Trends Identified
Rapid urbanisation
By 2030, the UN projects that 4.9 billion people will be urban dwellers and, by 2050, the world’s urban population will have increased by some 72%. Already, many of the largest cities have GDPs larger than mid-size countries. In this new world, cities will become important agents for job creation.
2017
Workforce of the future The competing forces shaping 2030
PWC
Neuroscience: 'We'll be able to plug information streams directly into the cortex'
By 2030, we are likely to have developed no-frills brain-machine interfaces, allowing the paralysed to dance in their thought-controlled exoskeleton suits. I sincerely hope we will not still be interfacing with computers via keyboards, one forlorn letter at a time. I'd like to imagine we'll have robots to do our bidding. But I predicted that 20 years ago, when I was a sanguine boy leaving Star Wars, and the smartest robot we have now is the Roomba vacuum cleaner. So I won't be surprised if I'm wrong in another 25 years. Artificial intelligence has proved itself an unexpectedly difficult problem. Maybe we will understand what's happening when we immerse our heads into the colourful night blender of dreams. We will have cracked the secret of human memory by realising that it was never about storing things, but about the relationships between things. Will we have reached the singularity – the point at which computers surpass human intelligence and perhaps give us our comeuppance? We'll probably be able to plug information streams directly into the cortex for those who want it badly enough to risk the surgery. There will be smart drugs to enhance learning and memory and a flourishing black market among ambitious students to obtain them. Having lain to rest the nature-nurture dichotomy at that point, we will have a molecular understanding of the way in which cultural narratives work their way into brain tissue and of individual susceptibility to those stories. Then there's the mystery of consciousness. Will we finally have a framework that allows us to translate the mechanical pieces and parts into private, subjective experience? As it stands now, we don't even know what such a framework could look like ("carry the two here and that equals the experience of tasting cinnamon"). That line of research will lead us to confront the question of whether we can reproduce consciousness by replicating the exact structure of the brain – say, with zeros and ones, or beer cans and tennis balls. If this theory of materialism turns out to be correct, then we will be well on our way to downloading our brains into computers, allowing us to live forever in The Matrix. But if materialism is incorrect, that would be equally interesting: perhaps brains are more like radios that receive an as-yet-undiscovered force. The one thing we can be sure of is this: no matter how wacky the predictions we make today, they will look tame in the strange light of the future.
2011
20 predictions for the next 25 years
The Guardian
Industrial and technological revolution
By 2035, technological advances will have a major impact on the social and economic foundations of society, potentially more far-reaching than the initial phase of computerisation from the 1980s onwards. Technologies involving automation and machine learning have the potential to disrupt job markets, making millions of jobs obsolete. As technologies like self- driving cars begins to proliferate, governments at all levels will be faced with questions of adaptation, governance, and human development. Countries will be forced to consider how much of their core information infrastructure they will permit to be run by companies domiciled in other countries. Parties may be faced with a trade-off between protecting consumers’ privacy and encouraging the growth of artificial intelligence firms that rely on large amount of data for training and improving algorithms. The question of when platform companies achieve monopolistic power will be a key issue brought before the court system in many countries.
2017
Global trends to 2035
European Strategy and Policy Analysis System (ESPAS)
Information and Communications Technology
By 2040 it is likely that the majority of the global population will find it difficult to ‘turn the outside world off’. ICT is likely to be so pervasive that people could be permanently connected to local or global networks, with inherent challenges to civil liberties. Even amongst those who make an explicit life-style choice to remain detached, choosing to be disconnected may be considered suspicious behaviour. There are a number of socio-economic trends that will lead to pervasive ICT including: a widening global economy, greater cultural assimilation and awareness of technology, and a steady reduction in the unit cost of ICT associated goods. The pervasiveness of ICT will be enhanced by the advent of more common functionality, supported by global service provision and developments in infrastructure, such as cloud computing.235 The related trend of convergence will be driven by manufacturers trying to find a competitive advantage over their rivals by merging more functions into a limited range of smaller devices. ICT investment will also be driven by new business models that help sustain the insertion of new technologies. Significant changes are likely to be observed in applications, mobile devices, and tailored information and interaction modes rather than in infrastructure. Constrained investment in infrastructure will be perceived as a factor that stifles innovation in the developed world, but arguably less so in the developing world, which has the potential to ‘leap-frog’ a generation of fixed infrastructure technologies. In addition, there will be far-reaching improvements in processing power and data storage236 resulting from innovations such as spintronics237 in silicon. Improved architectures enabled by advances in grid computing, photonics and possibly quantum computing (which may increase processing capabilities by 100 billion times), are also likely to lead to more intensive, diverse and perverse applications. Wearable and implanted wireless ICT is likely to become available to all that can afford it.
2010
Global strategic trends - out to 2040
UK, Ministry of Defence
Global Health
By 2040, health will be recognised as a fundamental global issue. Acknowledgement that healthcare provision contributes to stability at local, national and global levels may lead to increased international investment in global health in order to reduce inequality and also provide positive opportunities for education and training. Such developments are unlikely to be rapid, but will be accelerated by high impact events, such as pandemics and episodes of mass migration.
2010
Global strategic trends - out to 2040
UK, Ministry of Defence
Food and Water
By 2040, the global population is likely to increase to 8.8 billion requiring concomitant increases in the supply of food and water. Given that agriculture accounts for over 70% of global freshwater usage, the availability of food and water will be intimately related.181 Over 900 million people were undernourished in 2007. This represents a declining proportion of the global population, but in absolute terms is 80 million more than in 1990– 92, with the largest increases in Asia and in sub-Saharan Africa.182 Similarly, it is estimated that around 2.5 billion people live in regions suffering from water scarcity, predominantly in Africa, the Middle East, as well as Central and East Asia. Of these almost 900 million lack access to safe drinking water causing more than 5 million deaths per year. Fertiliser production is an energy intensive process, and the challenge, with a heavy reliance on science and technology, will be to produce more food on less land with less water, fertiliser and pesticides, while using less energy.
2010
Global strategic trends - out to 2040
UK, Ministry of Defence
Rapid Urbanisation
By 2050, 66% of the global population is expected to be living in urban areas with nearly 90% of the increase concentrated in Asia and Africa. Increase of population density and activities in urban areas across the globe would significantly transform the structure of societies, distribution of resources and governance systems.
2017
Science & Technology Foresight Malaysia
Malaysia, Academy of Sciences Malaysia
Aid flows are likely to diminish
By 2060, aid will have decreased in importance as a driver of Africa’s development. There will be new players in the aid industry (international NGOs, private businesses, non-DAC donors) bringing new approaches. However, the total volume of aid to Africa is likely to diminish.
2011
Africa in 50 Years’ Time
African Development Bank
Where does private end and public begin?
By allowing coordination with systems outside the home, the line between home and work and between public and private will continue to blur. Home systems that sync with external systems (such those at work or school) will allow occupants to work, learn and relax in one locale. But such systems could also sync with neighbourhoods, regions, municipalities, utilities and more to support decision-making about land-use planning, infrastructure, health outcomes and development.
2013
Metascan 3 emerging technologies
Canada, Policy Horizons Canada
Do smart consumers want smart homes?
By early 2018, Apple will have launched its HomePod device, a smart home speaker/assistant to rival the likes of Amazon Echo and Google Home. With Samsung, Sonos and others also set to enter this space, competition to become the default name in this area will be erce.
2018
Trends 18
GlobalWebIndex