10 Things that will change before 2050
It’s 2025, the situation is dire. But is it, though?
We are living in an era of rapid, exponential change. A lot of data result in “hockey stick graphs”. Nobody knows which development will have the most impact, but let’s discuss the top 10 of big changes in every nerd’s life:
1. AR Glasses
Twenty years ago there were no smartphones and today everybody is using his pocket size supercomputer all the time. It’s a phone, it’s a TV, it’s a music player. It’s a web browser, a camera, a memory device.
Smartphone users get “mobile neck” looking down on their tiny screen. So the next big thing in computer hardware is to get rid of that pesky screens altogether. Enter stage: AR Glasses.
We are still not there: Apples expensive Vision Pro is a heavy thing that only simulates a see-through experience and Facebooks brand new and dorky Orion glasses are only expensive prototypes. Today both are clunky, need external compute and battery packs. The steps are still small and incremental. But in 2050 everybody might use SmartGlasses instead of monitors. That’s something.
2. AI Agents
Artificial intelligence will be everywhere, in every business software we will have little helpers that index and organize our stuff. The problem will all this is: it’s messy. Everybody has different tasks, different data and a different stack of software tools. Software companies will rise and fall and everybody wants to sell you a subscription.
But, similar to the current sitution with streaming services, once they have your subscription, companies try to cut back cost. And because maintaining a software over multiple platforms and operating is expensive, all of the subscription services are kind of mediocre. We will hit 2050 with a flood of cheap single purpose subscription services.
3. Less privacy
Yeah, the never ending tug of war between law enforcement and citizen right groups. Another 25 years of pressure to give the government more information. There are good and valid reasons for that, and those will not go away: terrorism, abuse, proliferation of drugs and weapons, the list goes on … But cutting down encryption usually means more actors have the possibility to get a grip on sensitive data and this also includes oppressive governments, foreign state actors and cyber criminals.
Reading everyone’s communication and using AI tools to filter through billions of files and notes has not proven to be very effective against crime. But it makes it so much easier to sell stuff. Western values, remember?
Governments and populists are way more open to tip the scale towards security measures and away from citizen rights, so we will see a slow but steady descend into less privacy in 2050.
4. Information bubbles
Yes, you, bubble-dweller. You’re not the only one. Everybody gets all information from the web, but the web is already split into many factions and walled gardens. Every political party, every company, every government and every teenager pours another version of their reality into today’s tiktoked news cycle. And everybody filters his favourite version of it out of the soup. The reality you live in? You made it yourself by liking this and saving that. Oh you stopped scrolling at THIS picture. Interesting.
And so the part of the internet that you consume becomes more and tailored to your needs. At least that is what you think, mostly it will be AI generated SLOP. In 2050 we might be so separated from each other that we don’t have any common ground anymore.
5. Oligarchy
Or have we? The US based mega brands are pretty inevitable: The Magaverse, Disney, Amazon, Apple, X, Facebook. The leaders of those company clusters can buy essentially every type of business — and they do, it’s diversification. Now they are engaged in politics, selling every kind of product and services and identity, the mirage of a brighter future with many many promises, trading cards and bumperstickers. Did I mention subscriptions?
They battle in court, they try to buy elections, they fill the lobbies, they control a huge part of the media and they dominate the headlines. They move through the city in armored vehicles. Most people already work for them, and noone wants to to mess with a billionaire’s henchmen. They crush you and everyone you know, just in case. And they spend your own taxpayer money for it. Conspirational? Yeah, but it’s true — I read it on the internet.
Just a hunch, no evidence: In 2050 the western democracies will be further hollowed out, while autocratic systems are already perfectly suited for the oligarchy.
6. Hybrid Warfare
If something bad happens, it probably was informed by some foreign power, a differend tribe or a competing business mogul. It’s a good excuse and it sounds better than stupid decisions, incompetence or a bad plan. I guess the latter still exist bigly in 2050.
But who knows: pagers do not explode by themselves, cybertruck batteries might not ignite fireworks in a desert town and there is no good explanation why the wireless connection is still so weak in the Deutsche Bahn. It must be Hybrid Warfare and this will be a global issue in 2050.
7. Heat
Every friday in 2050 there will be a crowd of children in front of the ministry of the future. The kids make videos for social media while dying of heat stroke. The nuclear lobby will claim that nuclear power could save them and there will be some faction who puts the blame on immigrants. Not the majority, but enough to keep us on the right path. And the headlines will mix condolences with the burning question what stocks will rise and fall.
And we will burn a lot of oil, just to keep the air conditioning running.
8. Krypto
Krypto evangelists hates bubble-talk. Will Krypto disappear? Of course not — it’s the perfect way conjure money out of thin air by telling a good story. Will it keep it’s value? Who knows.
The basic idea of decentralized money is to put nations out of business. And I think they will not go gentle into that good night. I think the nations are stronger on this one, krypto will have some bubbling great times between now an 2050, but when it unevitably crashes, there will be a new vaporware that can be sold to people.
9. Planet 2
Comic nerds might remember the image of Dr. Manhattan contemplating on Mars, but we humans are not built for that. There is no magnetic field shielding us from cosmic radiation, the martian soil is poisoned with perchlorates (no potato) and the air is thin and cold. Space lasers on the Moon will defend the oligarchs on their superyachts and robot pirates will sing autotuned shanties over the last working radio satellite in the clouds of microdebris.
In 2050 we will be no multiplanetary species, because it’s too early, too expensive and we will need every cent for climate control.
10. Nanobots
In 25 years you and me are probably dead. And if not, there might be some real midcentury wonder of medicine that keeps us alive — before the nanobots start to eat up all organic tissue, starting — obviously — with the cats and dogs. And then we’ll live on a grey goo planetoid, with robot armies and super intelligent AI overlords.
Well, I guess that’s only 50% realistic. But I’m 100% sure the world of 2050 is still drowning in buerocracy. At least we will have paperclips.
11. Ah, Doom. What can I do?
Yes, that is exactly the point. Stop doomscrolling and thinking that being aware of something does have an impact. You have to leave your tiny bubble and do something for someone. Obviously you shouldn’t go amok or waste you energy with resentment. But it’s not enough to be a nice person and to cut the grass now and then. Stop being lazy, stop doing stuff quickly. Strife for perfection, make other people better. Be grateful for what you have and don’t be bitter about things you lost. Just say no to bullshit. You know what I mean.
