The future is going to be extremely strange. I find this comforting. People often talk about the future with dread. Artificial intelligence. Automation. Longevity. Spaceflight. Robotics. Climate technology. Genetic medicine. Virtual worlds. Pick your anxiety. There are real risks in all of these. Of course. Every major technology creates problems along with benefits. Fire was useful. Also fires. Cars changed civilization. Also traffic. The internet gave us nearly unlimited access to information and then introduced us to comment sections. Progress has never been tidy. But I remain optimistic. Not blindly. Curiously. Human beings are very good at imagining future problems and surprisingly bad at imagining future solutions. We project current constraints forward as though nothing else changes. Then something changes. Medicine is an obvious example. Illnesses that once killed routinely become manageable. Procedures that once required weeks in hospitals become outpatient. Diagnostics improve. Treatments become targeted. None of this feels miraculous once it becomes normal.
That may be one of the funniest human traits. We absorb miracles almost instantly. Imagine explaining a smartphone to someone in 1920. Global communication. Instant translation. Maps. Video calls. Every book. Every newspaper. A camera. A bank. A television. A music library. All in your hand. They would assume you were describing magic. We complain when the battery is low. This is healthy in one sense. Normalization pushes improvement. But occasionally we should remember how astonishing the present already is. Artificial intelligence will probably become similar. Right now it feels new enough to generate both excitement and panic. Soon some uses will become invisible. It will handle tedious work. Help diagnose problems. Translate conversations. Personalize education. Design things. Model complex systems. Assist science. And yes, create many new complications. Humans will adapt. We always do. What interests me most is what happens if technology gives us more time. This is the question. If machines become better at routine cognitive work, what do humans do with the hours? Work less? Create more? Spend more time caring for people? Invent new forms of work to remain busy?
History suggests the last option is disturbingly plausible. I hope we resist. I would like technological progress to buy back life. More time with family. More leisure. More travel. More learning. More art. More sleep. Perhaps humanity could rediscover lunch. Ambitious. Longevity fascinates me too. Not immortality. That sounds logistically complicated. But healthier aging? Absolutely. Imagine if medicine could compress frailty. Longer healthspan. Bodies functioning well later. Brains protected longer. People remaining independent. That would transform society. And probably dating. Imagine sixty becoming what forty once felt like. We would need entirely new expectations for adulthood. Career timelines would change. Retirement. Education. Relationships. Everything. I find that fascinating. Space is another frontier I cannot stop thinking about. Not because I expect us all to move to Mars next Tuesday. But because humans apparently cannot resist crossing boundaries. Oceans. Skies. Atmosphere. There is something deeply characteristic about looking at an impossible distance and thinking: Could we? This impulse produces trouble. Also civilization.
I love that about us. We are restless animals. Curiosity with opposable thumbs. Of course, the future will also contain absurdities we cannot predict. This may be the best part. People in 1950 imagined flying cars and did not anticipate people becoming famous for filming themselves organizing refrigerators. Prediction is hard. Reality is weirder. I expect future generations will laugh at some of our current habits. They will be horrified by others. They will probably romanticize things we found annoying. People always do. Perhaps handwritten notes will become luxurious because automated communication becomes ubiquitous. Maybe human-made art will carry a special label. Maybe restaurants will advertise “No Screens.” Maybe privacy will become one of the most expensive commodities. Maybe the ultimate status symbol will be being impossible to reach. I could see that. Technology tends to make scarce whatever it displaces. When everything becomes fast, slowness becomes luxury. When everything becomes digital, physical objects gain romance. When everything becomes connected, privacy becomes precious.
This is why I am not afraid that progress will make humanity less human. It may actually make human qualities more valuable. Taste. Judgment. Humor. Warmth. Trust. Presence. Originality. Charm. Love. Machines can assist with many things. But I suspect people will still want people. Perhaps more deliberately. The future may make the ancient parts of us clearer. We want to be seen. Loved. Useful. Curious. Safe. Surprised. Technology changes the scenery. The animal remains. And that is why I am optimistic. Not because I think everything will go perfectly. It won’t. Humans are involved. But we are also remarkably adaptive. We solve. We invent. We complain. We improve. We make mistakes. We try again. Then ten years later, the impossible thing becomes boring. I hope I get to see a lot of that. The strange medicine. The weird transportation. The AI surprises. The space breakthroughs. The technologies nobody has named yet. I want to remain impressed. That may be the real challenge. Not predicting the future. Staying curious enough to enjoy arriving in it.