The future is wild: My take on the next 100 years

The only way you can predict the future is to build it.

Alan kay

Yes I know, prediction is largely a futile enterprise. But in order to make sense of ever-shifting trends, it’s important to take a step back and look at the long arc of humanity. We need to take a stratospheric view above the meanderings of daily life and contemplate where we are headed as a species.

Thinking in such large timescales filled with vast unknowns can be a dizzying experience. I’m generally optimistic about the future - I believe that the frontier is limitless. There is nothing in the laws of physics that constrain knowledge acquisition and technological advancement. Most of the squabbles and problems we face today are just technicalities - problems that will evaporate in the face of unstoppable technological progress. Everything is hypothetically tractable and solvable with the right ingenuity.

What the long future might bring - the 100 year horizon

There is no indication that progress will slow down. In anything, positive feedforward loops within and across domains (ex. improved AI + chip technology benefiting biotech), will lead to an acceleration of progress.

There are some very hard problems that we are far from solving, but if you assume the premise of unfettered development, we will eventually reach the following scenarios.

1) Infinite energy

The marginal cost of energy will converge to zero as technology improves. In the short to mid-term, it might seem like a continuous tussle between fossil fuels and renewables. The wild vacillations might continue for the coming decades, but the development of solar and nuclear will eventually hit an inflection point (think solar farms in space and nuclear fusion) that will essentially give us unlimited free energy. This will be a massive unlock for humanity that will supercharge all other endeavours.

2) Unlimited intelligence

Intelligence is the raw material that allows for general problem solving. The 2% genetic difference and corresponding intelligence advantage is what separates us from Chimpanzees playing with sticks and sending rockets into space. We are starting to see signs of what artificial general intelligence (AGI) could potentially look like. Between now and future AGI, increments in artificial intelligence will generate a flywheel effect. Intelligence is the singular source of true power, the fuel that will enable us to tame the vagaries of a harsh universe and ultimately control energy, matter, and information.

3) Immortality

At its core, aging is simply an engineering problem. We’ve treated it as an inevitable, natural part of some higher order universal cycle that must occur only because the alternative never existed. Your cells, and the epigenomes within them, face the inexorable grind of entropy, eventually wearing down and accumulating an emergent symptom known as ageing. For the first time in human history, we are teased with the possibility that these processes can be reversed. Since it’s a physical problem, there’s no universal constraint that will prevent us from solving it. Immortality (at least from natural causes) is an inevitability, we just aren’t sure which generation will be the first humans to live forever.

4) Matter manipulation

Think 3D printing on steroids or a Star Trek replicator. All objects and materials we need are simply an arrangement of atoms. With enough information on the precise configuration of atoms, and the eventual engineering ability to assemble them with precision, we will have a machine that can create virtually anything from fried chicken to warp engines. All material needs will essentially be satisfied, and we will only be limited by our imagination.

5) Interstellar civilisation

Humans have been explorers for most of our species’ history. From the heat of the African savannah, we’ve fanned out to every part of the globe, even flinging ourselves to the far reaches of disparate Pacific islands. It stands to reason that there is no reason why we will continue living on our planet alone. We might live in monumental space cities, glittering cathedrals of futuristic machinery orbiting the Earth. We might venture even farther, occupying the planets in the solar system and eventually the remaining galaxy.

I’ve stayed away from making specific technological predictions (like how quantum computing could lead to infinite compute etc) because they focus on solving proximate, not ultimate goals. The assumption is that as long as technological progress continues, we will converge on these set of long term goals and eventually solve them.

What we likely won’t fix

In terms of pure scientific progress and prosperity, the future seems exceedingly optimistic. The only existential threats that might prevent us from realizing these futures are our own capacity for internal strife and the creation of an uncontrollable intelligent agent.

There are still ways for things to go awry. Happiness and satisfaction are poorly correlated to absolute, objective prosperity. Even if the world envelops us with abundance, our evolved human psyche will likely remain unchanged (barring some era of new major philosophical enlightenment or genetic augmentation). This leads us to some potential problems.

The crucial drive that we will never satisfy is the need for status. Because of it’s relative positional nature - it’s an inevitable zero-sum game we may never truly escape. Even if we live in a world of infinite resources, the need for status will still exist. Status drives the thirst for power, which creates the potential for conflict.

Most geopolitical conflict today is still driven by competition for resources rather than status. There’s a saying in startup world that “growth fixes all problems”. Whether it’s countries or companies - infighting, politics, and tension usually arise when things are going downhill and blame is passed around while competing for an ever shrinking pie. A world of abundance should reduce the propensity for conflict, but there is no guarantee.

Is the future more Star Trekkian or Star Warsian

The long future will ultimately depend on the deep seated drives of future humans. Will we be placated with more abundance and resources? If yes, then we might trend toward becoming a more peaceful species that strives to live in harmony with all other conscious creatures, seeking only knowledge as we continue to explore and expand across the cosmos. This is the Star Trek utopian outcome.

If our competitive, status hungry evolutionary drives win out, then conflict might be the de facto state. Even as human civilization expands across the galaxy, the quest for power might remain the primary motivating force. Perhaps there will be an emergence of interplanetary empires, solar system revolutionaries, and galactic religions that battle for the hearts and minds of sentient beings. This is a Star Wars-like outcome.

The fringe future

There are some other potential, and possibly much darker, outcomes we might face.

Singularity/Metaverse cosmos: As technology progresses, we simply find ways to integrate our conscious experiences digitally to a massive virtual universe. This can mean brain-machine neural interfaces or a pure upload to digital consciousness. Besides energy, there is no need to harvest further resources on the earth or explore the vastness of space. The virtual universe (housed in city-wide data centers) expands to encompass every permutation of human experience - simulating trillions of worlds, autonomous intelligences, and concepts our 3 dimensional brains cannot grasp.

Dark forest: The dark forest theory stipulates that the reason why we haven’t seen or heard any signs of alien life in the universe is because there is a presence of hostile aliens in the universe. Those that expose themselves are eventually conquered or wiped out. The alien civilizations that survive hide their own presence by going as silent as possible, covering any trace of their existence. If this is the case, we’ve inadvertently committed cosmic suicide. We’ve been blasting our radio waves into the universe since we’ve had the ability to do so, endlessly shouting our existence into the void. One day, we might actually get a reply.

AI takeover: Artificial intelligence reaches hits an exponential curve of recursive improvement, leading to an uncontrollable detonation of intelligence. These intelligent agents move quickly beyond the grasp of humans, forming a multitude of possibilities that are unknowable to us that are purely dependent on the goals they choose to formulate. There is possibly no real antidote to this other than some mass regulation and surveillance to cap the development of technology, which seems unlikely because of the level of global cooperation required and misaligned incentives. 

The present

The immense potentiality of what the future holds is just within our grasp. It invites us to a tantalizing future that is irresistible and leaves us with a few strong imperatives for the present. Rule #1: Do not die. In fact, you should preserve your lifespan for as long as possible until we achieve longevity escape velocity (allowing us to attain biological immortality). We may not reach it, but given that there is a non-zero chance of it happening, the expected value of trying becomes infinite. Rule #2: Don’t kill each other. I hope this is obvious, but we should strive to maximize the number of sentient beings that can reach this frontier. A kinder, more empathetic world is something we would all want in the future as well.