2030…robotesque future is now….

the surreal future is now. driver-less cars. 3D printing. Holograms. drones. billions glued to touch screen devices. all connected to the cloud. algorithms in cloud dictating our lives. Zombie like we make our moves. Humanoids melding of flesh and prosthetics. Chips implanted in our bodies controlling us…wirelessly connected to the cloud. Comics and sci-fi… fact and fiction blur into a hyper-reality.

The invasion of technology into our lives over the past two decades is accelerating. We are all getting sucked into its innards. The monster is pervading into each spore of our existence and lives. There is no escape. Nowhere to hide from its all-seeing baleful gaze. Even the most desolate beach or desert is not safe from prying eyes with the skies interspersed with thousands of satellites. These watchers of the skies follow our minutest movements. Even in the urban sprawls the omnipresent surveillance cameras are tracking all our movements a la Orwellian big brother.

The hurtle towards our robotesque future is accelerating at a frightening pace. The telescoping of time is indeed terrifying especially for us born in the early 1950s. the rate of change is increasing exponentially. Already in the advanced society of Japan people are buying human size robot dolls as companions. Robot pets are also in vogue. As more people in developed economies are tending to stay single, robot companions will catch on. In the movie “Her” last year a person has a virtual girlfriend. Given the time most people spend online, it is perhaps convenient to have virtual and otherwise friends and companions online.

Humans are also becoming more androgynous and asexual. With increasing acceptance of same sex associations, there will be a gamut of multi sex associations and surrogate parents. In due course cloning may replace to some extent normal reproduction. Possible scenarios could be like in the movie “The Boys from Brazil”.

As nano biotechnology is advancing, there are implants which will monitor and control body functions. Medical science is also reaching a stage where cancer is likely to be conquered and through advanced regeneration of cells man may become immortal. Raymond Kurzweil has forecast that is a very likely future with the next 20 years or so.

In order to make best of land shortage, there are plans afoot to build mammoth skyscraper cities. These vertical urban wonders will have indoor farms and recycling of waste and air at the lower floors. These are likely to be manned by a worker class who will stay in cramped hovel kind of accommodations. Then these cities will have offices, support providers, health care, residential and recreation spaces. These urban sprawls will self sufficient in energy, water, food, economically. This reminds me of the amazing movie “1900” by Bertolucci where a person was born on a ship, lives there his entire life without ever stepping on terra firma, and finally dies on the ship.

Modern man will certainly be less religious than his forbears. Starting with Neitchze’s “Is God Dead”, a major portion of the western world does not believe in God. But for vast swathes of the globe, religion is opium of the masses, for some the addiction runs deep to the point of fanaticism and responding with terror when wronged. This deep religious schism will only deteriorate. In the decades to come this divide will only deepen and become perennial sources of global conflict. Robotic godless surreal humankind pitched against medieval forces with weapons of mass destruction.

The interesting part of the future would be how a super evolved race interacts with the backward low tech masses along with coping with economic collapses which would be staved off through highly controlled air conditioned economies in ICUs. But the biggest challenge for the neo-robotic societies would be their ability to withstand the ravages of extreme climate changes and cataclysmic geo-climate upheavals.

Indeed the decades 2030 to 2050 would be beyond all our present comprehension and forecast models of the world’s future. Future shock will indeed intensify and compound exponentially. Mankind will have Faust like sacrificed its soul upon the alter of technological progress.