The future of technology: What problems will we be solving in the future?
The everyday problems we need to solve as a species in the future will be very different to the problems of today.
Consider most service industries that rely on human beings to solve problems for people
Problem: I’ve hurt my back
Today: I go to see my chiropractor who works on my back with her hands.
Future: I’m injected with a muscle relaxant serum laced with digital nanobots that repair the damaged tissue while I sleep.
Problem: I need to buy food and cook dinner.
Today: I get in my car, drive down to the shops, buy food, prepare ingredients, cook food and then clean up — none of which I bring a great deal of imagination to or do a terribly good job of.
Future: The sensors in my fridge recognise I’ve run low on certain ingredients, go online and order those ingredients which show up at my house 24 hours later. I pick the meal I’d like to eat (one of my favourite Jamie Oliver recipes) and give the ingredients to my robotic chef who prepares, cooks and cleans up after my meal.
Problem: I need to fly from Melbourne to Sydney.
Today: I go online, book flights, get in a Uber with a human being who drives me to the airport, where I board a flight and then do all the same in reverse at the other end, less booking another flight.
Future: I order a one person autonomous drone to arrive at my house or a local pick up point. punch in my destination and it takes me door to door while I get work done (with a pretty sweet view might I add).
Problem: the cumulative effect of my diet, lifestyle choices and environment leads to advanced cancer growth.
Today: I fast for an extended period and use other alternative remedies to starve the cancer of glucose until the cancer cells die. If the cancer isn’t so far advanced that this treatment doesn’t kill me, I survive.
Future: well before malignant cancer cells proliferate through my body I have nanobots surveilling my body that act as white blood cells constantly providing me with an advanced digital immune system. Sending trillions of data points to a centralised AI, which cross references that data against every piece of medical research ever created and available on the Internet in a matter of minutes and returns instructions to the bots to target the problem area accordingly.
Problem: I need to invest my money to optimise for capital growth and then rebalance my portfolio of assets as I move through various life stages and my risk profile changes.
Today: I laboriously meet with accountants, financial planners, property experts, read and listen to copious books, articles, podcasts — then spend even more time in reflection, conversation with peers, advisors — all the while experiencing decision fatigue and analytical paralysis
Future: AI software takes a combination of my DNA, my genome, my spouses genome, my social profile, historical returns across major asset classes across a time horizon relevant for my expected life, completes a multi-variate analysis across a near infinite number of variables and then uses an advanced predictive intelligence to provide an investment plan for each stage of my life. It then automatically feeds new data into the model and adjusts that plan as my life unfolds and unexpected variables enter my individualised and fully personalised investment model.
I believe there are a few roles for human beings in this future:
- Develop the technology that fuels this future. Both hardware and software.
- Provide a communication and relational bridge between human intelligence and machine intelligence.
- Stop doing things you don’t enjoy, find mundane, monotonous or dull and instead spend your time doing things that excite you, fascinate you, awaken your passions and help you come alive.
Ultimately there will be AI creating new AI (software creating software) at which point the intelligence differential between human and machine will become the equivalent to the differential between you and your cat or dog today. That is a radically accelerating technology curve. The turning point of this is known as the technological singularity and is predicted to happen around 2040.
As our biology merges with AI more and more I believe technology will enhance our lives not destroy it. It will create even more abundance than we have today, not poverty. It will create more equality, not elitism.
Either way, its an incredibly exciting time to be alive.
