What after 2016?
Did you think in 1998 that 3 years later you would never take pictures on paper film again? What happened to Kodak will happen in a lot of industries in the next 10 years – and most people don’t see it coming. 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 AI, health, autonomous & electric cars, education, 3D printing, agriculture and jobs. Welcome to the 4th Industrial Revolution!
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. Young lawyers can hardly get jobs. Now you can get legal advice (for basic stuff) within seconds, with 90% accuracy compared with 70% accuracy when done by humans.
In the near future there will be a few lawyers, only specialists will remain. The IBM-Watson already helps nurses diagnosing cancer, 4 time more accurate than human nurses. Facebook now has a pattern recognition software that can recognize faces better than humans. By 2030, computers will be more left brain intelligent than humans.
Autonomous Cars: 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. It will change the cities, because we will need only 5% of the cars for other reasons. We can transform former parking space into parks. We now have one accident every 100,000 km, with autonomous driving that will drop to one accident in 10 million km. Car insurance will become 100x cheaper. The current car insurance business model will disappear.
Traditional car companies are trying the evolutionary approach and just build a better car, while tech companies (Tesla, Apple, BYD, a.o.) will do the revolutionary approach and build a computer on wheels. Many are completely terrified of Tesla. Real estate will change. If you can work while you commute, more people will change urban for country living.
After 2026, cities will be less noisy because more and more cars will run on electric power. Electricity will become cheaper and cleaner: In 2015, more solar energy was installed worldwide than fossil. By 2026, its price for solar could put coal companies out of business, but sufficient turbines will always be needed to quickly energize the grid to keep its frequency very close to 50 Hz, so as to avoid total countrywide darkness, when sudden grid-breakdown occurs:
With cheap electricity comes cheap and abundant water. Desalination now only needs 2kWh per cubic meter. In many places, we don’t have scarce water but only have scarce drinking water. What if anyone can have all the clean water desired, for nearly nothing?
Health: An inexpensive medical device is being developed that works with your phone, which takes your retina scan, your blood sample and you breathe into it. It then analyses 54 biomarkers that will identify nearly any disease.
3D printing: The price of a 3D printer came down from $18,000 to $400 within 10 years. At the same time, it became 100 times faster. All major shoe companies started 3D printing shoes. Spare airplane parts are already 3D printed in remote airports. The space station now has a printer that eliminates the need for the large number of spare parts they used to have in the past.
By 2027, some 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 a complete 6-storey office building. By 2027, 10% of everything that’s being produced will be 3D printed.
Business Opportunities: 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. Any idea designed for success in the 20th century is doomed to fail 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 short 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 it. Agroponics 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 that will bring insect protein to the market shortly. It contains more protein than meat. It will be labeled as “alternative protein source”.
There is an app called “moodies” which can already tell in which mood you are. By 2026 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 are telling the truth and when not.
Bitcoin could become mainstream in 2027 and might even become the default reserve currency.
Longevity: The average life span increases by 3 ms/yr. Now it’s 80 years. The increase itself is increasing. By 2036, there will be more than one year increase per year. So many may live more than 100 years.
Education: The cheapest smart phones are now $10 in Africa and Asia. By 2030, 70% of all humans will own a smart phone, and have access to a good education.
When will the WDC-Lizard-Elite stop
fighting the Russians and the Chinese?
