The world around us is changing all the time, owing to different factors. These may be political, religious, societal and perhaps the most important, technological. Technology has come a long way since the invention of the wheel. In the process of shaping the world around us, technology has shaped mankind itself. 

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And that’s not the only interesting part. Technology advances at an exponential rate. That means, the next 100 years are going to bring more development than the last 100 years. And not only that, we are at a stage where technologies that we have only seen in sci-fi movies till now, are actually being developed and have started taking baby steps!

There is a lot going on in this field and is certain to change our lives for the better. 60 years down the road, we might get habituated with it all but if someone were to time travel 60 years, he/she would have a hard time believing in what will have been going on in the world! Let’s look at 6 such radical ways the world will change in our lifetimes.

1. Artificial Intelligence

AI will be a huge part of our daily lives. It will be like this invisible person who is omnipresent ready to serve us at any time (assuming of course it doesn’t kill us all). Experts believe that by 2050, AI will surpass human intelligence. That means within our lifetimes, we will have seen the coveted singularity.

It will have great implications for humanity on so many different levels. Did you know that we already have an AI lawyer? Its name is Ross and it has just recently been hired by a law firm called Baker & Hostetler. That’s right! A software got hired by a real law firm! And this is the present day. Imagine what will happen 60 years down the road.

AI will be in control of everything, like, our offices, our houses, maybe even decision making in the government! Everything to do with automation will be in the hands of AI. It’s like showing up for a party. Everything will be done in advance for us. We just have to “show up”. AI will not only be doing menial jobs like scheduling events for us (it does that already), it will do greater things like finding cure to diseases, solving complex mathematical problems that we would need decades to do and even solve political problems by providing the best possible path ahead.

2. Robots Everywhere

If AI is the soul, a robot is the body. In the future we will see robots everywhere. They will walk among people normally and won’t get weird looks from anyone. They will be doing jobs that humans either find too difficult or meaningless which will make several jobs obsolete and will revolutionise the work structure of the current society.

They could be sent to dangerous places in space instead of risking human life. That will help us at least start the wider colonisation process of the neighbouring cosmos in order to become a space faring civilisation. 

Apart from this, robots could be teachers and lecturers, lab technicians, security guards, surgeons, domestic helps and even farmers. They are really gonna be as common as cars are today in our lives, just more helpful and pervasive.

3. A Cash-Free Economy

In the future, there will be no involvement of cash or even cards in our everyday transactions. Everything will be wireless and effortless. There will be bionic sensors everywhere where payments need to be made which will scan your retinas or your fingerprints and you wouldn’t even need to think about it. This could be made possible by implants in our bodies or even by connecting our biological data with our finances.

Other area which will be very important in this will be cryptocurrency, which has only been around for a few years now. But in the future, cryptocurrency will be as common as fiat currency and will help drive the cashless society. As a society, we humans might one day adopt cryptocurrency as the only medium we transact in! If and when that will happen is anybody’s guess.

4. Holograms

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Right now, all the media consumption or communication that we do are done through a screen. It’s a 2D experience. In the future, we will have life-like holographic projections with which we can interact. 


It will be like sci-fi movies, where the person you are talking to will be right there in front of you, just virtually. This will also change the gaming space, media space, medical field, educational field, engineering and many more.

The future world will be one of a mix between reality and virtuality. 

5. Driverless, Electric and Flying Cars

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We are already beginning to see the development of all these technologies. Just recently the first driverless cabs hit the streets of Singapore. If that can happen in the present day, imagine what will happen in the future.

Every car on the planet will be a driverless one. We will just have to sit in it and be taken to our destination. Apart from this, the world will finally have gotten rid of gasoline cars which will be replaced by electric cars. Wireless power transfer technologies embedded in the roads will ensure that we never have to stop anywhere to recharge our cars.

Apart from this, flying cars will start getting common. Google’s Larry Page already owns two secret flying car companies. This shows that the development of flying cars is well underway and in the future it will only get more and more common for people to just fly upto their friends’ houses. How cool would that be? And to top it off, you won’t even have to fly the thing. Because AI !

6. The First Person To Reach 150

As technology progresses, so will our ability to combat diseases, restore organs, body parts, functionalities and a slew of other medical abilities. That will lead to a greater life expectancy compared to today. Living to 150 might start being a common thing among people in the more developed nations in the world.

In the 100 years between 1900 and 2000, life expectancy of the world (average) has increased from just 31 to 67.2. That has more than doubled. Consider the exponential rate of growth in technology and we might realistically reach the 150 mark which will a huge milestone for us humans.

Many different technologies will play an important role in achieving this. Some of them are: nanobots swimming around in our bodies, fighting diseases, 3D printing of organs, body tissues, bones and pretty much anything our body is made of, cure to all of the known diseases today, improved diagnostic abilities that could be embedded in a smart device or a wearable that would be with us everywhere at all times.

Note: Image Attributions have been provided where necessary.

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