According to The Emerging Future, every 12 to 18 months computers and machines double their capacity. This means that the speed of technological development is very high. In the past, we already went through disruption with the Industrial Revolution. But this time is different—we’re experiencing a higher level of technology disruption, one that’s faster and more sophisticated. So what would our world look like in 50 years? We’ve put together a list with some of the changes we will see according to Elon Musk’s prediction of the “city of the future”.

AI will Impact the Workforce 

Something that will drastically change is the workforce. With the development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) automation, the number of jobs at risk increases. Experts believe that most of the jobs we currently have will no longer exist in the future, and there will be new jobs that we can’t even imagine right now. 

Jobs that require physical strength and jobs that require repetitive tasks will disappear. Machines can do the exact same activity in less time and error-free. Therefore, humans won’t be necessary for these positions. 

This doesn’t mean that humans will be removed from the workforce. What it means is that humans will be working on different fields such as tech jobs or healthcare. 

 

Assisted Medical Operations 

Imagine a world where a doctor doesn’t have to operate patients with their own hands. Instead, they give instructions to a robot. Experts say that this will reduce human mistakes and improve the patients’ quality of life. 

This is something that tech companies have already started to work on. However, it’s still in its early stages. But in the future, this is something we could potentially see. That’s the reason why healthcare jobs are not at risk yet—we’ll still need doctors to assist robots.

 

Technology will be Closer to our Bodies

In the past, our only interaction with technology and computers was through a keyboard. Today, we have everything on our fingertips. Our mobile phones have made it easier for us to have easy access to information of all kinds. 

But have you noticed that technology is only getting closer to our bodies? Even with videogames we now use headsets to get in touch with the digital world. In the future, technology might get even closer to our bodies. Brian Wong, KIIP’s CEO and co-founder, recently gave his opinion about the future of our world in the next 50 years in a Tech Insider Interview: 

“In 50 years, I think the world will really change in terms of technology and bring up this concept that I call proximity of tech, which is how close the technology is to your body. And right now we kind of hold things and we wear things, and it’s kind of at our hands. But the whole point is getting it into our eyeballs, into our ears or into our stomach.” 

Although it may sound like science fiction, ingestible technology is already a thing. A team of researches at MIT has developed a small robot with the shape of origami that unfolds itself to complete certain tasks inside our bodies. This ingestible robot can remove foreign objects or patch wounds. 

Daniela Rus, Director at MIT, says: “The challenge with designing ingestible robots is finding biocompatible materials that are easy to be controlled and amenable to the types of operations that are needed.”

 

Optimized Transportation

 

Imagine if you could travel to Paris in 12 minutes for the price of a regular airplane ticket. Does that sound crazy to you? Well, it’s possible in Elon Musk’s city of the future. According to his prediction, the transportation system will drastically improve its speed and safety, which will lead to cost reductions because there’ll be an increased number of passengers per hour. 

This will not only bring us all even closer but will also improve the economy. Shipping costs are usually very high because they involve a lot of work from drivers and logistics companies. But what if there were no drivers? The automated vehicle trend is increasing and the Tesla company is accelerating its production capacity of electric and automated cars. 

 

Education 

Maybe this could be the wildest of Elon Musk’s predictions, but still something possible in the future. In his city of the future, he believes that studying would be as easy as downloading information to your brain. Although it would take away the effort of passing exams and hitting career goals, it would optimize the education system. 

 

Conclusion

Technology is surely disrupting all industries and the future may not look like anything we expect. However, it’s not hard to be optimistic about the future when we see that technology can improve our quality of life and create a more harmonious society.

 

By guest author; Artur Meyster