Life in the 2040s: indefinite lifespan, 'smart' homes, skycars

July 15 2008 / by futuretalk
Category: Other   Year: Beyond   Rating: 4 Hot

By Dick Pelletier

Imagine living in a perfect body without fear of unwanted death. Consider a world where “smart” homes with friendly bio-materials responds to our every whim; and bird-like skycars on autopilot whisk us silently through the sky to our destinations.

Although these scenarios may seem too futuristic to happen in just 32 to 42 years, positive futurists believe that exponentially-advancing technologies could turn this 2040s vision into reality.

Futurist Ray Kurzweil, in The Singularity is Near describes many of these technologies including how our bodies will evolve. Today’s frail human body “version 1.0” has a high failure rate – More than 50 million will die this year. Over the next two decades, biotech and nanotech advances will provide a stronger “version 2.0”, which will reduce deaths significantly.

“This brings us to “version 3.0”, Kurzweil says, “an amazing body that boasts a zero failure rate.” Even if a destructive accident were to occur, 2040s technologies would immediately construct a new body, retrieve mind and memories, and allow our indefinite lifespan to continue.

Homes will not look sci-fi in 2040, because most people still enjoy living in houses, not futuristic pods. But tomorrow’s residences will include biomaterials imbedded in ceilings, walls and floors that kill harmful germs, provide pleasant odors, and make us feel cozy and secure. (cont.)

Refrigerators will order food and provide nutritional data on what’s inside. Meat and dairy products no longer spoil, and drinks chill themselves. All food includes vitamins designed to keep our “version 3.0” body in perfect shape. “Smart” mattresses read our minds and promote dreams that enhance intelligence and emotions.

Our always-on holographic TV/phone/radio/computer streams live feeds from friends, relatives, or business contacts, and delivers entertainment from the Internet. We can experience programs the old-fashioned way through eyes and ears, or for easier comprehension, allow signals directly into our mind.

Windows provide clean air and light when needed. Street addresses are gone. GPS coordinates identify every house, and high tech mind scans restrict access to family members, eliminating the need for house keys. Exterior coatings change color and texture on demand; 20th century wood and brick styles are the rage.

Every home has a vehicle parked in the garage that can drive as well as fly. Backing out the driveway, the computer-driven skycar quickly lifts vertically like a helicopter and glides silently through the sky to your destination. A quantum computer-powered GPS system acts as onboard air-traffic controller to prevent collisions. For longer trips, we hop a scramjet that can travel to anywhere on Earth in an hour or less.

Nanotech has enabled splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen, creating clean hydrogen for fuel cells; by mid-century, America no longer suffers from the tyranny of oil. Nano-replicators, now a staple of every home, provide food, clothing and essentials at little cost. This has drastically lowered living expenses, reducing income needs for most families.

The 2040s promise to change forever the ways we relate to each other; even our view of what constitutes life will be challenged as technology brings humanity to the edge of immortality. Could this amazing “magical future” be realized in such a short time? Positive futurists believe that it can.

This article will appear in various print media and blogs; comments welcome. See other published work by Dick at http://www.positivefuturist.com and click on the “published work” tab.

Image courtesy of Martin Dufort

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Comment Thread (6 Responses)

1. Anyone who expects these things to happen by the 2040s is overly optimistic and incredibly misinformed about the complexity of social, political, economic and technological issues.

   Posted by: adbatstone80   July 17, 2008
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2. Aaah it’s adbatstone80 again, here for a daily moan, and sounding more like the people who said heavier than air flying machines are impossible every day. You obviously also fall into the category of people who do not understand what the word exponential means. It is not just a substitute for ‘fast’, it is a real mathematical function. Look it up in a book.

   There are about seven different areas of technology which are close to the knee of the curve. This means that the rate of progress in the 20th century is a very unreliable guide to what we will see in even the next 20 years, never mind beyond that. Even without this realisation, the developments of the 20th century were impressive, but this will never stop the crowd who whinge and moan because they never got a flying car.

   The key point is that adbatstone80 never backs up his/her arguments. It’s invariably “this is not gonna happen” followed by a very loud silence. The optimists on the other hand have looked at current trends and can see where things are going. It would take “social and political issues” of cosmic scale to derail the huge change which is approaching. As for “economic and technological issues”, they are soon to rendered mute, or they have been already.

   So, adbatstone80, do what Drexler, Kurweil and others have done and show us the numbers. Back it up with some hard facts, or keep quiet. Then you might have the time to do the research which the hard working owners of this blog have done.

   Posted by: CptSunbeam   July 17, 2008
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3. The most radical technology breakthroughs discussed in this piece might include Skycars and human body advances.

   Former NASA Director Dennis Bushnell believes that “computerized driving systems will impact with society like cars did to the horse and buggy.”

   Winner of the recent DARPA challenge, “Driverless Cars in a City Environment”, stated that today’s driverless cars can go about 100 miles before needing human assistance. “By 2010, this will increase to 1,000 miles, by 2020 a million miles; and by the 2030s, driverless cars will surpass human drivers in both safety and reliability.”

   And today there are six companies already producing skycars: StrongMobile Magic Dragon, LaBiche Aerospace FSC-1, Haynes Aero Skyblazer, Moller Skycar, X-Hawk, and Transition. Granted many of these are little more than an elaborate engineer’s dream, but by 2030, most experts believe this technology will mature and large numbers of self-driving, self-flying skycars will be crowding the skies; and by the 2040s, this forward technology will utilize newly-developed thrust systems and quantum computer-controlled collision management systems and become an accepted means of transportation.

   Regarding human body advances, most scientists accept that regenerative medicine techniques expected in the next two decades will transform healthcare from reactive to proactive and most deaths from diseases will be eliminated or greatly reduced.

   Possibly a greater leap of faith may be necessary to envision a 2040s body that can regenerate itself and recover from any disaster, but positive futurists and other forward thinkers (including this writer) believe that this future will happen too.

   With faith, a little luck, and some sound scientific advances, this 2040s future could become our reality. Comments welcome.

   Posted by: futuretalk   July 17, 2008
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4. It’s also interesting that it’s the experts themselves that are optimists, whereas the pessimists tend to be middle class, middle aged, and bitter.

   As I’ve said before, when you are engaged in actual research it feels different, you feel in control – but a few lucky, insightful individuals can see where things are headed, and they know that “social and political” factors are no obstacle. In fact, technology tends to be more powerful these days and effects social and political change, not the other way around. Kurzweil, whose predictions rarely go wrong, predicted that communications technology would lead to the collapse of the soviet union. It turned out that he was spot on, and a few simple devices such as fax machines enabled the communist population to connect to the outside world.

   And other experts such as theoretical physicist Michio Kaku recognise that we are moving from the age of “discovery” to the age of “mastery”. For example, we have had nanoscale discovery since the scientific revolution (we call it “chemistry”) but nanotechnology is defined as nanoscale science where we have control. It started with the inventions of the STM and AFM and it continues apace.

   But occasionally, even experts fall into the trap of being naysayers. If you type ‘failed technology predictions’ into google, a long list comes up, and the vast majority are from naysayers. “Not in my lifetime!” “Impossible” “Absurd”. So even scientists should learn to be cautious and not downplay future developments.

   If people with these credentials sometimes fail to anticipate technology developments, why does adbatstone80, who presumably is not a scientist, continue with the tired statement “not in my lifetime” like a broken record? I invite adbatstone80 to explain why the acadamies of science in america, the NIH, Kaku, Kurzweil, Drexler and a long line of other experts are “incredibly misinformed”. Show us the goods, or be quiet.

   Posted by: CptSunbeam   July 17, 2008
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5. “No more house keys; mind scans provide ID”

   This one seems feasible in the very near future. We already have seen a monkey able to mentally control the walking motions of a robot from thousands of miles away. Improving the reliability of such neural signaling, we humans could use it to mentally transmit a “password” which would undergo encryption before being transmitted from a unit in our head and picked up by a receiver in the nearby house. Voila, no more house keys. Not exactly a “mind scan”, which sounds less willing on the part of the person trying to enter.

   We have over 41 years to perfect such technology and still be in the 2040s…how is expecting it in such a time frame so overly optimistic?

   Posted by: gremlinn   July 19, 2008
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6. Kurzweil, whose predictions rarely go wrong…

   (cough, spit, hack)

   Kurzweil’s predictions from The Age of Spiritual Machines have gone horribly wrong. From my perspective, the rate of technological increase certainly hasn’t changed much since 1999. We’ve been making steady progress, NOT exponential at all.

   Posted by: adbatstone80   October 05, 2008
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