1. Human-Like Robots Are Emerging
In 2050, robots have the ability to master real world environments and an increasingly diverse range of 3D objects. Although, earlier robots were limited to fixed movements, this new generation has more dexterity and flexibility. They can adapt to new situations and solve more and more dynamic problems. And they can learn from their experiences and share knowledge with each other because of wireless internet speeds thousands of times faster than 6G and the exponentially growing amounts of data being gathered from their sensors.
These robots can identify objects, situations, and the actions they should perform next in near real-time, which enables a more human-like response. Although a few technological and scientific hurdles still remain, this is getting close to what many people would consider artificial general intelligence.
The most advanced robots are restricted to government, corporate, and research institutions and the households of the rich and famous. In addition to cognitive abilities, these more advanced robots have extremely lifelike appearances, facial expressions, and body language. Thanks to continuous emotional feedback from users and techniques such as motion capture and generative adversarial networks, these robots almost look and act like real people. And as more data is provided to these robots, their body language and movements become more natural with each generation.
3D printed bones, and new materials developed for more flexible skin and muscles, eyes, and teeth help to make the humanoid robots appear as human as possible.
Additionally, less advanced models are now relatively common in society. They’re popular among people in upper-middle-income brackets, and they’re similar in cost to a second car or a similar major purchase. Their functions include household chores such as cleaning, cooking, and tidying, as well as looking after children and elderly family members.
2. Brain-Computer Interfaces Have Improved By Orders Of Magnitude
In 2050, brain-computer interfaces have vastly improved over the versions from 2030, and they’re largely usable for everyday purposes. Headbands and wristbands with non-invasive sensors have become the preferred choices for mainstream brain-computer interface use. These interfaces are usually standard accessories for virtual reality headsets, including high-priced VR helmets that offer full dive VR experiences. And some brain-computer interfaces are fully implantable for medical and military purposes.
Brain-computer interfaces now offer a bidirectional exchange of information. These advanced neural interfaces send waves to the brain, transmitting visual, audio, and other sensations to the user. The images and experiences generated by these devices are almost indistinguishable from reality, and they’re unique to each user because they depend on the structure of the brain.
3. Bionic Eyes Are Perfected
In 2050, artificial retinas and other visual prostheses can match the visual quality of a real human eye. They contain electrode arrays with hundreds of megapixels in full color, along with wireless capabilities. This is a substantial step up from devices in earlier decades that provided black-and-white and highly pixelated views of the world.
Some versions of these implants not only provide a cure to blindness for many people, but they also contain further enhancements. These enhancements include embedded cameras, Wi-Fi, augmented reality, night vision, thermal vision, zoom capability, and so on. When someone is using these devices, it's possible to wirelessly communicate with them using text overplayed in their vision.
These enhanced devices are standard practice among spy organizations, militaries, and high-profile citizens. However, they’re becoming inexpensive enough for the mainstream public as well. Healthy adults are now tempted to take advantage of the improvements offered by computerized vision.
4. The World’s First Artificial General Intelligence Is Close To Becoming A Reality
By 2050, major tech companies have already launched official projects to develop the world’s first artificial general intelligence. Billions of dollars are invested in these projects and large full-time staff are dedicated to this effort. These highly complex projects are expected to take anywhere from 10 to 20 years to complete.
Scientists and engineers are figuring out how to model factors such as:
Intentional creativity
Strategic thinking
Emotions
Casual reasoning
Common sense
Counter-factual thinking
Consciousness
The immediate use case is to have a self-aware AI that institutions can consult with to solve problems that were previously thought impossible.
Another use case involves transferring copies of this AI to advanced humanoid robots that can handle a variety of situations in the real world.
A small percentage of the world opposes this and there’s constant backlash on the internet, but that was to be expected.
This development is projected to lead to technologies that are indistinguishable from magic in the coming decades—especially when combined with the exponentially growing computational power of classical and quantum computers. However, it leaves the door open to a super intelligent AI being developed by the end of the century. And there’s no feasible limit to how intelligent this AI can become. Such an AI could be smarter than all humans that have ever lived on planet earth. Shortly afterwards, it could become trillions of times more intelligent than that.
5. Smart Cities Are Emerging In Some Regions
In 2050, a small percentage of cities in some regions have become smart cities.
These smart cities connect vehicles on the road to a central network that tracks their locations in real-time. These types of networks receive terabytes of information from a huge number of sources such as road sensors, traffic lights, and so forth. Those sources provide information such as the number of cars on the roads, road blockages, weather patterns, the state of emergency services, and more.
Autonomous vehicles on roads constantly communicate and coordinate with each other to optimize the flow of traffic in these cities. Thanks to this coordinated information exchange, traffic congestion and jams have become much less severe in large cities. Autonomous vehicles ride behind each other at a distance of only 20 centimeters, which saves space on the road. And due to this coordination, autonomous vehicles make turns at intersections at almost full speed with a low probability of accidents occurring.
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