Dramatic Predictions for the Future

This article is an extract from the article by Thomas Frey, a well-known futurist

Humanity will change more in the next 20 years than in all of human history.

By 2030 the average person in the U.S. will have 4.5 packages a week delivered with flying drones. They will travel 40% of the time in a driverless car, use a 3D printer to print hyper-individualized meals, and will spend most of their leisure time on an activity that hasn’t been invented yet. The world will have seen over 2 billion jobs disappear, with most coming back in different forms in different industries, with over 50% structured as freelance projects rather than full-time jobs…

Over 50% of today’s Fortune 500 companies will have disappeared, over 50% of traditional colleges will have collapsed, and India will have overtaken China as the most populous country in the world.

Most people will have stopped taking pills in favor of a new device that causes the body to manufacture it’s own cures.

Space colonies, personal privacy, and flying cars will all be hot topics of discussion, but not a reality yet.

Our ability to predict the future is an inexact science. The most accurate predictions generally come from well-informed industry insiders about very near term events. Much like predicting the weather, the farther we move into the future, the less accurate our predictions become.

So why do we make them?

In the segments below, Thomas Frey makes a series of provocative and dramatic predictions about 2030, and how different life will be just 17 years in the future. This is not the complete list of his predictions, just the most interesting ones that seem plausible.

He explains why predictions are important, even when they are wrong.

“Our greatest motivations in life come from NOT knowing the future.”

Why Understanding the Future is Important

Ignorance is a valuable part of the future. If we knew the future we would have little reason to vote in an election, host a surprise party, or start something new.

Once a future is known, we quickly lose interest in trying to influence it. For this reason, our greatest motivations in life come from NOT knowing the future.

So why, as a futurist, does Thomas Frey spend so much time thinking about the future?

Very simply, since no one has a totally clear vision of what lies ahead, we are all left with degrees of accuracy. Anyone with a higher degree of accuracy, even by only a few percentage points, can achieve a significant competitive advantage.

Dramatic Predictions for The Future

Over 80% of all doctor visits will have been replaced by automated exams.
Over 90% of all restaurants will use some form of a 3D food printer in their meal preparations.
The world’s largest Internet company will be in the education business, and it will be a new company
Over 2 billion jobs will have disappeared, freeing up talent for many new fledgling industries.
We will see the first city to harvest 100% of its water supply from the atmosphere.
Over 50% of all traditional colleges will collapse, paving the way for an entire new education industry
We will see a surge of Micro Colleges, each requiring less than 6 months of training and apprenticeship
We will see wireless power used to light up invisible light bulbs in the middle of a room.
we will see the first demonstration of a technology to reduce the pull of gravity by as much as 50%.
Democracy will be viewed as inferior form of government.
There will be hyper-individualized medicines that are manufactured at the time they are ordered.
Cable television will no longer exist.
It will be common to use next generation search engines to search the physical world.
Basic computer programming will be considered a core skill required in over 20% of all jobs.
We will have seen multiple attempts to send a probe to the center of the earth.
Tube teleportation inspired by Hyperloop will be the world’s largest infrastructure project.

Reading through the prediction above you will likely have experienced a number of thoughts ranging from agreement, to amusement, to confusion, to total disagreement.

As with most predictions, some will be correct and others not. But the true value in this list will come from giving serious consideration to each of them and deriving your own conclusions.