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Which Sci-fi future will we reach?

C

Crewman47

Commodore
Newbie
Based on our current technological, (and socialogical), devlopment which future, or near future from the various Sci-Fi shows will we be most like in 50, 100, 200 or 400 years time?

Will we be flying around the cosmos in FTL ships via hyperspace, wormholes or warp drive, will we be teleporting by molecular deconstruction over a data stream or, again, wormholes connected by two fixed points, will we be using machines to produce food, clothing, supplies and materials out of thin air or will we still be stuck on this little blue planet with, amongst other things, a slightly advanced PC and mobile phone and a car that might still run on fuel that will probably end up costing us up to $10 per Litre?
 
Updated for technology and language, of course, but I figure we're heading toward Aldous Huxley's Brave New World within a 100 years time.
 
Sarek of Vulcan said:
Updated for technology and language, of course, but I figure we're heading toward Aldous Huxley's Brave New World within a 100 years time.
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Maybe a few features of it, but nowhere near the whole picture.

Something we seem to be completely unprepared to deal with is the prospect of technology eliminating the vast majority of jobs. About two-thirds of the global economy is composed of "services."

Think about that for a second. Most things that we consider "services" can be automated or will be possible to automate in the coming decades. Consider the following scenario:

1. Joe wants to buy a new toaster.
2. Joe uses a computer terminal in his house to order a toaster from a manufacturer. No human intervention required (other than Joe informing the manufacturer's fulfillment system that he wants a toaster.)
3. The toaster can either be manufactured on-demand (no human intervention required) or pulled from a warehouse (no human intervention required). Robots can basically do all this today.
4. The toaster is placed in a delivery vehicle. Automated driving technology is still in development but quite possible. So, no human intervention required.
5. The delivery vehicle drives to Joe's house and Joe can either be called out to pick up his toaster from the truck, or a special robot can bring it from the truck to his doorstep. No human intervention required, other than Joe receiving his toaster.

None of that is too fantastical, right? Now, think about how many jobs are eliminated here. No one is needed to receive the order, manufacture the toaster, pack it, load onto the truck, drive the truck to Joe's house. It goes without saying that various technicians are involved in keeping the fulfillment systems, robots, and vehicles in working order--but you need comparatively few of those.

Jobs that do not require any kind of expert decision-making can almost universally be automated for improved efficiency, reliability, consistency, and scalability. We are talking about making the majority of the labor force redundant, and I don't think we're looking at more than 50 years before that happens.

This would represent a fundamental shift in the structure of society. What would result? I really don't know. Pessimistically, I could see mass uprisings of obsoleted workers, draconian population control measures, widespread starvation and poverty. Or, we could witness the greatest boom in leisure time in human history, where only a small fraction of the population actually needs to work in order to keep the economy functioning, while everyone else lives off of the efficiency gains. This is assuming efficiency and productivity advance to the point where scarcity is a virtual non-issue.

One thing that might prevent all this is a reluctance to replace the lowest-level jobs with machinery. If it remains more cost-effective to employ human beings to sweep floors, pick fruit, and take food orders, then odds are we won't automate those jobs out of existence. But that seems like a losing battle: sooner or later, virtually every technology diminishes in cost to the point where it's cheaper than a human being in the long run, especially if you take the ancillary costs (training, benefits, legal hassles) into account.

At this point, I am convinced that population will become the defining issue of the 21st century. Combine the continual advancement of technological automation, an aging population, and explosive growth in developing countries, and I think you have a "perfect storm" for massive social upheaval.
 
If all the old people in western countries are sitting at home with their robots and their toasters, then the developing countries will simply replace the workforce wherever it's needed. Joss Whedon's vision of China being a massive cultural influence in the future sounds about right to me.
 
Deckerd said:
If all the old people in western countries are sitting at home with their robots and their toasters, then the developing countries will simply replace the workforce wherever it's needed. Joss Whedon's vision of China being a massive cultural influence in the future sounds about right to me.
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I think you misunderstood what I was talking about.

Those developing countries won't be "developing" forever, and we'll have a massive surplus of workers in the developed countries, to say nothing of the surplus in developing ones.

There are multiple forces at work here:

1. Automation technology begins to compete with workers, producing downward pressure on wages.
2. Workers in developing countries may still be willing to work for the low wages, which will still decline as automation becomes more and more affordable.

This has the short-term effect of squeezing out the workers in post-industrial countries and the long-term effect of eventually making the workers in the developing countries redundant, too.

China is probably in better shape to ride through this than other countries as the "one-child" policy set them up for a population decline in the coming decades.

In the end, the vast majority of the workforce--regardless of location--will be hit by this.
 
Automation technology will only expand if it's cost effective. If you have a population not working then they won't be able to buy the robot made thangs. Ergo the companies who invested in all those robots will go bust.

All populations will stabilise and start to decline by the end of this century.
 
Deckerd said:
Automation technology will only expand if it's cost effective. If you have a population not working then they won't be able to buy the robot made thangs. Ergo the companies who invested in all those robots will go bust.
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It will be cost effective as costs and prices continue to go down (and so long as profit margins are preserved.) While there is certainly a breaking point where the number of people who can actually buy your products is too low to make the economy of scale worthwhile, I also think most of the damage will have already been done--too many people will be out of work.

Most of the people whose jobs will be eliminated are those who can't afford fancy robot-built gadgets in the first place, so the manufacturers of same won't really be hit until it's too late to turn back.

All populations will stabilise and start to decline by the end of this century.
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I agree, but it's the transition period that will be the most painful.
 
Most of the western world is at a virtual standstill already, and much of what growth is occurring is in the form of immigration. Certainly that's the case for the only two western nations - Israel and Australia - whose populations are growing faster than the global mean. Immigration, of course, being a zero-sum game.
 
100 years from now, the world will be more or less a mix of "Minority Report" (minus Precogs), "2001" (minus Monolith), and "Gattaca"... or something. :p
 
I think if technology really does continue to double every 20 years, I really do think that in 400 years time we'll have extreme space travel and implants and all sorts of stuff similar to something you'd find in a Peter F. Hamilton or Alastair Reynolds novel... and then it'll all go to hell and we'll have Dune. :D
 
I doubt humans will be around in 400 years, I assume we will end up designing ourselves out of the equation in one way or another. Most likely we'll end up creating some kind of artificial intelligence that can outwit us, and they'll turn on us and wipe us out.


CuttingEdge100
 
a Minority Report / THX 1138 / Blade Runner / Sleep Dealer world...if you are unfamilar with sleep dealer go to sleepdealer.com and you'll understand...
 
Starbreaker said:
I think if technology really does continue to double every 20 years, I really do think that in 400 years time we'll have extreme space travel and implants and all sorts of stuff similar to something you'd find in a Peter F. Hamilton or Alastair Reynolds novel... and then it'll all go to hell and we'll have Dune. :D
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Technology may double, but the marginal utility doesn't. Take personal computers. They're several times faster than what they were at the beginning of the century, but they aren't massively more useful. Old PC's can still do 90% of a circa 2000 model can. Contrast that with the difference in utility of a computer made in 1980 vs one in 1990, or 1990 vs 2000. Each generation, despite being an equal leap in speed increase, is less of a functional improvement.

This is the fundamental problem with people that believe in a "technological singularity." Technologies mature. Batteries have long be held up by basic physics, which is why despite all the wonders within it, a Smartphone can't last much more than a single day. At best, battery technology may double or triple capacity. Then that's it, for the rest of forever. There's no room left in the constituent atoms for more electrons. Chemical rockets are at the limits of what you can do without going nuclear. No matter what, we're not going to get much more out of a steam turbine than we do now.
 
I'm predicting Patlabour, maybe without the mechs. Basically, things will be the same boring sh*t they are now but with slightly better tech, we will still drive cars, go to work, have wars and border conflicts, have poverty and rich people and a load of people in the middle.

Granted this is my prediction for say the next twenty to fifty years, after that who knows.
 
That always reminded me of "Better than life" the Red Dwarf book where they finnaly rediscover Earth only to find in the garbage heap of the solar system and now ruled by giant cockroaches which lister then tames
 
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