Major Transformations to 2100: Highlights from the TechCast Project

Laura B. Huhn

William Halal

By Laura B. Huhn and William Halal

Will the year 2100 bring disaster or salvation? A global population that exceeds food supply and exhausts planetary resources? Ecological collapse and severe climate change? Or will we experience a unified world heralding an unprecedented Age of Global Consciousness?

TechCast (www.TechCast.org) draws on its knowledge base of forecasts pooling empirical trend data and the knowledge of more than 100 experts to examine the big transformations ahead. Lifestyles, families, homes, and other aspects of life are likely to change because the forces of nature, technology, demographics, and economics are transforming the world dramatically.

Here is a macro-forecast that summarizes the 70 strategic breakthroughs that offer an outline of how the foundations of society are likely to evolve over remainder of this century.

2015: Next Economic Upcycle

Our timeline begins around 2015, when the following technological advancements are expected to start the next 35-year economic upcycle:

• E-Commerce. Internet use explodes worldwide, producing trillions of dollars in revenue.
• Global Access. About 50% of the world population will have Internet access.
• Globalization. At today’s growth rates, we’ll halve poverty by 2015.
• Green Business. Thirty percent of corporations are likely to practice environmental management, leading to a $10 trillion–$20 trillion green industry at the end of the decade.
• TeleMedicine. Online records, videoconferences with your doctor, and other electronic practices will improve medical care and reduce escalating costs.
• TeleWork. Globally, 1 billion people were mobile workers in 2010. By 2015, that number should increase to 1.3 billion.
• Space Commercialism/Tourism. Space trips for tourists and visits to low-Earth orbit are likely to produce a boom in commercial space.

2015–2020: Global MegaCrisis

From 2015 through 2020, a doubling of global GDP will cause the Global MegaCrisis (see THE FUTURIST, May-June 2011) to become intolerable, with the planet teetering on environmental collapse. Here are TechCast’s four scenarios:

• Decline to Disaster (25% probability): World fails to react, resulting in catastrophic natural and economic calamities. Possible loss of civilization.
• Muddling Down (35% probability): World reacts only partially, so ecological damage, increased poverty and conflict create major declines in life.
• Muddling Up (25% probability): World reacts in time out of need and high-tech capabilities; widespread disaster averted, although many problems remain.
• Rise to Maturity (15% probability): World transitions to a responsible global order.

2020: High Tech Era

Assuming the world survives reasonably well (Muddling Up), major breakthroughs are likely to introduce a High Tech Era:

• Smart and Green Transportation: e.g., intelligent cars, high-speed trains.
• Climate Control, Alternative Energy.
• Mastery of Life: e.g., personal medicine, organ replacement, cancer cure.
• Second-Generation Information Technology, e.g., “good” artificial intelligence, automated routine knowledge, robots, infinite computing power.

2030–2050: Mature World Order

A Mature World Order evolves beyond knowledge to an Age of Global Consciousness:

• Space: exploration and colonization of the Moon, Mars.
• Advanced Energy: Fusion energy becomes viable.
• Life Extension: Average human life span reaches 100 years.
• Expanded Consciousness: e.g., general AI, thought power, neurotechnology. Humans become almost God-like.

2070–2100: Beyond Earth

• Deep Space: Contact is made; star travel becomes possible.
• Unified World Systems: Humanity achieves Type I Civilization (mastery over most forms of planetary energy).

Laura B. Huhn is a business strategy consultant and has served as the field editor for Energy and Environment for TechCast (www.TechCast.org), for which she is currently reporting on emerging tech issues and challenges.

William E. Halal is professor emeritus of management, technology, and innovation at George Washington University and is president of TechCast LLC, a virtual think tank tracking the technology revolution.

Timeline to the 22nd Century

By Dick Pelletier

What can we expect over the next nine decades? Of course, no one can accurately predict the future this far in advance, but if we multi-track breakthroughs in major technologies, then we can create a plausible scenario of how the future could unfold.

The following timeline reveals achievements and events that could become reality as we trek through the twenty-first century:

2010s: More people become techno-savvy in a fully wired world. Smartphones, the Internet, global trade, and language translators give birth to a humanity focused on improving health care and raising living standards. Stem cell and genetic engineering breakthroughs emerge almost daily.

2020s: Nanotech, computers, robots make life easier. Medical nanotech improves health care, ending many causes of death. Quantum computers unravel the mysteries of consciousness, lowering crime rates worldwide. Household robots surpass cars as the most indispensable family purchase.

2030s: Improved transportation, longer life spans make the world more enjoyable. Driverless cars have reduced auto deaths to near zero. Except for violence and accidents, most people enjoy an indefinite life span. Children born in the 2030s are predicted to live well into the next millennium.

2040-2060: Human–machine merges bring us closer to conquering death. Humanity’s future lies in transitioning into nonbiological beings, writes physicist Paul Davies in his book The Eerie Silence (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010). “Biological life is transitory,” he says. “It is only a fleeting phase of evolution.”

By 2050, bold pioneers begin replacing their biology with nonbiological muscles, bones, organs, and brains. Non-bio bodies automatically self-repair when damaged. In fatal accidents (or acts of violence), consciousness and memories can be transferred into a new body, and victims simply continue life in their new body. Death is now considered no more disruptive than a brief mental lapse. Most patients are not even aware they had died. Built labor-free with nanofactories, non-bio body parts are easily affordable.

2060-2075: Humanity heads for the stars. Successful Moon and Mars forays bring a new era in world peace as countries begin collaborative efforts to develop space.

By 2060, terraforming efforts provide pleasant atmospheres on off-world communities with breathable air and Earthlike gravity. By 2075, population has reached 10,000 on the Moon and 50,000 onMars. By 2100, populations grow to 2 million on the Moon and 10 million on Mars.

2075-2100: Faster-than-light travel is developed. Scientists have selected fusion power and zero-point energy as the most probable technologies that could enable spaceships to break the light-speed barrier.

For example, a 2070s hyper-drive vessel or 2080s warp-speed ship might reach Alpha Centauri (four light-years away) in just 30 days, or make the six-month trip to Mars in three hours. Officials at NASA’s Glenn Research Center have explored other options to travel faster than light-speeds and believe that, in a distant future, humans may even harness wormholes, enabling instant access to vast distances in space.

Can we expect the future to unfold in this optimistic manner? Positive futurists believe we can.

Dick Pelletier is a science and technology columnist and futurist, and editor of the Positive Futurist weekly newsletter and Web site, www.positivefuturist.com/about.html.