use the lifeboats to haul cargo. The rest of the room will be taken up by batteries.

Even when oil was 100.00 or more per barrel there was no big switch over to electric anything. Thats because per unit, Oil is the cheapest form of energy available.

Homes will produce and store more electrical energy during the day and then they use and will sell it back to the grid. The grid stores it and dispenses it to industries that are high electricity users.

Homes produce energy how? Solar? You will have a hard time convincing someone that lives in the midwest about that. After the initial cost of installing such solar panels it will take 10s of years to recoup your investment. Go look up the stats on how many cloudless days there are in a year in the midwest. The only reason solar panels are on some homes is because they live in an area that is predominately good sunny weather - not like the midwest or east coast. Solar power is a dream not realized yet. Besides, Your going to need some backup source for those "solarless" days.

What happened to Kodak will happen in a lot of industries in the next 5-10 years and, most people don't see it coming.

Kodak is a very poor example to use for your argument. This is really apples and oranges in your thinking. Ive never used a Kodak camera to drive to anywhere. Kodak when out of business because of poor management. They had their chance and they blew it.

Artificial Intelligence: Computers become exponentially better in understanding the world.

Show me a computer that displays love or compassion ?

Autonomous cars: In 2018 the first self-driving cars are already here. In the next 2 years, the entire industry will start to be disrupted. You won't want to own a car anymore as 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 will only pay for the driven distance and you can be productive while driving. The very young children of today will never get a driver's license and will never own a car.

Probably not in my lifetime. Driving your own car is pretty basic to the American dream.

Insurance companies will have massive trouble because, without accidents, the costs will become cheaper.

I would not bet on that. When an insurance company finds out that you own a driverless car they are going to get pretty expensive. Just because it is driverless does not mean no accidents.

You will always need insurance. Who will pay for the damage to a driverless car in an accident? You? If Iam dropping thousands on some driverless car I will certainly want insurance. Besides - this is state mandated in many states.

Electricity will become incredibly cheap and clean.

Not when you regulate and shutdown the coal, Oil and nuclear industries. Not every state has access to Hoover Dam. Do you seriously think electricity is just the magic in that socket in your wall?

Solar production has been on an exponential curve for 30 years

Solar companies do not make a profit and also go bankrupt. The prevailing trend is bankruptcy. Just watch any solar company today and check back in 10 years.

Fossil energy companies are desperately trying to limit access to the grid to prevent competition from home solar installations,

In reality land Oil companies in dont care. They can read data too and they pretty much know the score.

Health: The Tricorder X price will be announced this year. There are companies who will build a medical device (called the "Tricorder" from Star Trek) that works with your phone, which takes your retina scan, your blood sample and you breath into it. It then analyses 54 bio-markers that will identify nearly any Disease. There are dozens of phone apps out there right now for health purposes.

And who pays for all that research? How do these companies recoup their investment? Are insurance companies willing to pay for such expensive procedures?

This is all wishful thinking really. Of course, Its not bad to dream. But when the rubber meets the road its usually a very different outcome. Consider the paperless society that was promised as one example.

Here are my predictions:

Solar power will remain limited to areas that receive a lot of sunny days such as the west coast and southern states. It will never dominate the market in my lifetime.

Oil and Gas and coal will continue to dominate the energy markets because all the "Electric Car" enthusiasts need to "Plug In". It continues to be the most cost effective answer to many countries energy needs.

Driverless cars will just be a fad for some time to come. Why invest a lot of money in a car when you can go driverless with a bus or taxi? The expense of a driverless car will put it in a nitch market only. Not the holy answer everyone dreams about. We will still have accidents.

We will always have lawyers. The court room really runs on emotion. Its not as cut and dry as one would think. Watson is not going to convince a jury why Sparky shouldnt get 10 years.
 
This meme's been around for several years. Below is one version I got from my Dad almost 2.5 years ago. According to it we'd have self driving cars around and be growing veal in a petri dish. And the cities will be much quieter. Really? Are they going to remove horns from vehicles? A huge part of noise in a moving vehicle these day is the tires rolling over the pavement. The predictions of Watson revolutionizing medical prognosis hasn't been exactly earth shattering. The future never happens the way we predict/wish.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_Gordon's_Trip_to_Mars

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 won't see it coming. Did you think in 1998 that 3 years later you would never take pictures on 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.
Software will disrupt most traditional industries in the next 5-10 years.
Uber is just a software tool, they don't own any cars, and are now the biggest taxi company in the world.
Airbnb is now the biggest hotel company in the world, although they don't own any properties.
Artificial Intelligence: Computers become exponentially better in understanding the world. This year, a computer beat the best Go player in the world, 10 years earlier than expected.
In the US, young lawyers already don't get jobs. Because of IBM Watson, you can get legal advice (so far for more or less basic stuff) within seconds, with 90% accuracy compared with 70% accuracy when done by humans.
So if you study law, stop immediately. There will be 90% less lawyers in the future, only specialists will remain.
Watson already helps nurses diagnosing cancer, 4 times more accurate than human nurses. Facebook now has a pattern recognition software that can recognize faces better than humans. In 2030, computers will become more intelligent than humans.
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 licence and will never own a car.
It will change the cities, because we will need 90-95% less cars for that. We can transform former parking spaces into parks. 1.2 million people die each year in car accidents worldwide. We now have one accident every 60,000 mi (100,000 km), with autonomous driving that will drop to one accident in 6 million mi (10 million km). That will save a million lives each year.
Most car companies will probably become bankrupt. Traditional car companies try the evolutionary approach and just build a better car, while tech companies (Tesla, Apple, Google) will do the revolutionary approach and build a computer on wheels.
Many engineers from Volkswagen and Audi; are completely terrified of Tesla.
Insurance companies will have massive trouble because without accidents, the insurance will become 100x cheaper. Their car insurance business model will disappear.
Real estate will change. Because if you can work while you commute, people will move further away to live in a more beautiful neighborhood.
Electric cars will become mainstream about 2020. Cities will be less noisy because all new cars will run on electricity. Electricity will become incredibly cheap and clean: Solar production has been on an exponential curve for 30 years, but you can now see the burgeoning impact.
Last year, more solar energy was installed worldwide than fossil. Energy companies are desperately trying to limit access to the grid to prevent competition from home solar installations, but that can't last. Technology will take care of that strategy.
With cheap electricity comes cheap and abundant water. Desalination of salt water now only needs 2kWh per cubic meter (@ 0.25 cents). We don't have scarce water in most places, we only have scarce drinking water. Imagine what will be possible if anyone can have as much clean water as he wants, for nearly no cost.
Health: The Tricorder X price will be announced this year. There are companies who will build a medical device (called the "Tricorder" from Star Trek) that works with your phone, which takes your retina scan, your blood sample and you breath into it.
It then analyses 54 biomarkers that will identify nearly any disease. It will be cheap, so in a few years everyone on this planet will have access to world class medical analysis, nearly for free. Goodbye, medical establishment.
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 have already started 3D printing shoes.
Some spare airplane parts are already 3D printed in remote airports. The space station now has a printer that eliminates the need for the large amount of spare parts they used to have in the past.
At the end of this year, new smart phones will have 3D scanning possibilities. You can then 3D scan your feet and print your perfect shoe at home.
In China, they already 3D printed and built a complete 6-storey office building. By 2027, 10% of everything that's being produced will be 3D printed.
Business opportunities: If you think of a niche you want to go in, ask yourself: "in the future, do you think we will have that?" and if the answer is yes, how can you make that happen sooner?
If it doesn't work with your phone, forget the idea. And any idea designed for success in the 20th century is doomed to failure in the 21st century.
Work: 70-80% of jobs will disappear in the next 20 years. There will be a lot of new jobs, but it is not clear if there will be enough new jobs in such a small time.
Agriculture: There will be a $100 agricultural robot in the future. Farmers in 3rd world countries can then become managers of their field instead of working all day on their fields.
Aeroponics will need much less water. The first Petri dish produced veal, is now available and will be cheaper than cow produced veal in 2018. Right now, 30% of all agricultural surfaces is used for cows. Imagine if we don't need that space anymore. There are several startups who will bring insect protein to the market shortly. It contains more protein than meat. It will be labeled as "alternative protein source" (because most people still reject the idea of eating insects).
There is an app called "moodies" which can already tell in which mood you � re in. By 2020 there will be apps that can tell by your facial expressions, if you are lying. Imagine a political debate where it's being displayed when they � re telling the truth and when they �re not.
Bitcoin may even become the default reserve currency. Of the world.
Longevity:
Right now, the average life span increases by 3 months per year. Four years ago, the life span used to be 79 years, now it's 80 years. The increase itself is increasing and by 2036, there will be more that one year increase per year. So we all might live for a long long time, probably way more than 100.
Education: The cheapest smart phones are already at $10 in Africa and Asia. By 2020, 70% of all humans will own a smart phone. That means, everyone has the same access to world class education.
Every child can use Khan academy for everything a child learns at school in First World countries. We have already released our software in Indonesia and will release it in Arabic, Suaheli and Chinese this Summer, because I see an enormous potential. We will give the English app for free, so that children in Africa can become fluent in English within half a year.
Boom!
Click on
http://www.ibm.com/watson/what-is-watson.html




IBM Watson: What is Watson?

www.ibm.com

What is Watson? IBM Watson is a technology platform that uses natural language processing and machine learning to reveal insights from large amounts of unstructured data


and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Xcmh1LQB9I
 
Thanks @Markverhyden I really should have mentioned that fact when I posted it as I think other members here believe its MY predictions.
It was sent to me, I pondered it, mused at some of it, discounted most of it and posted it here as an "interest" article.

Apologies for any confusion. :)

Lol @Barcelona. I don't think anyone thought they are your predictions. You must be on some of the same mailings my Dad get. I've seen several items you posted that he sent me. Small world!
 
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Where do you think electricity comes from?
Do you seriously think electricity is just the magic in that socket in your wall?
Your going to need some backup source for those "solarless" days.
You will have a hard time convincing someone that lives in the midwest about that.
I would not bet on that.
Go look up the stats on how many cloudless days there are in a year in the midwest.
I enjoyed the discussion but your timeline is very optimistic in many areas.
Have you seen the global warming prediction on that much solar due to reflected sunlight? Huge! Have you walked a wind farm?
Lol, someone obviously did.
 
I noticed that you forgot to mention self warming socks. :(
Gnome plan for world domination:
1) Steal socks
2) ???
3) Profit!!!!
 
lol Nostradamus, sorry Barcelona. Though I am awaiting the Mad Max Apocalyptic Era, with old petrol based car enthusiasts hunting for fuel. I will be one of them hunting around in the deserts in my trusty ol Nissan Pulsar with welded modded steel plates.
 
It is a bit exaggerated but it will happen nevertheless, its exponential growth like a snowball
Just look at how things have changed so fast already
 
Im not too sure what the future holds other than I had a curry earlier - and therefore tomorrow will consist of gale force wind in my workshop and customers laptop cases will probably melt and stick to the work bench.
 
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