Future
Navigating toward the best of all possible futures. Follow along as Singularity Hub discusses the future and latest trends in futurology.
India Is Building the Infrastructure for a Truly Digital Economy
Silicon Valley fancies itself the global leader in innovation. Its leaders hype technologies such as bitcoin and blockchain, which some claim are the greatest inventions since the Internet. They are so complex that only a few...
Could Having Too Much Become a Bigger Problem Than Having Too Little?
Years ago I traveled to Juarez, Mexico for work, staying across the border in El Paso, Texas and driving back and forth each day. On the Texas side, American life bustled on as usual:...
Robots May Steal Our Jobs, but Not as Quickly as We Thought
Fear of job loss to automation is growing, with each announcement of exciting technological progress generating a backlash from those who could end up unemployed because of it. Amazon Go is eliminating the need...
One Third of Americans Prefer a Software Robot Over a Human Boss
Digitization and automation are ever-growing topics in relation to the workplace.
A famous Oxford study on the future of employment from 2013 estimated that up to 47% of American jobs may be automated by 2035;...
You Can Now Wear a Nanoscale Archive of 1,000 Languages Around Your Neck
The future depends on how well we've preserved the past. Tomorrow’s breakthroughs are built from today’s innovation. To continue the trend, we must keep preserving information properly for future generations. If we leave indecipherable...
‘New York 2140’ Is a Sci-Fi Vision of the World Reshaped by Climate Change
If a trip to Venice is your ideal holiday, then you’re going to love the future.
Most of us, however, will be quite sobered by Kim Stanley Robinson’s upcoming novel, New York 2140, a near-future...
No Job Is Safe, But These Skills Will Always Be Valued in the Workplace
If you’d asked farmers a few hundred years ago what skills their kids would need to thrive, it wouldn’t have taken long to answer. They’d need to know how to milk a cow or plant...
The Ethical Conundrums Technology Confronted Us With This Year
New advances in technology constantly push humanity into uncharted territory.
Sometimes this territory brings us questions we might not have imagined needing answers so soon, like, "Is editing the DNA of human embryos moral?"
Other questions are more familiar, only with...
Post-Truth: Technology Is a Big Part of the Problem, But It’s Also a Solution
"Post-truth" was chosen as the 2016 word of the year by Oxford Dictionaries, a catch-all term describing a perception of growing distrust of “the facts” and increasing reliance on emotion in public discourse.
It is frequently used...
Exponential Growth Will Transform Humanity in the Next 30 Years
As we close out 2016, if you’ll allow me, I’d like to take a risk and venture into a topic I’m personally compelled to think about… a topic that will seem far out to...
This Bitcoin-Eating Plant Robot Hires Artists to Make Its Babies
This is a thing that exists in the world: a bitcoin-eating plant robot (called a plantoid), made of self-executing computer code which owns itself and hires artists to make its babies. If that sounds...
The Fourth Industrial Revolution Is Here: What Now? [Video]
What if the world we knew was subtly being replaced with a new one? Would we notice immediately, or would it only be evident in hindsight?
According to the World Economic Forum, the “Fourth Industrial...
How Digital Nomads Are Leading the Seismic Shift in Where We Work
Have laptop, will travel.
That’s become the slogan of an increasing number of the global white-collar workforce. People are unleashing themselves from corporations and companies to plug wirelessly into the wider world. The tribe of...
If Robots and AI Steal Our Jobs, a Universal Basic Income Could Help
Some fear that robots and AI will steal our jobs.
They probably will (in the near-term, at least half of them).
If that happens, what will we do for a living? How will we earn money?
In...
Break Out of Your Echo Chamber: Technology Arranges Lunch With Someone New
On average, Americans spend 50 minutes a day on Facebook. That’s a lot of online socializing. It’s also about the same amount of time workers take for their lunch break. Yet there’s not nearly...
What If a Social Score Determined Your Success? China’s About to Find Out
In an episode of the Netflix dystopian drama Black Mirror, characters live in a future where they have a ‘social score’ that dictates the terms of pretty much every aspect of their lives: who...
The Brain Tech to Merge Humans and AI Is Already Being Developed
Are you scared of artificial intelligence (AI)?
Do you believe the warnings from folks like Prof. Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk and others?
Is AI the greatest tool humanity will ever create, or are we “summoning the...
Is Radical Life Extension Good for Society?
It’s no longer a radical question.
The aging literature is replete with treatments that could prolong lifespan by 20-40%, at least in lab animals. Interventions such as caloric restriction, rapamycin and metformin have been studied...
Will VR Disrupt the Airline Industry? Sci-Fi Show Meets Press Virtually Instead of Flying
A proposed benefit of virtual reality is that it could one day eliminate the need to move our fleshy bodies around the world for business meetings and work engagements. Instead, we’ll be meeting up...
Fear of the Dark: Why Netflix’s ‘Black Mirror’ Is Great Science Fiction
Legendary science fiction author Isaac Asimov once said, “The core of science fiction, its essence, has become crucial to our salvation, if we are to be saved at all.”
With its aim to predict and...
Forget Building Walls, Technology Is Tearing Them Down
With all the talk of building walls, it seems to me that technology has actually been rapidly tearing down walls.
Besides your passport, what really defines your nationality these days?
Is it where you were live?...
The 6 Ds of Tech Disruption: A Guide to the Digital Economy
“The Six Ds are a chain reaction of technological progression, a road map of rapid development that always leads to enormous upheaval and opportunity.”
–Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler, Bold
We live in incredible times....
How We Can Save Our History One Smartphone at a Time
Our lives today are increasingly digital, so why isn’t our old memorabilia? As we use smartphones and the cloud more often, our pre-digital personal history is falling to pieces, likely unorganized, poorly labeled or...
6 Big Ways Tech Is Rewriting Society’s Rules
Technology is advancing so rapidly that we will experience radical changes in society not only in our lifetimes but in the coming years. We have already begun to see ways in which computing, sensors,...
This Is How to Invent Radical Solutions to Huge Problems
If you force a grasshopper into a jar and fasten the lid, the grasshopper eventually shortens its jump after hitting the lid enough times.
After a while, even if you take the lid off the...
Overhauling How We Teach Our Kids in a World of Accelerating Change
Here in L.A., it’s kind of insane that a great kindergarten requires a competitive application and tuitions that exceed most colleges.
I started asking myself, given the fact that most elementary schools haven’t changed in...
Tech Philanthropists Are Giving Away Billions to Build a Better Future
They’re often featured as James Bond villains — super-rich megalomaniacs who pour their infinite resources into sophisticated doomsday devices, private rockets for last-minute escapes, and enough high-tech toys to rival the NSA, FBI and...
The Motivating Power of a Massive Transformative Purpose
Eradicating diseases, mastering flight, near-instant global communication, going to the moon—humans have developed a taste for making the impossible possible.
Though we still face a daunting list of global challenges, we’ve learned that science and...
5 Big Tech Trends That Will Make This Election Look Tame
If you think this election is insane, wait until 2020.
I want you to imagine how, in four years' time, technologies like AI, machine learning, sensors and networks will accelerate.
Political campaigns are about to get...
Why the World Is Better Than Ever—and Will Get Better Still
If you read or watch the news, you’ll likely think the world is falling to pieces. Trends like terrorism, climate change, and a growing population straining the planet’s finite resources can easily lead you...
If You Upload Your Mind to the Cloud—Would You Still Be You?
From time to time, the Singularity Hub editorial team unearths a gem from the archives and wants to share it all over again. It's usually a piece that was popular back then and we...
Answers to 4 Big Questions About the Future [Video]
I give over 50 keynotes per year. My favorite part is fielding the crazy questions at the end.
In fact, I love answering questions about exponentials and abundance so much that I've been encouraging my...
How the Disruptive Power of Technology Is Redefining Work
Exponential growth in technology will disrupt entire industries and create new ones. It will revolutionize the workforce as we know it. Many experts are asking the big questions: what jobs will be destroyed? How...
Teslas Are Teaching Each Other How to Drive Better Than You
Your Tesla can drive itself. Not just on the highway, not under strict guidance, but everywhere. Or at least, it will have all the necessary gadgets to do so soon.
We are excited to announce...
8 Ways AI Will Profoundly Change City Life by 2030
How will AI shape the average North American city by 2030? A panel of experts assembled as part of a century-long study into the impact of AI thinks its effects will be profound.
The One...
Faster Fashion: How Making Clothes Has Become Like Making Software
Since the factory days of the Industrial Revolution, the apparel business has built up a planet-spanning supply chain with an enormous global footprint. Today, many of its manufacturing procedures, relics of its industrial past,...
5 Billion People Need Better Healthcare — Technology Will Help Deliver It
If you’ve ever had to go into the hospital for a major medical procedure, your memory of the experience is probably pretty unpleasant. Even when all goes well, the hospital is a nerve-racking place...
Health Devices Are All Too Hackable—Here’s What You Need to Know
The Internet of Things (IoT) is expected to bring nearly fifty billion new devices online by 2020. This sounds great, until you read that an estimated 70% of IoT devices are hackable.
That cute Google Nest...
Writing the First Human Genome by 2026 Is Synthetic Biology’s Grand Challenge
A “top secret" meeting of scientists was held at the Langone Medical Center on Halloween 2015. Their aim? To kickstart a new Human Genome Project and build a functional human genome from the base...
This Smart Vest Lets the Deaf ‘Hear’ With Their Skin
What are the limits of human perception?
Take a second and concentrate on your surroundings: the subtle flickering of your laptop screen, the faint whiff of lingering coffee, the muffled sounds of traffic, the warm...
Designer Babies and the New Technology of Having Children
Recently, we looked at how exponential tech impacts sex and dating.
In this post, we'll look at:
Reproduction without sex
Freezing your eggs to extend your reproductive timeline
Designer babies
Making babies without eggs
Imagine a...
This Is Your Brain on Quantum Computers
Machines enrich and enhance our lives, whether it’s the smartphones that allow us to stay connected or the supercomputers that solve our toughest computational problems. Imagine how much more productive and innovative our world...
No Technology Thrives Alone: Progress Is All About Convergence
15 years ago, Ray Kurzweil published one of the most significant essays in the history of futurism: “The Law of Accelerating Returns.” This piece showcased the immense power of exponential technology versus linear technology...
5 Tech Forces That Will Change Insurance for Good
Massive reductions in insurance costs are coming, along with a wave of disruption.
Traditionally, insurance premiums are determined by actuaries, a function of big numbers, statistics and probabilities.
That's what you have to do when you...
Surprising Embryo Study Pushes the Limits of How Life Begins
When sperm meets egg, life is ignited in a brilliant flash of light.
If you were asked how babies are made in biology class, you’d probably answer with some version of the above dogma. Although...
Ray Kurzweil: We Can Control AI Before It Controls Us
Over time, technology offers solutions to old problems while creating new issues in the process. The more powerful the technology, the greater its potential to do good and harm. Artificial intelligence is no exception,...
Why Design Is Key to Unlocking the Genius Behind Innovation
What is learning?
Tony Robbins asked this question in a talk he gave on strategies for learning quickly. His answer is quite interesting: “Whenever you learn something all you are really doing is creating a...
The Future of Sex, Dating, and Finding a Mate
Sex is one of the most powerful, fundamental human drives.
It's caused wars… built and destroyed kingdoms.
It occupies a significant percentage of most people's thoughts.
As such, it's worth a conversation about how exponential technologies will...
Kurzweil Says Passion Projects Are the Best Way to Learn
According to Ray Kurzweil, learning by doing will become the means by which the next generation of children learns to participate in the world. Technology has already revolutionized education by changing how humans access,...
Why Drones Are Finding a Home on the Farm
When I hear the word 'drone', the first thing I think of is a top-secret mission: spying, rescues, clandestine deliveries, and other James Bond-worthy uses of a seemingly mysterious technology. Maybe I've just seen...
