The last 25 years has seen some mind-bending technological changes.
At the start of the century, most computers connected to the internet with noisy dial-up connections, Netflix was an online DVD rental company, and the vast majority of people hadn’t even heard of a smartphone.
Fast forward two and a half decades, and innovations in AI, robotics and much else besides are emerging at an incredible rate.
So we decided to ask experts what the next 25 years could bring.
Here are their predictions for the technology we’ll be using by 2050 – and how it could reshape our lives.
Merging humans and machines
Science fiction set in the 2050s is full of examples of humans using technological enhancements to feel fitter, happier and more productive.
In the 2000 hit game Deus Ex – set in 2052 – the player can inject themselves with tiny robots called “nanites”.
These microscopic robots manipulate matter on atomic levels, giving superhuman abilities such as enhanced speed and the ability to see in the dark.
It sounds like something from the distant future, but nanotechnology – engineering at a scale of millionths of a millimetre – is already used in lots of everyday real-life tech.
In fact, it is powering the way you are reading these very words right now – every smartphone or computer is run by a central chip made up of billions of tiny transistors – electrical components built on a nanoscale to speed up data processing.
Medicine could also make common use of machines at a nanometre scale to “deliver drugs to exactly where they need to go”, said Professor Bramwell.
Cybernetics professor Kevin Warwick is equally interested in studying augmentations, going one step further than most.
In 1998 he became the first human to have a microchip implanted into his nervous system, earning him the title “Captain Cyborg”.
Professor Warwick believes by 2050, advancements in cybernetics – the science studying the links between natural and mechanical systems – could lead to trailblazing treatments for diseases.
He predicts the use of “deep brain electronic stimulation” as a partial treatment for some conditions such as schizophrenia, rather than medicine.
(BBC)
