[The-L] Re: What's in your future?

From: "Nick1" <narguimbau@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <WarwickList@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2017 18:19:23 -0500

In other words, assuming that the Limits to Growth (so far its 1970 predictions
are being followed like clockwork) is pure bunk, thenby the end of the century
we'll have 11 billion people with nothing to do.  Presumably assuming folks
haven't changed too much in the interim, they'll engage mostly in sex, drugs
and starvation.to kill time.  I'm not sure your cousin is right about the end
of cars, because their being unnecessary has never stopped anyone from having
them.  Just look at all the highways jammed with empty 5-passenger cars.
People have always been persuaded they are necessary despite all indications to
the contrary.  Except for a small amount of driving sufficient to qualify for a
license I never used so when I went in to renew it I was given the red carpet
treatment for having a perfect driving record.  I has saved me about $400,000
(no mistakes in the decimal pointminus $150 now and then for a cab ride to or
from the wilderness.  Since there has never been a conceivable reason for
having a 5-seater to commute or do errands or go to the movies, there's no
reason to suppose that "need" will play any role in the future either.  He
misses something about third-world economics, too.Someone who is worth zero,
which he appears to say will be virtually all of us by the end of the century,
is also going to get paid zero, and paying $100 for a machine that will do
everything is an extravagance people withdollar-a-day (tops) incomes aren't
going to engage in..  People starved during the African drought not for lack of
corn in the world, but because American farmers were selling their corn to fuel
all the 5-seaters, and Africans couldn't compete in the market  to fuel
themselves.

And I think what your cousin says about law and lawyers is wrong.I went to law
school more than 40 years ago and the computer tools were available then but.
I never lacked for work.  People have always gone to law school so they can
qualify for "licenses to practice law," not to learn law per se.  Law is a
public utility and is regulated like one.  When thre are too many lawyers the
bar exams (which by the way don't remotely test whether you know how to be a
lawyer) are made harder to pass - the passage rate on the California bar exam
was only 40% overall and onlyabout 75% for the top law schools in 1975 (spend 3
years full time in a good school and still end up with a 25% chance of getting
nothing for the effort?), so at that rate if you passed the exam you were
pretty much assured work.  And if you go to work for one of the major corporate
law firms you ewill be richly rewarded for inventing scams, something computers
don't teach you.

And i don't know what's going to happen to education. "Liberal arts" already
seems to be disappearing.  Do you learn history in a world that changes so fast
that there isn'y any history?  Do you learn English when a computer will
correct you if you don't know how to write?  Do you learn math when computers
do it better and faster?  Well that last is a story.  My last article, about
albedo warming and the end of the arctic, requires a little calculus, it seems
that's something no one knows any more which maybe is why i'm ahead of the
game.  I lost a decades-long argument with a friend who got a graduate degree
in systems analysis at the University of California and is now a hotshot
analyst at the California Energy Commission about whether he should learn
calculus.  He finally asked his UC faculty advisor, who sad nno because it's
all done with spreadsheets now..  Lord help us!  Calculus is a way of thinking.
Spreadsheets are a way of not thinking.

Oh well, your cousin's vision of a world in which everyonewill have everything
the could ever desire without working, is an alternative to the
peak-food-and-population-is- in- 2030 vision.  Alternative visions are
healthy.because they force us to think in a world in which computers even do
thinking better.

Nick

PS.  The real reason I have doubts about hitech is that it is pushing
wildflowers out of the way.  But here's a photo it would be really diffeicult
to get without the aid of a digital camera and a computer.

----- Original Message -----
  From: Lawrence Pruyne
  To: WarwickList@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  Sent: Monday, January 16, 2017 12:14 AM
  Subject: [The-L] What's in your future?

  Received an interesting email from my cousin, who ran a high-tech company for
30 years.

    What's in Your Future????

  The Future?
  In 1998, Kodak had 170,000 employees and sold 85% of all photo paper
  worldwide.  All medical X-rays used Kodak film. Camera's, both
  commercial and industrial,  security camera's- imaging of all sorts.
  Within just a few years, their business model disappeared and they
  went bankrupt. What happened to Kodak will happen in a lot of
  industries in the next 10 years - and most people won't see it coming.
  Did you think in 1998 that 3 years later you would never take pictures
  on film again?

  Yet digital cameras were invented in 1975. The first ones only had
  10,000 pixels, but followed Moore's law. So as with all exponential
  technologies, it was a disappointment for a long time, before it
  became way superior and got mainstream in only a few short years. It
  will now happen with Artificial Intelligence, health, autonomous and
  electric cars, education, 3D printing, agriculture and jobs.
  Welcome to the 4th Industrial Revolution.
  Welcome to the Exponential Age.
  Software will disrupt most traditional industries in the next 5-10 years.

  Uber is just a software tool, they don't own any cars, and are now the
  biggest taxi company in the world.

  Airbnb is now the biggest hotel company in the world, although they
  don't own any properties.

  Artificial Intelligence: Computers become exponentially better in
  understanding the world. This year, a computer beat the best Go player
  in the world; 10 years earlier than expected.

  In the US, young lawyers already don't get jobs. Because of IBM
  Watson, you can get legal advice (only for basic stuff, so far)
  within seconds, with 90% accuracy compared with 70% accuracy when done
  by humans.  So if you study law, stop immediately. There will be 90%
  less lawyers in the future, only specialists will remain.

  Watson already helps nurses diagnosing cancer, 4 times more accurate
  than human nurses. Facebook now has a pattern recognition software
  that can recognize faces better than humans. In 2030, computers will
  become more intelligent than humans.

  Autonomous cars: In 2018 the first self-driving cars will appear for
  the public. Around 2020, the complete industry will start to be
  disrupted. You don't want to own a car anymore. You will call a car
  with your phone, it will show up at your location and drive you to
  your destination. You will not need to park it, you only pay for the
  driven distance and can be productive while driving. Our kids will
  never get a driver's license and will never own a car.

  It will change the cities, because we will need 90-95% less cars for
  that. We can transform former parking spaces into parks. 1.2 million
  people die each year in car accidents worldwide. We now have one
  accident every 60,000 mi (100,000 km), with autonomous driving that
  will drop to one accident in 6 million mi (10 million km). That will
  save a million lives each year.
  This will increase world over growth and populations.

  Most car companies will probably become bankrupt. Traditional car
  companies try the evolutionary approach and just build a better car,
  while tech companies (Tesla, Apple, Google) will do the revolutionary
  approach and build a computer on wheels.

  Many engineers from Volkswagen and Audi; are completely terrified of Tesla.

  Insurance companies will have massive trouble because without
  accidents, the insurance will become 100x cheaper. Their car insurance
  business model will disappear.

  Real estate will change. Because if you can work while you commute,
  people will move further away to live in a more beautiful
  neighborhood.

  Electric cars will become mainstream about 2020. Cities will be less
  noisy because all new cars will run on electricity. Electricity will
  become incredibly cheap and clean: Solar production has been on an
  exponential curve for 30 years, but you can now see the burgeoning
  coming impact.

  Last year, more solar energy was installed worldwide than fossil.
  Energy companies are desperately trying to limit access to the grid to
  prevent competition from home solar installations, but that can't
  last.
  Technology will take care of that strategy.

  With cheap electricity comes cheap and abundant water. Desalination of
  salt water now only needs 2kWh per cubic meter (@ 0.25 cents). We
  don't have scarce water in most places, we only have scarce drinking
  water. Imagine what will be possible if anyone can have as much clean
  water as he wants, for nearly no cost.

  Health: The Tricorder X price will be announced this year. There are
  companies who will build a medical device (called the "Tricorder" from
  Star Trek) that works with your phone, which takes your retina scan,
  your blood sample and you breath into it.

  It then analyses 54 bio-markers that will identify nearly any disease.
  It will be cheap, so in a few years everyone on this planet will have
  access to world class medical analysis, nearly for free.
  Goodbye, medical establishment and their absurd medical fees.

  3D printing: The price of the cheapest 3D printer came down from
  $18,000 to $400 within 10 years. In the same time, it became 100 times
  faster. All major shoe companies have already started 3D printing
  shoes.

  Some spare airplane parts are already 3D printed in remote airports.
  The space station now has a printer that eliminates the need for the
  large amount of spare parts they used to have in the past.

  At the end of this year, new smart phones will have 3D scanning
  possibilities. You can then 3D scan your feet and print your perfect
  shoe at home. Amazing things are coming fast.

  Only the systems for paying for these capabilities remain to be defined.

  In China, they already 3D printed and built a complete 6-story office
  building. By 2027, 10% of everything that's being produced will be 3D
  printed.

  Business opportunities: If you think of a niche you want to go in, ask
  yourself: "in the future, do you think we will have that?" and if the
  answer is yes, how can you make that happen sooner?

  If it doesn't work with your phone, forget the idea.

  And any idea designed for success in the 20th century is doomed to
  failure in the 21st century.

  And here's the clincher---Work: 70-80% of jobs will disappear in the
  next 20 years. There will be a lot of new jobs, but it is not clear if
  there will be enough new jobs in such a small time.

  Agriculture: There will be a $100 agricultural robot in the future.
  Farmers in 3rd world countries can then become managers of their field
  instead of working all day on their fields.

  Aeroponics will need much less water. The first Petri dish produced
  veal, is now available and will be cheaper than cow produced veal in
  2018. Right now, 30% of all agricultural surfaces is used for cows.
  Imagine if we don't need that space anymore.

  There are several startups who will bring insect protein to the market
  shortly. It contains more protein than meat. It will be labeled as
  "alternative protein source" (because most people still reject the
  idea of eating insects).

  There is an app called "moodies" which can already tell in which mood
  you're in.  By 2020 there will be apps that can tell by your facial
  expressions, if you are lying. Imagine a political debate where it's
  being displayed when they're telling the truth and when they're not.

  Bitcoin may even become the default reserve currency. Of the world.

  Longevity: Right now, the average life span increases by 3 months per
  year. Four years ago, the life span used to be 79 years, now it's 80
  years. The increase itself is increasing and by 2036, there will be
  more that one year increase per year. So we all might live for a long
  long time, probably way more than 100.
  But over population will create severe food problems.

  Education: The cheapest smart phones are already at $10 in Africa and
  Asia. By 2020, 70% of all humans will own a smart phone. That means,
  everyone has the same access to instant world class education.

  The United States of America will most likely fall to a second world
  status country due to liberal voting policies.
  China will become the primary power of the world.

  Every child can use Khan academy for everything a child learns at
  school in First World countries. We have already released our software
  in Indonesia and will release it in Arabic, Suaheli and Chinese this
  Summer, because I see an enormous potential.
  We will give the English app for free, so that children in Africa can
  become fluent in English within half a year.

  Those of you under 65 today will experience most of these.

Follow-Ups:
- [The-L] Re: What's in your future?
  - From: Lawrence Pruyne

References:
- [The-L] What's in your future?
  - From: Lawrence Pruyne

[The-L] Re: What's in your future?

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