Finally, the moment I have been waiting for. No need to have emotional attachment to a real person, who might react back in ways I don’t understand, like, or want. I can spend my time in what will be considered productive and income earning activities, assuming of course that I have some. So “sad” that I will no longer need people.

By 2028, people will enter into relationships with Robots, who will take over elder care, personal hygiene and food preparation. These will be physical and emotional relationships. Only two years later Artificial Intelligence will exhibit intelligent behavior indistinguishable from human beings, while also exceeding human intelligence. Robots will be better at manipulating us and our emotions than other people.

By then,  almost all new power will come from solar and wind. Oil demand will have peaked and likely be in decline. Good for the environment? Bad for the 10 million oil and gas employees?

Lost your job, living in a Blade Runner world, taking your dose of happiness, permanently fixed to your VR or your Sexbot (if you can afford one).

Methuselah, son of Enoch, father of Lamech, and grandfather of Noah, lived for 969 years. If you have money, you will be able to emulate him.

The very wealthy will use new technology and scientific and medical developments, to increase their expected longevity  – for every year that they are alive, their life expectancy will increase by more than a year. And to look youthful and vibrant.

Shortly after, we will be able swallow medical nanorobots to fix us and extend our immune systems. The new generation of Methuselahs will be able to adapt their bodies to their massively increasing longevity.

With all this information, control and manipulation will have a whole new meaning.

Quantum Computing – and Australia scientists led by Michelle Simmons, have already moved well along with developing this, creating a particle that can exist in multiple states at once, as distinct from today’s computers that rely on one of two states – will be the norm. Google and many others are in the race too. This will result in a massive enhancement in computer power. Think about those troubling emails you have been sending and think are safe from prying eyes. After all, you used encryption. Emails that you have been sending since 1990, and which likely have been stored by intelligence agencies, will be decrypted. Governments and large corporations will have access to your most hidden secrets.

The end of manual labor, and employment opportunities for the generation of dispossessed – those not needed for management and professional work, services, sales and office support, resource exploitation, production and transportation. The majority of today’s 153 million employees and entrepreneurs and their children? What will remain or replace todays world of work?

A few more years, and many major oil companies will have gone bankrupt or at least out of their existing business, while access to and availability of cheap energy will have increased. Sorry oil guys. Wondering why many of these companies are looking to new business models.

The remaining human professionals will have had cortical modifications, including coprocessors and real-time web communication. Think back to Kevin Warwick and Neil Harbisson.

Robots will be common everywhere, eliminating the need for human manual labor and repetitive interactions (e.g. receptionists, tour guides, drivers, pilots, construction workers); and will act as maids, butlers, nurses and nannies, elder care providers, and full companions. And only Robots and massively enhanced cyborgs will understand the new sciences.

Using telexistence to port your consciousness into a Robot anywhere around the world, and maybe to Mars and other future human habitations. Travel all over the world, entertain distant guests, play any sport you want, share real experiences with family and friends. If you can afford it.

Maybe I’ll just keep taking my Soma.

“..there is always soma, delicious soma, half a gramme for a half-holiday, a gramme for a week-end, two grammes for a trip to the gorgeous East, three for a dark eternity on the moon…” Aldous Huxleys Brave New World.

 

Which jobs will remain; which will disappear; what new roles will appear? Thanks to Peter Diamandis, Abundance 360, and others, for ideas on the pace of change.