Top predictions for life 100 years from now
https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-16536598
Last week we asked readers for their predictions of life in 100 years time many of you wrote in with your vision of the
world in the future. Here is what futurologists Ian Pearson (I) and Patrick Tucker (P) think of some of your ideas.
1. Oceans will be extensively farmed and not just for fish (Jim 300)
I: Likelihood 10/10. We will need to feed 10 billion people and nature can't keep up with demand, so we will need
much more ocean farming for fish.
P: Good chance.
2. We will have the ability to communicate through thought transmission (Dev 2)
I: Likelihood 10/10. Transmission will be just as easy as other forms of brain communication.
P: Good chance. Synthetic telepathy sounds like something out of Hollywood but it is absolutely possible, so long as
"communication" is understood to be electrical signals rather than words.
3. Thanks to DNA and robotic engineering, we will have created incredibly intelligent humans who are
immortal (game_over)
I: Likelihood 9/10.
P: Good chance. The idea that breakthroughs in the field of genetics, biotechnology and artificial intelligence will
expand human intelligence and allow our species to essentially defeat death is sometimes called the Singularity.
4. We will be able to control the weather (mariebee_)
I: Likelihood 8/10. There is already some weather control technology for mediating tornadoes, making it rain and so
on, and thanks to climate change concerns, there are lots of studies about how weather works. We will probably
have technology to be able to control weather when we need to. It will be expensive to use all the time and is more
likely to be used to prevent big damages in key areas.
P: Good chance. We will certainly try to do it. A majority of scientists in the US support a federal programme to
explore methods for engineering the Earth's climate (otherwise known as geoengineering). These technologies aim
to protect against the worst effects of climate change.
5. One single worldwide currency (from Kennys_Heroes)
I: Likelihood 8/10. This is very plausible. We are already seeing electronic currency that can be used anywhere, and
this trend will continue. It is quite likely that there will be only a few regional currencies by 2050 and worldwide
acceptance of a global electronic currency.
P: Great try! The trend on this is actually more in the opposite direction. Local currencies are also now used by
several hundred communities across the US and Europe. In other words, look for many more types of currency and
exchange not fewer, in the coming decades.
6. We will all be wired to computers to make our brains work faster (Dev 2)
I: Likelihood 10/10. We can expect this as soon as 2050 for many people. By 2075 most people in the developed
world will use machine augmentation of some sort for their brains and, by the end of the century, pretty much
everyone will.
Futurologists: people whose specialty or interest is trying t to explore predictions and possibilities about the future and how they
can emerge from the present, whether that of human society in particular or of life on Earth in general.