500 years ago, roughly only half of the earth had been thoroughly explored and colonized,
and the Americas were home to indigenous civilizations, but were largely unknown to the rest of the
world.
People lived and died in the same homes, or at best, could aspire to end their lives no
more than a few miles from where they were born.
Yet today, globalism has connected the planet, and for most of the world, your future is
in your own hands.
The jet engine and the internet have brought us opportunities that can take us around the
Earth, while modern medicine keeps pushing the limits of our mortality.
But what might the future hold?
Welcome to this episode of The Infographics Show- where we take a look at what life on
earth might look like in 50, 100, and 500 years.
Fifty years ago the computer was just starting to replace slide rules in the most advanced
industries of the most modern nations- but today handheld cell phones with many thousands
of times the computing power are in the hands of most people around the world.
Per Moore's Law computing power doubles every 18 months, and for decades this law has held
true.
Yet today that law is being tested as our computer chips are reaching the very physical
limits of the material they are constructed from.
In short- we are starting to hit the maximum efficiency limits we can reach with physical
materials.
Enter quantum computing.
While incredibly complex to fully explain, the basics of quantum computing is that it
will allow us to bypass the limits of physical materials as instead of using voltage or charge
to store information, it does so with subatomic particles, making quantum computers exponentially
faster than a conventional computer.
In 50 years we will likely see quantum computers replace conventional computers on a massive
scale, even while new materials science continues to push the limits of conventional computing.
You likely won't be carrying around a quantum phone, but your desktop at home will be a
quantum computer.
All of this raw computational power combined with advanced AI will give humanity the ability
to exponentially accelerate its ability to solve problems and conduct research, greatly
increasing the pace of new discoveries.
All of this new computing power will revolutionize artificial intelligence, likely bringing about
the technological singularity- or the point at which our technology becomes more intelligent
than us.
While many people fear this event, it is mostly due to a gross misunderstanding of intelligence.
All intelligence is after all not equal- for example you are vastly more intelligent than
a monkey, but if you were transported to a rainforest and left there to fend for yourself,
the monkey could be considered the more intelligent animal as it knows how to survive in that
environment and you likely don't.
In that case we could consider the monkey to have a specialized intelligence that surpasses
your own in that specific circumstance- it does not have the raw capabilities that you
have, but in one specific area it is far more intelligent than you.
This is likely the route that artificial intelligence will take in 50 years- machines will become
hyper intelligent but will become specialized intelligences that are incredibly efficient
in one specific area, while all but inept in any other.
This is likely simply due to the nature of programming, as an intelligent machine will
still need a human programmer (for now) to teach it what to use its intelligence for,
and programming something as complex as the human brain that can do a nearly infinite
number of things well is incredibly challenging if not impossible for a human programmer.
But programming a machine for a small number of tasks is relatively easy.
So in 50 years we will have hyper intelligent AIs to assist us in every facet of our lives,
but need not live in fear of them wishing to overthrow us.
All that machine intelligence will lead to things such as wearable technology that can
monitor our health and warn us of pending illnesses, or by learning our biological patterns
over weeks and months even be able to predict when we will get sick, depressed, or stressed
out, offering 'mood' forecasts.
For example, your smart wearable may pick up on the unique patterns of your brain and
body that will let it know you are becoming more stressed out, and be able to recommend
diet changes or activities to take to avoid increased stress in the near future.
By linking these wearables together over the internet, doctors will be able to prescribe
treatments and medicines that are uniquely tailored to your specific biology, greatly
increasing the effectiveness of medical treatments.
In 50 years advances in nanomanufacturing will revolutionize the world in ways that
can be difficult to predict.
By manufacturing materials at the molecular level we will create materials that are hundreds
of times stronger or more electrically conductive than today's.
The energy efficiency of our cities will skyrocket, greatly reducing the demands placed on power
plants.
Vehicles made from nano-manufactured materials may be all but indestructible, saving millions
of lives every year.
Nanomedicine will also allow tiny robots and genetically engineered viruses to attack disease
and infection on the molecular level, eliminating the side effects of drugs and greatly increasing
our resistance to disease.
In 50 years each human may be host to millions of tiny robots who constantly patrol the body
like artificial white blood cells, constantly attacking cancers, viruses and other illnesses-
being sick may be a thing of the past!
Most scientists are pretty confident that we will have mastered nuclear fusion within
50 years, giving humanity access to abundant and very cheap clean energy.
Unfortunately the consequences of global warming are not likely to be averted, though a growing
awareness of the threat we face is helping to limit the inevitable damage we will cause
to our planet.
Global temperatures will likely rise by a degree to a degree and a half Celsius, which
will see the dying of most coral reefs around the world and along with them the vast majority
of fish species that rely on them.
Sea levels will rise by anywhere between one to three inches, making flooding a constant
and ongoing threat to most coastal cities.
The Arctic may become completely ice-free during the summer for the first time in history,
driving polar bears and some seal species to extinction.
On a positive note though, humanity may begin the process of transplanting warm water corals
such as those that grow in the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea around the world.
Adapted to the warmer temperatures, these coral reefs could in a few hundred years completely
replace the old reefs, bringing back fish populations and diversity.
The melting of the Arctic will also open up the last of the world's untouched fish stocks
and underwater energy reserves, helping to stave off a complete energy and commercial
fishing collapse.
And absolutely nobody will be killed by Polar Bears anymore.
That's a lot of changes for us in 50 years, a lot good, but some pretty bad.
Still, there's hope for us if we learn to manage the world and its resources in a responsible
way and use powerful new technologies to aid us in that endeavor.
So what will life look like in 200 years?
That becomes more difficult to predict, and relies heavily on how we choose to spend the
next 50 years, however some trends can be easily predicted, and some optimistic guesses
can be made.
While global populations will explode in the next two hundred years, the rate of growth
is predicted to slow dramatically and not reach the apocalyptic standing-room-only predictions
so popular with doomsayers today.
This is because even today population growth in the First World has slowed dramatically,
and in some places such as Japan all but stalled.
That's due to people living better lives and having more opportunities, thus choosing to
wait longer to start families.
As more of the world catches up to a modern way of living, the exploding populations of
the Third and Second worlds will experience the same dramatic slowdown- so while humanity
will grow well above the 10 billion mark, we almost certainly won't run the risk of
dramatic overpopulation.
Still, with a desire for greater personal freedom and to escape overpopulated mega-cities,
humanity will move to the oceans, both above and below them.
Floating cities have already been designed by architects today, and future advancements
in materials and manufacturing will make them a reality.
People will live under the waves as well- the ocean retains the vast majority of the
earth's natural resources and is all but untouched.
To feed a population of 15-20 billion, farming will also move offshore.
Advances in genetic engineering will allow humanity to replace meat in most of our diets,
and in fact the primary foodstock for all of humanity may be algae.
Genetically engineered 'super algae' could be easily farmed and harvested in vast mid-ocean
reserves, which are already mostly devoid of life thus not harming any wildlife.
The harvested algae could be reprocessed at the molecular level and manipulated to simulate
the taste and even texture of nearly any food item, while avoiding the calories and fats
of red meat and sweets.
And while humanity certainly won't give up meat completely, instead of farming animals
we will instead create meat from scratch- a technology already under development.
'Lab grown' meats will be healthier, tastier, and cheaper to produce, bringing better and
more delicious diets to people around the world while avoiding untold amounts of animal
suffering and the staggering impact of traditional farming on our environment.
Greater advancements in computing will likely see the creation of the first true artificial
intelligences, though what they may be like is as of yet a complete unknown.
We may in fact not even be able to communicate anything meaningful with these artificial
intelligences, as simple evolutionary barriers could make them vastly psychologically different
than us.
That's because human intelligence is shaped by millions of years of evolutionary pressures,
creating a unique psychology that operates on the basic principles of a need to sexually
reproduce and compete for limited resources such as food, water, shelter, hunting ranges,
etc.
These basic tenets- need to procreate and compete for resources- are universal throughout
all life, and we can predict that this holds true for even the strangest alien life, as
even if you are a jellyfish from the Zarlblarg nebula, your ancestors still had to compete
for whatever you eat as food and had to procreate.
Even plants, who passively collect sunlight and carbon dioxide, compete against each other
for the best, sunniest spots, and to attract pollinators.
However, an artificial intelligence will not have experienced any of these evolutionary
pressures, and with a constant supply of power feeding its hardware and no imperative to
reproduce in order to ensure its survival, will never face them.
The psychology of such an intelligence and how it might think is beyond our scope of
understanding at the moment, and may be forever.
Thus its likely that artificial intelligence in the common science-fiction sense will simply
never exist, as we will have no imperative to create an intelligence we cannot communicate
with or have any use for.
What is likely is that humanity will instead continue to develop artificial intelligences
that are useful, continuing the track of specialized intelligences that are hyper intelligent in
specific areas.
We will likely hand over the reins of development over to these hyper intelligences, allowing
them to optimize themselves and stepping out of the creation loop entirely.
These hyper intelligences will continuously strive for greater and greater efficiency,
creating constant updates to themselves that improve their capabilities, resulting in an
explosion of capabilities that is all but impossible to predict.
By harnessing these titanic intellects and directing them at our pressing problems however
mankind will absolutely revolutionize itself and the world, solving in years or decades
problems such as global warming which may take us today centuries to fix.
By this point it's certain that man will begin to merge with his technology, everything from
artificial and hyper efficient organs to implants that directly increase our intelligence and
ability to process information.
Humanity will become a trans-human species, and combined with genetic engineering completely
remove ourselves from the process of evolution, putting its power to shape our bodies and
minds completely in our own hands.
With abundant clean energy and resources, poverty will become extinct.
The standard of living around the world will become universal, which will eliminate the
majority of sources for human conflict creating an era of unparalleled peace and prosperity.
Humanity will begin to take its first real steps to establishing itself outside of the
earth.
What will begin as tourist destinations on the Moon and Mars will grow into actual colonies,
though still heavily dependent on Earth.
The exploitation of resources in space will begin in earnest well before 200 years from
now- companies on earth are already mulling the possibilities of harvesting raw materials
from asteroids.
With the incredible wealth of materials available in asteroids throughout the solar system,
humanity will have no shortage of materials to create a true space-faring civilization.
Life in 500 years becomes even more difficult to predict- after all how could the first
European settlers in America have possibly predicted the internet?
Some predictions can still be made though.
With 500 years worth of computing, nanomanufacturing and genetic engineering knowledge, disease
and illness will likely be a thing of the past.
People simply won't get sick anymore, our bodies will host tiny implants that will monitor
our health and create nanobots from the raw materials in the food we eat so it can combat
any threat to our bodies.
Regenerative medicine will allow for the growth of missing limbs, and genetic engineering
will eradicate genetic disease entirely.
Human lifespans will double or triple as we reprogram our cells to stop deteriorating
or simply replace them entirely with artificially created copies.
We may even become immortal, either by constantly regenerating our bodies or by simply uploading
our consciousness to computers.
Humanity will almost certainly have taken to the stars, but just how far is a complete
unknown.
While modern physics tells us that things such as the warp drive and its ability to
cheat the speed limit of light is theoretically possible, our ability to ever actually create
and power one is questionable at best.
Unfortunately the most realistic prediction for just how far into the stars humanity may
get could be answered by observing space around us- despite the earth existing for billions
of years, we still have no evidence that it was ever visited by aliens.
And our planet is a late-comer to the galaxy, many other star systems have existed for far
longer than us, meaning there is certainly life in our own galaxy that has been around
for millions- if not billions- of years longer than us.
With all that time to solve the problem of long-distance space flight, we still have
no evidence for visitation.
Perhaps we are simply in a backwater neighborhood, far away from where the rest of life evolved,
but sadly it's far more likely that the distance between all but the nearest stars is just
too great, and humanity will never get further than its own neighborhood.
Life is set to change in ways we can hardly imagine, and predicting life in 200 or even
500 years is almost impossible.
Technology advances so rapidly that imagining future technologies is as impossible for us
today as it would have been for the early European settlers to imagine the internet
or space flight.
What is clear though is that the world of tomorrow depends entirely on the choices we
make today, and the inventions of our children will be shaped and guided by the values we
instill in them today.
Whether we teach our children to respect each other and the world they live in, or don't,
will shape what our future looks like, and may in fact mean the difference between continuing
to thrive, or our complete extinction.
So, what do you think life will look like in the future?
What future technology are you most excited about?
Let us know in the comments.
Also, be sure to check out our other video What If You Only Drank Coke (Soda) and Nothing
Else?.
Thanks for watching, and as always, please don’t forget to like, share and subscribe.
See you next time!