In the near future, all new vehicles will be delivered with a rich array of built-in communications and semi-autonomous features. Many existing vehicles will be retrofitted with such systems.
Road-vehicle powertrains will increasingly consist of extended-distance electric drives and hybrid engines (petrol/electric). Hydrogen-powered cars will be produced in the near future, but lack of filling infrastructure will hold back wide-scale adoption. Internal combustion engines will continue to be used for road transport for the next 20 years, but new technologies such as laser fuel-ignition systems (replacing spark plaugs) will yield ever greater economy and fewer greenhouse has emissions.
What will the travel industry look like in 2030? The internet and other digital technologies have already caused significant disruption to the travel trade, but far more change is to come.
Shifts in the demographics of travellers and a slew of new technologies will, once again, change how people select travel, how they choose destinations and the activities they seek out.
This talk is about the looming demographic crisis in Western democracies. Our pensions and public health-care services are funded like Ponzi schemes and, as the Baby Boomers start to draw their pensions and make greater use of public healthcare, so there will be fewer and fewer working humans to contribute to fund these services.
But robots are just about to arrive in force. I think automation and robots have the potential to boost Western economies in a way that will make up for our declining workforce, but who will pay the dues to keep pensions and healthcare going?
I think we’ll have to tax the robots.
To understand where the smartphone is heading we must first acknowledge that using the word ‘phone’ to describe these devices is the equivalent of describing a modern car as a ‘horseless carriage’. We never have appropriate language for new technology when it first arrives.
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Robots have a unique place in the modern psyche. Unlike conventional, disembodied computer intelligence – whether found in the Cloud, in laptops, tablets, games consoles, or smart phones – “robots” are a term we most associate with human-like machines (humanoids) or with mechanical versions of animals (“anamaloids”). And, as soon as we come into contact with machines that approximate either humans or animals powerful emotional forces honed during our evolutionary development come into play and colour our thinking.
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Robots are coming – and coming fast. Low cost, “soft” robots that are able to work safely alongside humans will soon transform workplaces large and small. But what will be the effect on the human workforce?
Robot workers never take a day off, they never get tired, they never get sick, they never complain, they never show up late, they never waste time surfing the web and they always do what bosses tell them to do.
The point at which machine intelligence surpasses human problem solving abilities is often referred to as the ‘technological singularity’ (because like a black hole in space, the point is one beyond which we can gather no meaningful information about the future – who can guess what super-intelligence will bring or where it will lead?).
Some of the world’s greatest brains including Professor Stephen Hawking have warned that the creation of strong artificial-intelligence (AI) may become humanity’s greatest achievement but, he suggests, it may also be our last achievement.
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