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Predictions for 2018

In February 2008, I made ten predictions about life in 2018, and so did my friend "Bob" [names have been changed to protect the embarrassed] — partly to see whether we'd come up with the same things, and partly to giggle at them in ten years' time.

So here they are!

Eq predicts...

Ubiquitous speech recognition

Without replacing traditional input devices, speech recognition will be more or less ubiquitous, and it will not be unusual to encounter voice-activated home appliances, ticket machines, lighting, etc. that can follow simple verbal commands.

Car sharing

Since congestion charges didn't put people off driving much, the UK government will pass legislation about car sharing. It will become possible (and perhaps mandatory in some circumstances) to find out who has a similar journey to yours and share it, splitting the costs. Alternatively, instead of using the car somebody owns, you might be able to join them in renting a different car per journey, like a do-it-yourself taxi, from a local depot.

Building on the moon

Someone will have started building something on the moon, possibly a ridiculous hotel.

Obsolescence of cash

Buying things with cash will be increasingly unpopular and difficult. Cheques will have been phased out completely for goods and services.

Information about everything

As more and more information is digitally available, it will be possible (via home computer, in-car navigation, etc.) to find very specific things, e.g. the nearest open restaurant with disabled access that serves steak and chips, or a multi-storey car park with relatively low crime that wasn't full this time last week.

Cheap computer imagery

Convincing computer imagery will be very cheap to produce. Among other things, there will be a glut of crappy CGI soap operas — probably with some level of viewer interaction, like choosing which of several available plot forks to follow — and customisable CGI pornography.

Environmental migration

People will start to move to other countries for purely environmental reasons (e.g. coastal flooding causing overpopulation in the original country, or temperatures becoming unpleasantly warm). There will be a cynical minor political party somewhere that promises not to waste your tax dollars on the environment because the problems won't be intolerable in our lifetimes.

Rise of the thin client

With more people storing all their data on the network, personal computers will operate primarily as "thin clients" and which one you're using will be unimportant. People will be able to access their personal "storage vaults" while on the move and exchange information and media, perhaps through handheld devices (offshoot of mobile phone/music player?) or by using public terminals. Writing a phone number on a scrap of paper will seem old-fashioned.

User-generated content

There will be more reliance in all media on user-generated content, à la Wikipedia — because it's an easy and cheap way to compile information, even though it can be inaccurate and sloppy — and less on what has gone through traditional editing, the latter becoming outdated too quickly and perceived as the imposing of views by elitists in ivory towers. This will come at the acceptable expense of some clarity and structure. If it somehow edges out peer review in the sciences then we will all die.

Decline of religion

The ugly prominence of religion on the world stage (Islamic extremism, anti-everything Christian fundamentalism, Israeli land disputes) will have made organised religion significantly less popular in the West, with a corresponding rise in "personal spirituality" moonshine.

"Bob" predicts...

Religion and US politics

There will be at least one more significant Muslim-originated terrorist attack on Western soil between then and now, at a conservative estimate. The public in general will become increasingly paranoid, nervous and jittery concerning the prospect of terror attacks. Ubiquitous surveillance in the name of public safety will increase. It will no longer be acceptable to joke about terrorism or violence, at risk of being reported by an overzealous safety fanatic. There will be far more false alarms, whether due to pranks and hoaxes or government overreaction, than there will be actual attacks, but all of these will contribute to the fear-driven mood of the time.

Islamic/Western conflict will continue to heighten, as the West in general becomes more and more anti-Islam, and all but a few radical liberals abandon the currently PC notion that Islam is a religion of peace, or the more controversial notion that such attacks are conspiracies. These people will be influential, however, and allow the influx of Muslim immigrants to continue.

Attacks on Muslim citizens become almost commonplace, as do riots and counter-attacks. There is a great deal of resentment on both sides. Religious fundamentalism will continue to rise, as Christians become dissatisfied with their current weak spirituality and see themselves in a them-or-us war against the Muslims. End-of-the-world and Revelations style prophecies become mainstream, and a number of extremist religous sects appear and, frighteningly, become less and less isolated. People generally believe that incorrect religion (Islam) can only be fought with "correct" religion, not anything secular.

A Democratic candidate wins the US in 2008 and possibly 2012, but the 2016 winner is a Republican, and the Senate is Republican from 2010 onwards. Most countries other than the UK, Australia, Japan, South Korea and parts of Eastern Europe still hate America.

Death of privacy

People become less and less concerned about privacy, as the "Facebook culture" and paranoid need for surveillance meet in the middle and result in a generally public lifestyle for better or for worse. Privacy is a thing of the past, and can only be accomplished by eschewing all technology. Some privacy-infringing measures may be passed into legislation, and disabling them will become illegal, either to prevent crime or to protect "personal safety". The consequences of privacy leaks due to hacking or data misplacement will be seen as negligible, and a necessary sacrifice in comparison to the safety and convenience afforded by constant availability and publicity of personal details.

In general, most people will be trackable to within a few kilometres at any given time, because of increased use of GPS tracking and mapping devices for convenience and also deliberate tracking of private citizens (probably RFID or RFID-based ID card). This is certainly useful in emergencies and saves many lives — it's now near-impossible to become lost in a skiing accident or in the woods — but also breaks up families, causes public embarrassments, and brings an end to an era where changing one's physical location to start anew was possible. People will be accountable for their mistakes for their entire lifetimes.

Less waste, fewer luxuries

The world is recovering at this point from a global food shortage and recession. The effects of this were neither negligible nor as dire as were predicted. Reorganizations of the way that food is processed on a global level allowed most people to continue to eat and live, if more simply than they used to. Consumer culture still exists, but waste is frowned upon in most cases. Corporations make their main goal, both in public relations and internally, to decrease waste and environmental impact and allow their customers to get what they need and nothing else. Advertising becomes less focused on gimmicks and social pressure to be "up to date", and more on people's bad financial situations and all-pervading fears. Food becomes less processed, crop diversity increases, most entertainment and information moves to the Internet (the paperless world predicted in the 1980s) and product packaging becomes noticeably more spartan.

Fast food is extremely unfashionable because corporations like McDonald's are seen as the main contributors to the economic and food shortage problems of the previous decade. There is a return to home cooking and gardening, and television increasingly reflects this. Although some luxuries are no longer taken for granted, such as fancy cars, MP3 players and giant televisions, many of the things we today consider luxuries — such as GPS systems — are now considered necessities. CDs will have become non-mainstream items for diehard collectors only.

As a side effect of the backlash against waste, as of 2018, ethanol is dead. Corn is no longer subsidized and the world has moved on to different alternative fuel sources. The "obesity epidemic" is also no longer a large issue.

Unification of technologies

Personal technology is no longer specialized. There is basically no difference between a cell phone, a PDA, a digital camera, an e-book reader, a GPS/mapping device and an MP3 player: they are all the same product and, rather than buying each one at a time, you get one all-in-one device and upgrade every few years. The only one of these that can likely be bought individually is a digital camera, but you cannot obtain a low-quality one for less than $250 because everyone has a reasonably good camera in their cell phone. This product, by the way, may be made by Apple or Blackberry, or by some kind of new challenger to the market, but my money's on Apple. (Apple-Amazon Kindle-iPhone merger, anyone?)

Most people will have one of these all-in-one PDAs and a home computer. Laptops will decrease slightly in popularity for home users since it is now possible to access the Internet and their files on such a PDA device, without the necessity of lugging around a full computer. Turning off your PDA will be considered a social gaffe and eventually an emergency; you will be expected to be contactable at all times, both for the convenience of others and for your own safety.

This will also become involved in personal health. Many people will get e-mail alerts from their doctors to remind them to take their medication, eat properly or not smoke. Biometrics may allow PDAs or other devices to report your health, diet and mood to your doctor or a close family member who will intervene if you fall into poor health or are not taking care of yourself; in 2018, though, this particular technology will be very limited and only beginning in adoption. Privacy is not a concern in this case. It is no longer possible to abuse illegal drugs, descend into alcoholism or kill yourself.

An interesting possibility is that PDAs will become merged with one's personal identity: everyone will have an "identity chip" that contains their ID card, their credit card, their passport, their driver's licence, their SSN and other information. Wallets will be obsolete. It might be undesirable, however, to merge such a thing with a corporate technology — but at least most PDAs will have a slot to store a personal identity card. See MyKad [a Malaysian multi-purpose electronic identity card that can also be used in e-cash transactions].

The above, by the way, applies to people in Canada and the US, Western Europe, Japan, China, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand. Adoption of such things will tend to be slightly different in other areas, but personal identity cards or chips will definitely become more commonplace in all countries as cell phone adoption continues to grow and merge with other technologies.

Global development and conflict

Nothern Africa, South Africa, Ireland, Iran, India, Lebanon, the United Arab Emirates, China and southeast Asia will continue to develop and enjoy increasing economic prosperity and freedom, especially southeast Asia. (This comprises Laos, Thailand, South Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar, Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei, Bhutan, the Philippines and Timor-Leste, in no particular order.) Industries in these areas will continue to develop, and they will continue their path of Westernization and liberalization (except Iran, which will become more affluent and industrialized but remain equally conservative). Social equality, however, will remain an issue, as the gap between the rich and the poor remains vast.

Eastern Europe, the rest of the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa (less South Africa) will not be so lucky. Eastern Europe and the Middle East will continue to be fraught by war, border disputes and corruption, and sub-Saharan Africa will go on starving and dying of AIDS — to which no cure will be discovered. Malaria, polio and leprosy, however, may be lessened or even eradicated.

There will be a war in Eastern Europe. There will be a civil war in Pakistan. The US will interfere in both and call on others to do so. The US will not invade Iran if a Democratic candidate wins the 2008 election. North and South Korea will increase diplomatic relations, but will not unify. Australia will become a republic once the Queen dies; Canada and New Zealand will not. At least one province of Canada or state of the US will attempt to separate.

Computers and robots

Artificial intelligence will remain an unattainable goal of the future. Computers will become faster, more powerful and more "intelligent" but will stil seem to be lacking much in the way of linguistic capabilities. Promisingly, though, chess will be solved. Moore's Law will remain roughly true, although many of Ray Kurzweil's and others' pie-in-the-sky future predictions will not come to pass, if only due to economic reasons.

Human-like robots will be interesting novelties, but will not fill any role in life outside the artificial sex industry and the occasional gimmicky television show or hotel resort. For people who consider sex with a robot to be a disturbing proposition, they will not attain much more significance than 3D-glasses movies did in the '70s and '80s. People will not have artificial children and wives, although they may have artificial pets and concubines.

The "uncanny valley" will not be surpassed and robots will continue to creep most people out. Hologram projectors, however, which technology will be perfected sometime in 2008 or 2009 (after significant advances made in the past two years) will become increasingly commonplace and be used especially in advertising.

Interactive television

The entertainment industry will continue to diversify and become increasingly niche and targeted. Television (viewed by at least 35% of users on a computer by 2018) will become a more immersive and interactive experience, while paradoxically more isolating: people will no longer watch television with their families and friends, allowing the gradual move to Internet TV.

User participation will start out as innovative experiments, and move on to become an integral part of the watching experience for much of mainstream television and even movies. The outcomes of reality shows will be based almost entirely on viewer voting, polls and contests will decide whether a television special will be set in Honolulu or Venice, and award shows will (if not based on public voting) have a "people's choice" award. Suspense shows will include vast internet puzzles that can affect the plot of the show (the first person to solve it becomes a character, for instance), unlock new episodes online, or just reveal new information about characters and events and keep the viewers watching. There is, of course, a backlash against this and many people pride themselves on continuing to produce and enjoy "traditional" television and movies.

Advertising, in tandem, will play on this specialization as well as the lack of privacy and create narrower and narrower campaigns and context-targeted advertising that reaches out to individuals based on their viewing habits and past purchases.

Effects of global warming

Global warming is no longer a controversial of skepticism, but accepted scientific fact. The polar ice caps are much smaller, and there is an increase in desertification and strange weather patterns. Unrelated to global warming, dead zones in the ocean continue to increase in size. However, concerns about global warming are now overshadowed by the impending ice age caused by decreased solar activity. The world is warmer in 2018 and the chill has not been felt yet, but it is an immediate worry. Most citizens without a scientific background, however, respond much the same way they did to global warming: closing their eyes and loudly yelling that it can't touch them because they turn off lights when they leave a room.

Wikipedia

As of 2018, the Wikipedia project has not been replaced by a different comprehensive information resource; it is still widely used, but has continued to descend into chaos and bureaucracy. It has been pulled offline at least once for legal reasons, and willingly removes accurate information on a daily basis because of lawsuits or bribes.

All of the core group of the Wikimedia Foundation have been replaced except Jimmy Wales, who continues to be an attention-whoring self-aggrandizing drama queen. [Ahem! — Eq.] The encyclopedia, though, continues to show its value in times of crisis, when it is often the first to have up-to-date and complete information and to dispel rumours, hoaxes and myths. While it will be hoaxed itself many more times, it is frequently the exposer of media hoaxes. It is seen less, in 2018, as an actual encyclopedia and more as a general and informative part of the mainstream media, and its role as the first true democratic, user-generated news outlet (not Digg!) is recognized.

Battery-powered cars

After extreme advances in battery technology, electric cars are now commonplace and mainstream. Driving a gas car is today's equivalent of owning a Hummer: some think it's cool, but to most of the world it's just an advertisement that you're an asshole. Those gas cars that do exist attain 50 miles per gallon or better.

People now expect their vehicles to be under $10,000 and equipped with the latest entertainment technology. American cities continue to be car-centric; European and — to an extent — Canadian cities continue to make it difficult to do anything except walk, bicycle or take public transit.

People travel less and less outside their own countries, airplanes having become an inconvenient and frightening experience for most people due to increased security and fear of terror attacks.