Kevin Kelly – a digital visionary – describes the twelve trends of the next 30 years that will change how we live.
This is not a race against the machines.” If we race against them, we lose. This is a race with the machines. You’ll be paid in the future based on how well you work with robots. Ninety percent of your coworkers will be unseen machines
Remixing: Recombining parts in all possible ways
In the future, everything will rely on remixing. For example, a Hollywood blockbuster can take a million man-hours to produce, but millions of video clips are shared every day. These clips rely on remixing.
We will expect scroll-back functions. In the future, immersive environments and virtual realities will be able to scroll back to earlier states.
Interacting: Immersing ourselves inside our computers to maximize engagement
In the future, everything will be immersive.
Virtual reality feels authentic. The best VR will create a deep engagement with other people, even enabling you to make eye contact with them in VR.
Billions of connected people are creating a new level of organization. Wikipedia was considered impossible. Crazy and improbable things happen all the time and are then broadcasted on YouTube.
Impossible things happening now are because a new level of organisation is enabled by instant connectivity. In the future, we will have a trillion fold increase.
Beginning: Constructing a system connecting all humans and machines into a global matrix
In the future, everything will become part of one very large thing.
People will link themselves together on a planetary scale. Each time we click a link, we train the global mind. In 30 years, people will look back and say, “that was the birth of the era we are living in.”
Screening: Turning all surfaces into screens
In the future, everything will be linked and tagged.
Wikipedia is a stream of edits and the first networked book. In the future, all information will be cross-linked. We watch our screens, and our screens will watch us.
Society will shift from one where we own assets to one where we will instead have access to services at all times.
In the future, we will have everything available immediately without owning it. Uber owns no vehicles. Airbnb owns no real estate. So, whatever you need, you will be able to get the best and latest.
The future of technology
Much of the future technological force is inevitable.
Twelve trends will change the ways in which we work, learn, and communicate. If you can position yourself to leverage these changes, you will do well in the next three decades.
In the future, everything will depend on upgrading. We will be perpetual “newbies” trying to keep up. We’ll be in a constant flux of learning and change. Being in constant motion, we will no longer notice the motion, and big changes can catch us off guard.
We have instant access to over 60 trillion pages on the web, from music to encyclopedias, weather forecasts, satellite images, news, road maps, stock quotes. No one anticipated the wealth of material created by the audience. Yet the greatest accomplishments are still ahead of us. In terms of the internet, nothing has happened yet.
Sharing: Collaboration at mass scale
In the future, everything will be shared. Over 1.4 billion people share their lives on Facebook in an informational commune.
The volume of creative work in the next decade will far surpass the last 50 years. More artists, authors, musicians. Any idea, thought, or artefact can be contributed to and experienced by anyone if they want.
In the future, you won’t have the time to read anything.
We’ll need to filter down what we like, what our friends like, the stuff we should like, and that which would surprise us.
Tracking: Employing total surveillance
In the future, we will record everything we do: car movements, highway traffic, mail, cell phone locations, credit card transactions, internet activities, fitness data, etc. Measuring all the aspects of ourselves will create personal treatments and medicines.
Billions of things will track themselves too. For example: Every car manufactured since 2006 records miles driven, speed, sudden braking, speed of turns, and gas mileage.
Cognifying: Making everything smarter using cheap AI
In the future, everything will be intelligent. Genuine AI will plug into the grid, like electricity. You will take X and add AI. For example, phone cameras added computation and erased the need for glass lenses. Similar changes will happen in other areas such as chemistry, investing, music, and law.
In this century, 70% of jobs will be replaced by automation – yours included. Our jobs will be to teach machines how to do our old jobs.
Flowing: Depending on unstoppable streams in realtime for everything
In the future, everything will be copied. Our previous economy was built on warehouses full of fixed goods. Now we value intangibles. Cars become transportation services. Desktop files move from webs and pages to clouds and streams.
Now we don’t desire free music and movies. Instead, we want the flexibility to remix songs, sample soundtracks, and link things to other things.
