zachary langdon assignment #2 technology

Time creates uncertainty, and uncertainty creates discomfort. That’s what employs historians, politicians, journalists, physicist, and futurists. We assign them the job of dealing with that ambiguity as to give a level of certainty so we don’t find ourselves overwhelmed with the uncertainty entangled with our existence. To make the grey a little more defined. However, there are employed very few futurists as they can do little to quell our discomfort. The upside of the future’s ambiguity is its possibility. In the future we have peace, fly around with jetpacks, never eat bad food, and employment is voluntary. The future is exciting because it’s the only place where utopia exists. So let’s take a brief trip to the future shall we?

2017 – The next president of the united states now holds office. They decide the policy which dictates the future of U.S. technological advancement, from privacy to energy to space. They force companies to create an encryption backdoor through executive order; tech companies immediately try to take the issue to court. Renewable energy technologies improve in efficiency though the market shrinks as government subsidies expire. The Tesla model 3 starts to ship. NASA shifts from mars to the moon, aiming to establish a settlement there as per the will of congress. Internet of Things technologies continue to crop up and develop, now being primarily controlled from smart speakers. 2017 is the hottest year on record.

2018 –  NASA launches the James Webb telescope, allowing us to peer further into space and identify other habitable worlds. Autonomous taxi services are becoming popular in developed urban areas. Smartphone sales stagnate with IOT tech and wearables gaining market share. More car manufacturers produce sub fifty thousand dollar electric cars. 2018 is the hottest year on record.

2019 – James Webb telescope confirms that ProximaB is most likely habitable. A landmark supreme court decision determines that the government has the right to force technology companies to implement a backdoor to encryption for law enforcement. The first virtual reality cinema chain reaches 100 theaters worldwide. Modular phones continue to iterate as companies try to find viable business model for them. 2019 is the hottest year on record.

2020 – NASA launches the next mars rover. Smartwatches have found their function and become pervasive as. Voice recognition has gotten good enough that most tasks are now completed either by talking to smart speakers at home or smartwatches when on the go. 2020 is the hottest year on record.

2021 – The mars rover lands, now allowing us to hear mars. Autonomous transportation technologies have led to a rapid decline in employment in the transportation sector; it is estimated that in 5 years the industry’s human employment will have shrunk from 90 million down to 30 million. Tablets and laptops have merged into a new segment of personal computers called “portables” with sales of older form-factors declining. 2021 is on par with 2020 in world temperatures.

2022 – Most content is now organized by personal AI; few people search for what they want but rather consume what the AI says they want. Smartwatch external battery packs become popular as manufactures insist of making them thinner while shifted more of the smartphone's tasks onto them. Talking to your watch is now the norm. 2022 is the coolest year since the last decade; this creates a media frenzy as climate change deniers are brought on to every major new program for months following.

2023 – The U.S. returns to the moon, missing the 50th anniversary of the moon landing by 4 years, to test human habitats and life support systems for the future moon base. Eco-terrorist group CAP (climate action and protection) makes headlines with sabotage of Chinese power plants, leading to massive blackouts across the country. A growing minority of the population is moving away from digital technologies due to the increase in cyber-attacks in the years following the encryption backdoor mandate. 2023 sees temperature increases from the previous year.

2024 – Wireless networks have advanced to the point of near spotless fast coverage, allowing computing to be done over the cloud. Consumers now pay a monthly fee to use servers for storage and computation of their data. The concord 2 is put into limited production. SpaceX announces plans to send humans to orbit mars during the next launch window. Alpha Centari probe is launched. Most news is now built by AI from social media content causing massive unemployment in that sector. 2024 is the hottest year on record.

2025 – A quarter of all ground transport runs off of a renewable energy source; however, CAP illegally launches climate hacking initiatives after the failure of the Brussels climate talks the previous year.  Augmented reality glasses and smartwatches compete as the two primary form-factors for mobile computing leaving the smartphone to use-cases formerly occupied by the flip phone a decade ago. 2025 is the hottest year on record. 

2026 – The increasing automation of the world’s economy has led to the worst economic downturn since the depression almost a hundred years ago; unemployment rates have risen to 20%. The international moon settlement is operational, with crews being shuttled to and from via SpaceX’s falcon heavy after budget cuts hit NASA. It remains unclear what damage the climate hacking initiatives by CAP have done, but fear of the group has resulted in many developed countries heightening their surveillance measures with majority approval despite a vocal minority of privacy advocates speaking out against them. The UN forms a committee to explore the effect of, stability of, and future action on the hacked climate.

Beyond – humanity continues to struggle to overcome its problematic existence, but always looking forward to the future utopia it shall enjoy.