Earth in 2050
Shocking potential changes are coming
For humanity, our lives on this tiny spit of sand, marooned in the infinite void of space, will never be the same if any of the three below predictions come to fruition. Likelihood is all 3 will come to pass at some point. It is not if, but when 🥴
The 3 Horsemen of Utopia/Doom
Electricity prices to zero
Human Life Expectancy doubles
AI / Robots to take majority of jobs
Electricity & Energy Prices to Zero
Climate Change and Bitcoin are the bull horns that will drive the world in pursuit of cleaner and cheaper energy. The end goal being the price of energy production dropping to zero. Technology development and the race to the bottom for efficient and “clean renewable” sources of electricity will lead humanity to create “free” energy. Whether through geo-thermal, solar, wave, nuclear or any number of yet to be created technologies (fusion, gravitational) we will likely end up with a network that is generating energy for the world at virtually no cost. This will lift billions of people out of poverty and drive up living standards and lifestyle expectations.
Billions of people will increasingly desire higher quality food, goods and services.
Life Expectancy
With the advent of gene editing, stem cell research and synthetics it is quite easy to see that with the technological advances over the decades to come we will see life expectancies to continue to increase. We do not think it is a stretch to see children born in 2050 with an average life expectance of 150-200 years courtesy of technological and biological innovations.
Longer life spans may sound fantastic but it comes with devastating consequences for the traditional life cycle timelines that we have built the current world upon. Think for a second what happens to the business cycle, retirements, pensions, state support, birth rates / desire to breed, mental health and risk tolerance of a nation of people who can expect to live for 200 years…
AI / Robotics
Out of the three we are already seeing huge advancements in this field today. It is already surmised that by 2050 over half of the jobs in the world will be done by robotics or AI driven actions. We feel this is actually on the low end and could easily see 80-90% of all jobs done by the combination of robotics, drones and AI driven management.
It’s Not All Good News
It’s easy to get carried away with the changes these big developments will bring but in reality the roll out will be good for some and bad for others.
Positives (Utopia)
Free energy allows liberation from poverty for billions
Longer lifespan increases options for greater learning / wisdom
No longer need to labour or work, creative and free time for moving things forward
Negatives (Dystopia)
Free energy will collapse the oil industry.
Doubling the lifespan will break traditional finance cycles
Robotics doing everything for us, what do we do without time?
He who controls the robots controls all
We anticipate that technology on Earth in 2050 will be carnivorous and deflationary, devouring every old and closed system in its path. Unfortunately there is no other way. In order to get to that utopic future we will have to undergo a massive change. This transition is hard to factor in at this point in time. As the rate of change increases exponentionally (courtesy of technology and more people) we expect change will come faster than anyone expects.
Technology will eat the world!
At some stage there is a tipping point where something snaps in the old world as it is built on inflationary systems. You can see examples of this destruction all around if you look with interest. The iPhone itself has eaten and destroyed dozens of industries and services.
Most people will look at the top picture and think this is great, which on the surface is progress. However, technology will start hitting home in areas that bring friction to all, destroying jobs, industries and eventually human purpose.
Till next time you oxygen eating meat bags. The robots are coming!
The Wealth Gap Team