Future of Living

“I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.” -Thomas Jefferson

Usually I write a small conclusion at the end. But to bring home the truth that the future will evolve continuously and that no one will ever have the final word, I will just leave you with a bit of advice.

As I wrote earlier, you can always look at any change from a positive or negative frame of mind. Whether you like change or not, someone, somewhere will invent the next big thing, and that in turn will propel a dozen other innovations. At the peak of innovation in any area, we will inevitably have to take a 1/4th U-Turn. One day we will start living on other planets, and even then we’ll repeat the same process. This is bound to keep on happening. From an ethical point of view, there will be always be a mix of the good and the bad. You can never eliminate the negatives. You can only minimize them. If we now have thefts of property, in the future we will have cyber thefts and mind thefts. So we’ll have to invent new laws and new kind of law-enforcement to keep us safe. If we now worry about the saturated fat in our diets, in a few decades we may have to go on radiation-reduction diets.

So what is the bottom line here? It’s quite simple- since our caveman (and cave-woman) days we have held the hope for a better and brighter future, and future generations will continue to have even bigger hopes. The faster we adapt to change and appreciate the future, the better it will be for us.

You can look at all the negatives and be blindsided by what is to come, or you can focus on the positives and drive the change as it happens. The choice is yours!

“I’m an inventor. I became interested in long-term trends because an invention has to make sense in the world in which it is finished, not the world in which it is started.”
-Ray Kurzweil

After reading all this I hope you are fascinated by all the possibilities for the future. If you are keen to learn more, you should read what some of the best futurists in the world have to say. Here is my list of the top seven:

1. Dr. Michio Kaku, Professor of theoretical physics at the City College of New York and CUNY Graduate Center, and author of The Future of the Mind

2. Dr. Ray Kurzweil, Inventor, pioneering computer scientist, and director of engineering at Google

3. Dr. Anne Lise Kjaer, Founder of London-based trend forecasting agency Kjaer Global

4. Dr. James Canton, CEO of the San Francisco-based Institute for Global Futures and author of Future Smart: Managing the Game- Changing Trends that will Transform Your World

5. Jason Silva, host of the National Geographic Channel’s Brain Games

6. Dr. Amy Zalman, CEO and president of the World Future Society

7. Mark Stevenson, author of An Optimist’s Tour of the Future

I would put Elon Musk in a special list of his own, because he is the extremely rare kind of visionary who actually turns his futuristic ideas into reality.

Here are some very good websites focused on the future:

1. https://futurism.com
2. http://www.kurzweilai.net
3. https://singularityhub.com
4. http://bigthink.com/

I hope you enjoy learning more and start making predictions of your own to enhance your futuristic talent!

“If one does not understand a person, one tends to regard him as a fool.” -Carl Jung

If you are very interested in technology or have a futuristic mind then you may already have a fair understanding of what the future might hold. You may have read about artificial intelligence (AI), augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), etc. The internet-of-things (IOT) is another novel technology which will revolutionize how devices connect with each other and how we connect to them.

All these are examples of technologies that have already begun to disrupt the global marketplace. We already know that they will be responsible for very exciting innovations in the future. But I think this is just the beginning. Why? It’s because we still haven’t cracked our biggest asset- the human brain/mind. Once we are able to decode the data inside our brains- our emotions, memories and beliefs- and make them accessible to other brains, the real fun will begin. We will move from the Internet to the “Brain-net” and indirectly achieve what is esoterically called “collective consciousness”. Yes, technology will make this possible, although it may not be the preferred way! Once this happens, there will certainly be a revolution in the way people communicate. If your spouse or boss said they couldn’t understand you, you could ask them to “step into your brain” (no more stepping into your shoes). At some point, you would even be able to control the emotions you experience and delete the memories you don’t want. Upgrading your brain with quality data- better emotions, memories, etc- could solve major mental health problems.

All this might look like the stuff of sci-fi movies, but I’m confident that it will become reality some day. The famous physicist Dr. Michio Kaku is a big believer in the Brian-net concept. You can watch the video below if you are interested in this topic: http://edition.cnn.com/videos/bestoftv/2014/12/23/qmb-kaku- futurist.cnn

“What greater evil could you wish a miser than long life?” -Pubilius Syrus

According to latest studies, life expectancy will exceed 85 by 2030 in many countries. This will mainly be possible due to advancements in medical technology. Some scientists are even trying to push the boundaries to make the previously unthinkable, like immortality, possible.

Personally, I think it will be most boring to hang around with an old body and old skin. But I’m confident that soon we’ll have some solutions even for these. People usually try to become detached and more spiritual or moral as they age and come closer to death. But if immortality is going to be a reality then people will hold on to things for much longer. Anyway, we can’t stop change. Sooner or later everything will have to go through the U-Turn effect.

In the near term, at least we will be able to live a little longer and more importantly, we may be able to predict our health outcomes and life expectancy. Machines will be able to get much deeper insight into our bodies, and using predictive analytics we may even be able to predict our time of (natural) death. At the very least, we will get early indications as to what’s at risk so that we can take appropriate action.

Read the article below if you are interested to learn more: https://singularityhub.com/2017/06/30/artificial-intelligence-predicts- death-to-help-us-live-longer/

“I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.” -Mark Twain

Our systems of education, especially in India, are still outdated and unproductive. Since meaningful learning is key to any development, it definitely needs more attention. We will owe a big thank you to technology for transforming the way kids of the next generation are educated.

Here are five major shifts I visualize taking place in the future:

1. Focus on Creativity and Problem-solving: The 21st century is being called the Conceptual Age as the focus is on being creative and innovative. We no longer need to memorize what Mr X did in 1920 or what city is the capital of Country Y. You can easily get this information through a web search engine. Anything that you can readily find out from the Internet does not really need to be memorized by rote. The focus has to be and will be on creativity and problem-solving.

2. Online Learning: We can already see this paradigm shift in action. Soon there won’t be the need to go to a physical school and be taught by the teacher there. It may take fifty more years, but it will happen for sure.

3. Personalized/Customized Learning: Unlike the current system where everyone is expected to learn the same things, future curricula would be based on the individual student’s cognitive mapping, strengths and interests. People will no longer need to waste time on learning things which aren’t useful or of interest to them.

4. Fewer Years of Formal Schooling: People will not be required to spend sixteen to twenty years on formal education in the future. This will be considered too much time to spend on just learning. Future generations will not only have to learn quicker but will be expected to focus on a few areas so as to quickly apply their learning to a job or some problem of interest.

5. Cheaper Education and Teaching by the Best: Once the requirement for physical schools and teachers is reduced and there is more demand for e-learning, costs will come down automatically. More importantly, people will learn online from the best of the best. Coursera, Khan Academy, etc. are a few examples of learning providers already taking us in this direction.

The future of education is very exciting because the focus will be on real and meaningful learning.

“My wife and I were happy for twenty years. Then we met.” -Rodney Dangerfield

This is probably the most controversial topic I could shake you up with. Are you jumping with joy or are you worried about your kids getting married as you read this? I suppose it depends on what your life experiences have been like and what your core beliefs are. Anyway, I’m not arguing about whether our current marriage systems are good or bad.

I am only suggesting that it is natural that social institutions like marriage will evolve with radical technological and social advancements. Let’s ask a fundamental question: why do we need marriage? In no particular order of importance, we can say that people get married to have lifelong companionship, to have kids, to fulfill physical needs and desires, for social compliance (especially in traditional countries like India), to make our parents happy and for economic support and stability.

In the future, companionship will be readily available and short-term, and people will feel secure enough not to want lifelong commitments. This is already the case in many countries. With advancements in in- vitro fertilization (IVF), people choosing not to marry but desiring children will have more options for parenthood. Future generations will care less about making society happy or living for society. And with both genders becoming increasingly economically independent, there will be less economic support required from a spouse. These factors just take into consideration the immediate human and social angles.

Further into the future, with more breakthroughs in cognitive and virtual reality (VR) a wholly new mode of interaction will be available to us. It is likely that people will end up spending more time having virtual experiences with machines. This would mean a reduced need for human interactions. Even now, how much time do you spend with people? How many devices do you have at home? All your family members and friends are probably already spending more time on their personal devices than with each other. Why? It’s because machines are able to entertain us better and give us more distinct experiences in the same amount of time. Can you imagine any person entertaining you for more than a couple of hours? You would get bored to death.

Let us fast-forward to fifty years into the future (although India may need more time). Only a small fraction of people would be married. But since humans cannot ever be fully replaced by machines, at the peak of disruption we will crave more human interaction and take a 1/4th U-Turn to restore balance.

“No man can be a good citizen unless he has a wage more than sufficient to cover the bare cost of living, and hours of labor short enough so after his day’s work is done he will have time and energy to bear his share in the management of the community, to help in carrying the general load.”
-Theodore Roosevelt

If technology continues to disrupt industries and drastically reduces dependency on human labour, then what will happen to jobs? For the next 20-30 years most people may still be able to have full-time or part-time jobs. Many will have to be re-skilled to move to newer areas or will have to change their careers completely. It won’t be easy but with some struggle, people will manage. But what happens after 30- 40 years?

This is probably less applicable for the current generation and more so for future generations. If population growth is maintained at its current rate while technological improvement continues exponentially, then it is for sure that very few people will have full-time jobs in the future. Eventually, governments will have to intervene to re-structure their economies and start providing a basic income to people who do not have jobs. Similar policies are already in practice in one form or another in a few countries, but I believe a Universal Basic Income (UBI) will become a new reality for the majority in the coming decades. Don’t believe this? Some countries like Canada have already started piloting forms of UBI, and some others like Switzerland and Germany have held referendums on the same.

This means that eventually, wealth distribution will move from a pyramid-like structure to a diamond-like structure. Most people (almost 80-85%) will be in the middle class, with very few at the top (holding most of the world’s wealth and capital) and very few at the bottom. A similar transformation is already taking place in the world of business. There is only one Google, one Amazon, one Uber and one Facebook. There is very little room for other big players.

With the cost of living expected to go down, a scarcity of full-time jobs and the gift of UBI, it is likely that people will have more free time in the future to be creative, enjoy others’ company and have fun. Let’s wish the next generation a good life.

“Despite the cost of living, it’s still quite popular.” -Unknown

If you are from India and are reading this, then you might be thinking this is nonsense! The Goods and Services Tax (GST) has just been introduced and you have started paying more already. Actually, GST is expected to bring down costs/taxes eventually. But this is not about GST or India alone.

This is about how technological innovation will transform and redefine most industries globally. Some counties may see this transformation a little later but eventually most countries (developed and developing counties for sure) will experience this.

While use of technology grows exponentially, inefficiencies are eliminated and costs are brought down every year. This is the case regardless of which industry you look at- whether in transportation, healthcare, energy, telecommunications, hardware and software development, or entertainment. Uber reduced the cost of transportation. iTunes revolutionized the music industry. Airbnb redefined the hospitality industry. There are hundreds of such examples where costs have been brought down simultaneously with improvements with quality.

I would say this is still the beginning. If we fast forward 30-40 years (or even sooner), you will experience a better world at a much cheaper cost with advancements in artificial intelligence (AI), virtual reality (VR), robotics, 3D printing, etc. Not just you, but also the billions of people across the globe. Real innovations will bring down costs of living, and this in turn will bring real equality and democracy.

“The future of humanity is going to bifurcate in two directions: Either it’s going to become multiplanetary, or it’s going to remain confined to one planet and eventually there’s going to be an extinction event.” -Elon Musk

We moved from the Agricultural Age to the Industrial Age in the 18th century and from the Industrial Age to the Information Age in the 20th century. Now, in the 21st century, we are rapidly moving into what Daniel Pink calls the ‘Conceptual Age’. While success previously depended mostly on left-brain skills such as attention to detail, knowledge building and doing things in the “right order”, future transformation will be fueled more by right-brains skills such as forming new ideas and connecting old ones, design thinking, and meaning-making.

In every age, inventions and breakthroughs of a characteristic type peak. But they inevitably come with some side effects which we later try to reverse. For example, the processes that led to global warming started with the extensive burning of fossil fuels in the Industrial Revolution. But restoration is never complete as we can never go back to how things were in the beginning. In the case of the modern Green Revolution, food production increased dramatically with the extensive application of fertilizers and pesticides, and use of genetic modification. But at the peak of the advancements we realized that we had unintentionally started consuming food tainted with harmful chemicals with undesirable health effects. Then we tried to take a U- turn and come back to “natural” and “organic” food.

But we can never go back to pure, unpolluted and naturally fertile soil or more nutritious but low-yielding grains. Maybe we can reduce the damage little bit and come back 1/4th of the way, like trying to grow and consume organic food wherever there is the possibility. This is what I call taking a 1/4th U Turn. Similarly, to slow down global warming, we can try to reduce our energy use and carbon emissions, and recycle waste materials. But it’s too late to talk “Green” since we have damaged the whole planet. Re-read the quote from Elon Musk at the beginning of this section. What do you think he is saying? We have almost destroyed our planet and face the risk of extinction. So for continued survival, we have to start afresh on other planets!

I think that there will always be a small set of humans who will go on inventing and making breakthroughs for their own kick (some call it “purpose”) and another small set who will try to “save”, “restore” or “correct” things which is another kind of kick. And so this game will go on and on. The point is very simple. The 1/4th U-Turn cycle is, has been and will be part and parcel of the interaction between humans and nature.

You can choose to be part of the invention/creation group or the saving/restoration group. The future will be really exciting in either case.