Turning 20 in the age of uncertainty

I’m excited. You know why?

Tomorrow, I’m turning 20 in a world when the future has never been more interesting.

First of all, the number of options open to a 20 year old like me is staggeringly high compared to my parents.

Second of all, these options are only going to increase. In the day I turn 20, 650,000 people will gain access to the internet for the first time. That makes almost 4.5 billion internet users worldwide. A great number of these people will create new markets, new companies, new industries, new career pathways, new product categories, and new technological breakthroughs that will no doubt have an impact on my life.

Considering the current state of the world, you might be tempted to call the era we live in the Age of the Internet. But I think that’s missing the point. The biggest impact of the internet on the world so far has been rapid, consistent, and unpredictable disruption. More accurately, we are living in the Age of Uncertainty.

These days, the only thing you can predict about the world is that the future will be very different.

So, to celebrate my 20th Birthday, I’ve decided to make this post into a bunch of predictions about the future of the world and myself. Think of it like a reverse time-capsule!

Here are a few big things I can be pretty certain will happen in my working lifetime:

• The economic landscape of the world is going to be very different. By the time I turn 60, India’s GPD might be larger than that of the United States. China’s might be double.
• The U.S. will no longer have a monopoly on the world’s most innovative companies. Chinese tech giants like Baidu and Tencent are already hinting at a new future of technology in the East.
• There will be a huge shift in political power. The political landscape has stayed relatively stable since the Cold War era, but that is likely to change as developing countries grow wealthier.
• Muslims will outnumber Christians, and Atheists will be less as a percentage of the population than today.
• There will be waaaaay more vegans. It’s not just a fad, guys.
• Advancements in artificial intelligence will keep being developed. Given the recent upsurge in popularity of AI courses at Universities like Stanford and Harvard, we can expect some real breakthroughs in the next 10 years. Whether or not you believe a superintelligent AI is possible, there is no doubt that many cognitive tasks will continue to be automated at an accelerating pace.
• I won’t have to drive to work, and I won’t need to own a car. Self-driving cars will work, and it will be cheaper to not own one. This is pretty huge for our cities. 14 percent of Los Angeles is devoted to car storage at the moment.
• South East Asia will be a lot more expensive to travel to. Rapidly rising incomes and fast improving political institutions mean that $2 per night accommodation won’t stick around for long. Ever more reason to go there when I’m 20!
• The health-care and education system will continue to get less productive and more expensive. New technology may or may not displace them.
• Many developed countries will have to go through major economic restructurings to pay off their debts. The now-common combination of a democratic, capitalist country with a cradle-to-grave welfare state may be an outlier in 50 years time.
• Entertainment will become more addictive, and so will food. (Just consider how many people are currently employed to make sure this happens.)
• Online education will skyrocket. This is 100% going to happen.
• As people get richer, the number of high-quality artisan products will go through the roof. As the barrier to entry for new businesses drops, the number of freelancers will continue to climb.
• Warren Buffett will die. 99% of his wealth will go to charity as promised, and millions of lives will be touched.

The good thing is, none of these things scare me too much. A lot of them are pretty exciting to consider.

But the most interesting parts of the future lie where I can’t see. When making predictions about the future, the unknown is often more important than the known.

Here are some things that might happen in my lifetime:

• We could develop superintelligent AI that makes us so productive that most of us don’t need to work anymore. On the other hand, it could kill a lot of us too.
• We could develop the ability to harvest the power of fusion energy. On the other hand, we could have a nuclear war.
• We could find a cure for HIV. Malaria might be a forgotten disease. Cancer, diabetes, and Alzheimer’s might be too.
• We could have a worldwide epidemic on a scale the human race has never seen. This one scares the hell out of Bill Gates, so I’m willing to listen.
• Automation could lead to a huge abundance of resources for all. On the other hand, automation could create an unprecedented amount of poverty for the unskilled.
• We might get really good at using CRISPR, and start editing our children’s DNA. If this happens, expect a lot of family feuds.
• We might all stop eating animal meat and switch to plant-based meat. This would be like a second agricultural revolution. It would also free up enormous quantities of land for reforestation.
• Nanotechnology might completely disrupt the manufacturing industry and lead to a world of radical abundance. Read Eric Drexler’s stuff. It’s huge.
• Growth may continue to be slow throughout the Western World. This would be extremely troubling for our political institutions. I would not expect the U.S. or European systems of government to last 40 years under the current economic strain.
• We could have a climatic catastrophe, and millions of people might starve to death.
• We could establish a small colony on mars. Wouldn’t that be wicked?
• My children might have vastly better educational opportunities outside of University.
• We could solve a lot of the problems related to ageing, and a decent amount of us might live to 150 or so. The resulting demographic shift could have a bigger economic impact than any of the above.

That doesn’t sound like a very positive future to you?

Well, that is partially true. Whatever changes you see in the future, you can be assured some of them will have very negative consequences. This has always been true.

But the above possibilities for the next 40, 50, 60 years is bloody interesting from the passive observer’s point of view. If you thought the Bachelor NZ was the best reality T.V. show ever, just wait until you watch the documentaries of 2100.

If the shit really hits the fan, I can always walk into the bush and join the Wilderpeople. Hopefully they’ll still have Wi-Fi so I can read this blog post.