Technology in 2050 — will it save humanity or destroy it?
Through a pitch-black corridor, Rachel walks, hugging her stomach and shivering. She steps on something — something tiny — and lets out an “Ouch!”. Though blurred, she sights a door about ten steps in front. She hops through, grabs the handle and opens it.
She sees a lady, gentle and tired. She is playing with a girl in a pink frock, whom Rachel figures out to be her daughter. In the background, she can see other mothers with their kids — their wailing and cheering both filling what occurred to her as a public park. But Rachel is not interested in them. She is looking right at the girl in pink and her mother. She moves to talk to her but is put off by a ball coming to rest at her feet. She bends and picks it up.
When she looks up, she is surrounded by stones — large rectangular stones — protruding from the green underneath. Tombstones. She turns to the one on her left.
Rachel Wolowitz
4th Apr 1984–28h Feb 2049
One may wonder if such a thing as time travel or the existence and traversal between multiple realities is or would be a reality or not. The answer is simple — You never know! And that is what excites us about technology. You never know what you’re going to get until you get it. This is also something that inspires scientists and could and should motivate all of us to keep going that extra distance.
And on that note, let’s explore what else could happen by 2050 and how those would impact our lives.
Inception
PS: I am not joking.
In a recent study, scientists successfully communicated with people in REM sleep. REM stands for rapid eye movement sleep. We enter REM sleep within the first 90 minutes of falling asleep. Our brain, in REM sleep, is almost as active as when we are awake. Our body is paralyzed but we can move our eyes. Scientists asked simple mathematical problems to the people in REM sleep and they responded correctly through eye movements.
Does inception seem far-fetched? You nev.. ….!
Differential Privacy
With ML, computer vision and AI being the front-running tools in technological advancements, it is important to use data in a safe manner. Your data should be yours and yours only and should not be misused by companies or handled in such a way that it leaves a loophole in your personal life. The problem of lack of data due to these privacy concerns could and hopefully would be solved by differential privacy.
An example demonstrated in The algorithmic foundations of differential privacy, by Cynthia Dwork and Aaron Roth is as follows:
Flip a coin.
If tails, respond truthfully.
If heads, toss another coin.
Reply “Yes” if heads and “No” if tails
From this we can understand that “Privacy” comes from the plausible deniability, that is, denial of knowledge due to absence of confirmative evidence. Here, even a “Yes” is not incriminating, since this answer occurs with a probability of at least 1/4, whether or not the respondent actually has the property P. Accuracy comes from the understanding of the noise generation procedure.
The expected number of “Yes” answers is:
( ( (1/4) * Number of participants who do not have P) + ( (3/4) * Number of participants having P) )
Thus, if p is the true fraction of participants having property P, expected number of “Yes” answers is:
( (1/4) *(1-p) )+( (3/4) * p )
Therefore, true fraction can be calculated as:
p = (2 * ( (1/4) + p/2 ) ) — (1/2)
This can be thought of as the basic idea of differential privacy.
Interestingly, with access to more amount of private data, more noise can be added to the data! Implies, data becomes more secure!
Un-hackable Internet
This sort of internet is the need of the hour. With all sorts of businesses being run online and the transactions, money being handled over the internet, any sort of risk is simply not acceptable. Such an internet could now well be in the making through quantum technology. It relies on the quantum behaviour of atomic particles known as entanglement. Entangled photons cannot be read without disrupting their content. As of now, entangled particles are difficult to create and transmit over long distances. But by 2050, you n…. ….!
Hyper-personalized medicine
The thing about medical science is that it can only do you good. Hyper-personalized medicines are medicines that can are made to suit a particular person’s genes. If an extremely rare disease is caused by DNA disorder, it gives a fighting chance.
The real challenge for “n-of-1” treatments (a reference to the number of people who get the drug) is that they defy just about every accepted notion of how pharmaceuticals should be developed, tested, and sold. Who will pay for these drugs when they help one person, but still take large teams to design and manufacture? ~ source
But by 2050, we may have the right kind of technology and hence you ….. ….!
Anti-ageing drugs
These are drugs that try to treat ailments by targeting the natural ageing process. These drugs are called senolytics and work by removing certain cells that accumulate as we age. Extensive research is being done on this area where scientists try to treat older people with components from younger people’s blood and so on.
Is an anti-ageing drug possible? By 2050 Yo. ….. ….!
Tiny AI
The greater the amount of data, the greater is the computational power required to process it. The centralized cloud services used for the same generates high levels of carbon emissions and limits speed and privacy. Tiny AI refers to the development of new algorithms to reduce the size of deep learning models without losing their capabilities. This will allow models to train on less physical space and run on far less energy.
Thanks to Tiny AI, google assistant can now run without sending API requests to the server. Imagine the state of Tiny AI in 2050. Y.. ….. ….!
All the tech we have discussed so far would definitely be a boon to humanity. But technology is like a knife in the sense a knife can injure someone as easily as it can slice an apple.
Imagine waking up to a robot greeting you with a cup of coffee. With humanoid robots already walking the planet, this is a realistic possibility. A robot at your home would mean AI and ML have developed much and quick. The robot saved you money which you would have had to spend for a maid. This also means robots are equipped to do humane tasks and are easily available in the market. Some people may argue that you cannot trust a robot. But with the advancements of voice assistants and AI and their success, the probability that you would be able to trust a robot more than an actual human being can only be high. We may be working on building robots now, but by 2050, robots could be taking care of our needs. A robot could prescribe effective medicines. Robot done surgeries could be common. Driverless cars are already a reality. A robot could do complex mathematical calculations. It could build other robots and do repairs.
What on earth would you be doing?
That brings us to the question: Would you be on earth?
For starters, SpaceX has already made significant progress in sending humans and cargo into space back and forth. With such an advancement in technology already and with resources in the earth’s crust depleting and the population rising as quick as ever, we could all be living on some other planets!
Psyeechooo triiiuuunnnn
Has anyone guessed what language aliens might speak?
Yes..! We may well be living with robots and aliens! Just imagine: you, your father/mother/husband/wife/son(s)/daughter(s)/other(s) with a pet, a robot and an alien all living under one roof: your home which could be on Mars for starters!
Chills… literal chills.
With technology … ….. ….!
Bring on 2050 — for the better or for the worse? Nobody gives a damn! ;)
