YEAR 2025 THE FUTURE IN BALANCE

IN 2025, IN ACCORDANCE

WITH MOORE'S LAW, WE'LL SEE

AN ACCELERATION IN THE

RATE OF CHANGE AS WE

MOVE CLOSER TO A WORLD

OF TRUE ABUNDANCE.

Infographic Credit: http://idisrupted.com/moores-law-infographic/

HERE ARE SOME AREAS WHICH WILL SEE

EXTRAORDINARY TRANSFORMATION IN

THE NEXT DECADE.

8 BILLON HYPER-CONNECTED PEOPLE

8 BILLION HYPER-CONNECTED PEOPLE

Facebook (Internet.org), SpaceX, Google (Project Loon), Qualcomm and Virgin

(OneWeb) are planning to provide global connectivity to every human on Earth at

speeds exceeding one megabit per second.

We will grow from three to eight billion connected humans, adding five billion new

consumers into the global economy. They represent tens of trillions of new dollars flowing

into the global economy. And they are not coming online like we did 20 years ago with a

dial-up modem. They're coming online with a 1 Mbps connection and access to the

world's information on Google, cloud 3D printing, Amazon Web Services, artificial

intelligence with Watson, crowdfunding, crowdsourcing, and more.

ITS ONE GIANT NEURAL NETWORK OF INTELLIGENCE

WORKING FOR/AGAINST MANKIND.

A TRILLION-SENSOR ECONOMY

A TRILLION-SENSOR ECONOMY

The Internet of Everything describes the networked connections between devices, people, processes and data. By 2025, the IoE will exceed 100 billion connected devices, each with a dozen or more sensors collecting data. This will lead to a trillion-sensor economy driving a data revolution beyond our imagination. Cisco's recent report estimates the IoE will generate $19 trillion of newly created value.

The IoE is not making any discriminations and it will affect every single industry, including manufacturing, healthcare, energy, financial services, consumer goods and of course the ICT. Now this might sound intimidating, but it’s actually a very good thing if you can anticipate it and prepare your organisation accordingly, so that you can maximise the benefits. One of the biggest opportunities is the ability you will have to predict and prevent problems.

In the consumer market, IoE technology is already being lapped up. Within just a few months of its launch, Apple claimed 75% of the smartwatch market. As yet, self-driving cars are yet to take to roadways. However, with prototypes already being pioneered and app developers racing to create everything from connected entertainment to automated piloting using GPS, when the infrastructure required to make smart cities a reality is sanctioned by local councils and city mayors, IoE could literally find itself in the driving seat.

A TRILLION-SENSOR ECONOMY

Counterpoint -

Firstly, the need exists for significant work in the area of governance. Without a standardised approach it is likely that a proliferation of architectures, identification schemes, protocols and frequencies will develop side by side, each one dedicated to a particular and separate use. This will inevitably lead to a fragmentation of the IoE, which could hamper its popularity and become a major obstacle in its roll out.

Secondly, in order to have a widespread adoption of any object identification system, there is a need to have a technically sound solution to guarantee privacy and the security of the customers. While in many cases the security has been done as an add-on feature, it is the feeling that the public acceptance for the IoE will happen only when the strong security and privacy solutions are in place. The selection of security features and mechanisms will continue to be determined by the impact on business processes; and trade-offs will be made between chip size, cost, functionality, interoperability, security, and privacy.

A TRILLION-SENSOR ECONOMY

The Internet of Everything offers a singular opportunity to transform the market as a whole

and business in particular; but it won’t happen without a willingness to keep an open

mind about the possibilities. A connected car may seem like a purely consumer-focused

proposition at first but, in the right context, it could open up a range of possibilities for fleet

vehicle management. No significant shift – technological, business or otherwise – has ever

been possible without a cultural shift too; the Internet of Everything will be no exception.

Business models and Internet of Things -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYQ_PHOCjyg

ABSOLUTE KNOWLEDGE

We're heading towards a world of perfect knowledge. With a trillion sensors gathering data everywhere (autonomous cars, satellite systems, drones, wearables, cameras), you'll be able to know anything you want, anytime, anywhere, and query that data for answers and insights.

Counterpoint –

“Absolute Knowledge” also equates to absolute surveillance, a condition we’re getting close to now. Our phones can be tracked, our newer cars can be tracked, what we do on the internet IS tracked, your credit cards leave a trail, Google street view shows your house and

maybe even where you are/were on that day and time.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/05/worker-fired-for-disabling-gps-app-that-tracked-her-24-hours-a-day/

3D PRINTING

3D PRINTING

Thanks to the Internet, we are all writers, photographers, filmmakers, publishers and publicists. Soon, we may all be Makers, too. One of the most important changes will be 3D printing and a zero marginal cost economy. The 3D printing revolution, when it fully kicks in will be an example of “extreme productivity,” where each additional unit of goods will be near zero, eliminating profit, and making property exchange in markets unnecessary for many products.

The democratization of manufacturing means that anyone and eventually everyone can access the means of production, making the question of who should own and control the means of production irrelevant, and capitalism along with it.

Counterpoint -

And all new technology produces winners and losers. Additive manufacturing will create new industries and new jobs. But it may also displace skilled craftspeople, artisans and designers who work with raw materials, just as Amazon displaced bookstores, and desktop printers eviscerated mom and pop copy shops.

4D PRINTING

In 2025 with this new technology, you print a 3D object that at some future point can

automatically self-assemble or change shape when confronted with a change in its

environment, such as temperature or moisture. This is the fourth dimension. This

technology is being pioneered by Skylar Tibbits at MIT, and it has wide-ranging

implications for consumers and industries. Imagine a construction brick that only reaches

its full weight and structure after water is added to it, at the exact location where it will be

used. Envision hydraulic pipes that automatically repair themselves if they are ever

damaged. Get ready to wear sneakers that become running shoes if you started running,

or grow cleats if you walk on grass, or become waterproof if it starts to rain. While this

technology is still new, it promises to take 3D printing to an entirely new dimension.

3D PRINTING

Please watch

Skylar Tibbits 4D Printing - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gMCZFHv9v8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBeYXpInTR4

http://www.cnet.com/videos/how-3d-printing-will-literally-make-the-future/

DISRUPTION IN HEALTHCARE

DISRUPTION OF HEALTHCARE

The healthcare industry is indeed evolving – ageing populations, healthcare reforms and rapidly increasing costs are forcing us to do things differently. As we move more towards population health, the entire care team will be responsible for the patients’ outcomes instead of just the physician/ clinician. With these changes, comes the need for connecting care team members, patients, and families in an effective manner – regardless of location or device.

Increasing patient engagement and awareness through greater collaboration and information exchange will become a key driver in achieving better clinical outcomes. As such, the realities of geography, demographics and provider shortages is making video and collaboration tools key to the changing landscape of healthcare.

Where technology can take healthcare - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oukZualFAk

DISRUPTION OF HEALTHCARE

Existing healthcare institutions will be crushed as new business models with better and more efficient care emerge. Thousands of startups, as well as today's data giants (Google, Apple, Microsoft, SAP, IBM, etc.) will all enter this lucrative $3.8 trillion healthcare industry with new business models that dematerialize, demonetize and democratize today's bureaucratic and inefficient system.

Biometric sensing (wearables) and AI will make each of us the CEOs of our own health. Large-scale genomic sequencing and machine learning will allow us to understand the root cause of cancer, heart disease and neurodegenerative disease and what to do about it. Robotic surgeons can carry out an autonomous surgical procedure perfectly (every time) for pennies on the dollar. Each of us will be able to regrow a heart, liver, lung or kidney when we need it, instead of waiting for the donor to die. I am hopefully excited by this being on the waitlist myself.

The first human lab-grown liver was in 2010: http://www.webmd.com/news/20101029/first-human-liver-grown-in-lab

https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn23382-kidney-breakthrough-complete-lab-grown-organ-works-in-rats/

AUGMENTED AND VIRTUAL REALITY

AUGMENTED AND VIRTUAL REALITY

Billions of dollars invested by Facebook (Oculus), Google (Magic Leap), Microsoft (Hololens), Sony, Qualcomm, HTC and others will lead to a new generation of displays and user interfaces.

The screen as we know it — on your phone, your computer and your TV — will disappear and be replaced by eyewear. Not the geeky Google Glass, but stylish equivalents to what the well-dressed fashionistas are wearing today. The result will be a massive disruption in a number of industries ranging from consumer retail, to real estate, education, travel, entertainment, and the fundamental ways we operate as humans.

Counterpoint –

There is such a thing as too much information. Just as the "CrackBerry" phenomenon and Internet addiction are concerns, an overreliance on augmented reality could mean that people are missing out on what's right in front of them. There are also privacy concerns. Image-recognition software coupled with AR will, quite soon, allow us to point our phones at people, even strangers, and instantly see information from their Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, LinkedIn or other online profiles.

Watch this for fun: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lK_cdkpazjI

A 1000$ HUMAN BRAIN

A $1,000 HUMAN BRAIN

In 2025, $1,000 should buy you a computer able to calculate at 10^16 cycles per second (10,000 trillion cycles per second), the equivalent processing speed of the human brain.

Some think 2025 for the computing power equivalent to the human brain is quiet pessimistic. Kurzweil originally wrote, that it would be around 2023. However recently he changed his prediction to 2020, thanks to the use of gpu. (source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/innovations/wp/2015/04/23/the-coming-problem-of-our-iphones-being-more-intelligent-than-us/ )

Counterpoint -

People have already given up full time work for a less stressful part time career and are actually earning more money working 2 days per week than 5. These things are beginning to happen already, many jobs have been automated out of existence. As a response, society has created meaningless jobs to replace meaningful jobs, which don’t achieve anything at all, but provide a way to further distribute wealth along the same old worn out economic model. There’s also change occurring in work itself, such as popular micro contracting services like elance, odesk and fiverr where people work on their own terms.

A $1,000 HUMAN BRAIN

January 2015 -$0.08/gigaflop

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FLOPS

We achieve one Human Brain capability (2 * 10^16 cps) for $1,000 around the year 2023

http://www.kurzweilai.net/the-law-of-accelerating-returns

January 2015

Human Brain Cost Estimate = 2 *10^{16} Flops x $0.08/10^{9} flop =10^{7} x $0.16 = 1.6

Million dollars.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Artificial intelligence research will make strides in the next decade. If you think Siri is useful now, the next decade's generation of Siri will be much more like JARVIS from Iron Man, with expanded capabilities to understand and answer. Companies like IBM Watson, DeepMind and Vicarious continue to hunker down and develop next-generation AI systems. In a decade, it will be normal for you to give your AI access to listen to all of your conversations, read your emails and scan your biometric data because the upside and convenience will be so immense.

If AI can merely simulate conscious intelligence by processing visual, tactile, and sound data from the real world in such a way as to respond flexibly and reliably, the majority of our workforce will be displaced. Take note of the advancements over last year’s trials. Then project out over 10 years of exponential improvements in computation and incremental improvements in engineering. You’ll have a multi-purpose android, capable of performing dexterous execution of random tasks in random environments. Buy a piece of land, bring along robot, 3d printer, power source, and raw materials, and you can build just about anything…including more robots and 3d printers which you can sell or distribute freely as you choose. I see massive deflation across the board as inevitable.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

But we already see a shift from programmable computing (programmed by hand) to cognitive computing (learning algorithms that are “thought”; like deep learning or Watson or self driving cars…). And like the brain these systems can work extraordinary in parallel (our brain for instance runs on just 200 Hz). IBM just released a chip called “TrueNorth” with over 4000 cores on one single chip which “artificial synapses” allowing them to communicate. It is explicitly designed for cognitive computing.

http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2015/05/21/deep-learning-robot-masters-skills-via-trial-and-error/

Read Martin Ford’s “The Lights in the Tunnel.” What happens when the rate at which human jobs are automated vastly exceeds the rate at which new human jobs are created?

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Watch CGP Grey’s “Humans Need Not Apply”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU

BLOCKCHAIN

BLOCKCHAIN

If you haven't heard of the blockchain, I highly recommend you read up on it. You might have heard of bitcoin, which is the decentralized (global), democratized, highly secure cryptocurrency based on the blockchain. But the real innovation is the blockchain itself, a protocol that allows for secure, direct (without a middleman), digital transfers of value and assets (think money, contracts, stocks, IP). Investors like Marc Andreesen have poured tens of millions into the development and believe this is as important of an opportunity as the creation of the Internet itself.

While individuals will be striving to gain control, our countries and governments will begin to see their control slipping away. The Internet has created borderless economies that have confused the issue of power and control and even the sovereignty of nations. With the Internet’s ability to conduct business and perform flawless transactions across borders, countries have essentially lost control of commerce.

Counterpoint –

Blockchain also scares me. It eliminates the role of government monetary policy in economics. But the single way out we can think of for the coming massive deflation/unemployment armageddon is for governments to initiate a guaranteed living income. This is only possible if central banks continue to produce the viable currencies of the world. Who can we turn to for a free and equitable distribution of Bitcoins when there are no meaningful tasks or goods for the average citizen to produce in exchange for them?

BLOCKCHAIN

As blockchains and sidechains proliferate, there are several important implications for the Internet of Things and the development of Smart Systems. For one, blockchain technology could provide a way to track the unique history of individual devices, by recording a ledger of data exchanges between it and other devices, web services, and human users.

Blockchains could also enable smart devices to become independent agents, autonomously conducting a variety of transactions. Imagine a vending machine that can not only monitor and report its own stock, but can solicit bids from distributors and pay for the delivery of new items automatically -- based, of course, on the purchase history of its customers. Or a suite of smart home appliances that can bid with one another for priority so that the laundry machine, dishwasher and robo-vacuum all run at an appropriate time while minimizing the cost of electricity against current grid prices. Or a vehicle that can diagnose, schedule and pay for its own maintenance.

At a more abstract level, blockchain networks themselves also have the potential to become independent agents, what some have referred to as “Distributed Autonomous Corporations.” These would supplant systems like banking and arbitration, which have traditionally relied on trusted and centralized human authorities, with trustless and decentralized networks. Examples include electronic couriers to securely transfer sensitive information, escrow services to transfer ownership rights, or even auto-installation services to verify and push updates to the software governing other DACs.

BLOCKCHAIN

Infographic credit: http://assets.bwbx.io/images/irGVsRUI8ODQ/v1/-1x-1.jpg

BLOCKCHAIN

Watch Bitcoin and Blockchain Technology Explained:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSP-taqLWPQ

TRAVEL & TRANSPORTATION

TRAVEL & TRANSPORTATION

In the near future, automotive companies will focus on fully automated vehicles where people can “punch in” or “speak” the place they want to go to and the vehicle will automatically take them there. This “control feature” will open up huge additional markets for automotive companies to sell to the elderly, families with kids too young to drive, and the visually, physically, and mentally impaired. The arrival of fully automated navigation systems for ground-based vehicles will set the stage for fully automated navigation systems for flying vehicles.

The Flying car era has just started with the advent of the drone. Flying drones will be used by FedEx and UPS to deliver packages, Pizza Hut to deliver pizzas, and Kroger and Safeway to deliver groceries. But beyond that, drones will enable homes to be taken off the grid with delivery of water and electricity (changing out batteries for the home), trash and sewage pickup, and much more. These too will begin as air-powered vehicles and later convert to frictionless drones.

We will see commercialization of the first friction-free no-moving-parts flying vehicles which will be considered by many to be the ultimate freedom machine. Much like the transition from analog to digital in the world of information technology, the study of traditional mechanics and traditional aerodynamics will be replaced with a new physics governing vehicular movement.

TRAVEL & TRANSPORTATION

Binary Power

The friction-free no-moving-parts vehicles will run on what we call “binary power”. Binary

power is the concept where two otherwise harmless beams of energy will intersect at

some point in space creating a source of power.

To better explain binary power, think in terms of two invisible beams intersecting in a room

and the point at which they intersect is a glowing point of light. Yes, binary power will

eventually replace all light bulbs. And lest you think it can only be used for intense forms

of power, it will also be used to create “points” of sound, eliminating the need for

speakers and headphones.

SPACE RESEARCH & PRIVATIZATION

If SpaceX can master re-usable rockets, our access to space will reduce in cost by 10x. Unfortunately the recent fatal Virgin Galactic crash will set its private sub-orbital ambitions back a few years.

Frictionless engines will form the basis of new propulsion systems for space travel. We will start thinking of fully functioning space elevators operating at full capacity, moving both people and supplies into space. Over 100,000 people will have visited the moon. We would have a space hotel making a major impact on tourism with growing numbers of people opting for the “sleeping with the stars” vacation package.

Colonization of Mars will be a reality, even though humans will never in any real numbers physically leave the planet as such. Probes will help us understand how to survive there effectively, where to find water, where the best places to build are, etc..

THE FUTURE WILL BE DERIVED BY STRONG DESIRES FOR PERSONAL FREEDOM AND

PEOPLE’S NEED TO GAIN CONTROL OVER LIFESTYLES THAT ARE MOVING FASTER AND FASTER.

MY GOAL IN COMPILING “THE FUTURE IN BALANCE – YEAR 2025” IS TO HELP

STIMULATE THINKING AND HOPEFULLY MAKE IT CONTROVERSIAL ENOUGH TO

CAUSE THESE TOPICS TO BE DEBATED. PLEASE TAKE SOME TIME TO CHALLENGE THE ASSUMPTIONS, AND LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK.

Beeraajaah Sswain

https://in.linkedin.com/in/digvine

REFERENCES

Shapingtomorrow.com

PWC

Cisco.com

Singularityhub.com

Forbes.com

Smithsonianmag.com

Davinciinstitute.com

en.wikipedia.org

MIT Labs

Bloomberg.com

Cnet.com