People focusing on Digital Businesses often forget about all the other advances being made around them. However, many Digital Businesses rely on a fusion with other types of established and emerging technologies themselves. At this time of year, it is traditional to let optimism rush to one's head and indulge in a drop of futurism and see what might be coming around the corner. So whilst everyone else is getting excited by AI and cryptocurrencies, I thought that I might look at what else will change our lives, industry and society in general.
ENERGY
Almost everything we do and all future innovation relies on a plentiful supply of affordable energy. In the big science corner, the champion for future generation is Nuclear Fusion. Although the last 50 years or so have shown that this is more difficult to deliver than originally thought in the 1970s, when governments started to put interesting amounts of money forward for research establishments and pilots. Recently, scientists have started to get more upbeat about it and make more promising noises. Given the huge capital cost of building working fusion reactors, I think we are 20 years off a robust and operable design being commissioned as a working facility. The issue will be whether this is economic and makes sense by the time we get there. With current day technology, this makes sense as a reliable form of base power generation is needed to supplement renewables, which tend to fluctuate with tides, winds and daylight.
Renewables, however, are making rapid progress. The costs of producing PV cells for solar power have fallen dramatically in the last 20 years, whilst the means of encapsulating them in things like roof tiles and road foundations have advanced impressively. Hand-in-hand, research into battery technology is advancing well to improve energy density (energy per kilo of battery) and battery compactness and since Elon Musk launched Tesla, battery management system technology has advanced significantly to assure the likelihood that the internal combustion engine in its fossil fuel forms at least is likely to disappear in almost all new vehicles within the next 10 years. Although, in the case of China, if its vision for roads which also act as solar farms is fully implemented, vehicles will be able to recharge via microwaves or induction, whilst they drive over the road surfaces, reducing the emphasis on large battery storage.
The other outliers for adoption are hydrogen and geothermal. Hydrogen's issue is not really the amount of power needed to split water and produce a plentiful supply, it is a matter of energy density. Vehicles need to be roughly half the weight that they are now to make hydrogen propelled vehicles a practicable proposition. This is probably doable, but needs a revolution in the construction and manufacturing methods used to build them. Geothermal, is again interesting and promises much. However, geology and costs of drilling and extracting thermal energy in a usable form present difficulties for mass adoption. Although there does seem to be a good case for certain types of building in the right locality.
HUMAN CENTRED DEVELOPMENTS
It seems that we are now on the cusp of delivering a whole raft of medicines, treatments and devices which will address issues of ageing and disability. Medical science is gradually cracking the mysteries around many of the issues which cause dementia, wrinkles, poor cardio vascular health etc. and the promise is that not only will people live longer, but that they will enjoy better health for a longer period of time too. Other developments are advancing rapidly around artificial organs and body parts, using diverse techniques to grow or even 3D print replacements. So problems arising from wear and tear, disease or accidents will gradually be addressed by grown parts rather than donor parts or metal joint replacements, and a wider range of problems will be addressed.
Although we are still at the very early stages of cracking the direct computer to brain interface, significant progress is being made in a number of point technologies for applications such as controllable artificial limbs with sensory feedback, bionic vision and bionic hearing. Further to this, there already is a small counter culture movement of people who have installed other sensory devices built into their bodies to provide feedback on things which extend the normal range of human senses, moving towards a cyber person model.
Given other social trends around personal identity, sexuality and gender fluidity, it may well be that in 20 years time we will not only be living longer and healthier, but be multi-gender and cyber enhanced to extend our range of limbs, experience and senses. Though it is unlikely that we will get to the point of actually having 2 heads or additional gills for swimming underwater (as in certain science fiction stories).
On route to this, other automation developments offer hugely improved quality of life for disabled people who are still beyond treatment. The automated home is just about here. Many of the building blocks which let a relative look after an aged grand parent or invalided child at a distance are there awaiting universal adoption as an integrated home care package. Although in some cases this may require architects to rethink design and layout of homes to facilitate this. Autonomous vehicle technology promises to keep people mobile, when they can no longer drive and may even remove the need to learn or pass a test, offering greater freedom of movement to everyone.
TRANSPORT
Whilst Elon Musk and some other ventures are worrying about faster mass transit systems and sending the first people to Mars, there are a significant number of people working on flying vehicles using multiple fans. Lighter materials, lighter and stronger electric motors, lighter batteries, improved automatic control and guidance are all making this practicable. The regulatory framework may not be there, but we are moving to denser high rise cities where 3 dimensional transport is needed to make them work. So in 20 years time, we should start to see mass adoption of Jetson style transport as envisaged in 1950s cartoons.
Matter transporters, however are unlikely to get there any time soon. Research is still based around moving photons and other very small particles around labs. Scaling out is going to take a long time.
THE WORLD OF WORK
Manufacturing and Industry have changed massively since the 1960s. Flexible automation, CADCAM, Lean Manufacturing, new processes and materials, biotechnology and Globalisation are only some of the things which have changed the way in which things are made. The 3D printer in its many forms is beginning to look like the new game changer. Whether it is for complex shaped parts, printing chemicals or assembling nanites, the basis for totally changing the production of goods is already there. The next steps will address the range of materials involved, sophistication of control over their properties and the overall economics. For many items, it may well be that we buy a licensed copy of a design and print what we want or need, be it clothing, kitchen utensils or prescription drugs. Manufacturing in China just to ship something to Europe (say) will decrease.
Offices, however, are interesting. It is repeatedly shown that people need to be together regularly in the same room to build relationships and trust in order to work effectively together. But other trends also mean that people are increasingly looking for portfolio careers where they work in several more flexible jobs at once. Additionally, digital business models tend to encourage the organisation of teams into smaller more autonomous units. So it is quite possible that offices and hotels will merge to provide flexible pay by use spaces with overnight accommodation, meeting rooms and VC facilities to enable more fluid and dynamic working.
Towards the end of 20 years from now, brain computer interfaces may become robust and capable enough to enable working without screens or key boards. So much so, that people will be able to do office work whilst pounding away on a running machine or a rowing machine. The office will then gradually disappear.
CONTEXT OF DISRUPTION
China is aiming to be the next world super power. Africa is beginning to stir as an economically active continent (beyond subsistence and extraction or primary goods), South America is showing promise of delivering on its promise, whilst Saudi Arabia and the Middle East look increasingly unstable especially as oil revenues fade and other aspects of economic development fail to grow quickly enough. At the same time climate is changing, raising the likelihood that major cities everywhere will need to move inland or disappear. Global warming will happen irrespective of whether CO2 output drops or not, so viable crops and rain patterns will change in many countries.
This will drive mass migration of people in many directions and change social attitudes, putting pressure on economic development. China could loose its manufacturing wealth to the changes in manufacturing methods which are coming. Raising lifespans will also change demand patterns. The downside being that some advances could kill others off.
It may well come to the point where countries start to build mass floating extensions to their landmasses to accommodate population growth and counter the threats of rising sea levels.
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