| {"text":"author: James I. Ausman\\*Corresponding author\ndate: 2017\ninstitute: SNI Publications, Emeritus Editor-in-Chief, Los Angeles, CA, USA\nreferences:\ntitle: A View of the Future from Mercedes Benz\n\nRecently a friend sent me this summary of a talk about the changes in the next decade that can affect our lives.\\[1\\]\n\n\"In a recent interview the Managing Director of Daimler Benz (Mercedes Benz) said their competitors are no longer other car companies but Tesla (obvious), Google, Apple, Amazon *et al*.\n\nThere have always been the 3 constants. Death, Taxes and CHANGE!\n\nSoftware will disrupt most traditional industries in the next 5-10 years.\n\nUber is just a software tool, they don't own any cars, and are now the biggest taxi company in the world.\n\nAirbnb is now the biggest hotel company in the world, although they don't own any properties.\n\nArtificial Intelligence: Computers \\[will\\] become exponentially better in understanding the world. This year, a computer beat the best Go player in the world, 10 years earlier than expected.\n\nIn the US, young lawyers already don't get jobs. Because of IBM Watson, you can get legal advice (so far for more or less basic stuff) within seconds, with 90% accuracy compared with 70% accuracy when done by humans.\n\nSo if you study law, stop immediately. There will be 90% less lawyers in the future, only specialists will remain.\n\nWatson already helps nurses diagnosing cancer, 4 times more accurate\\[ly\\] than human nurses. Facebook now has a pattern recognition software that can recognize faces better than humans. In 2030, computers will become more intelligent than humans.\n\nAutonomous cars: In 2018 the first self-driving cars will appear for the public. Around 2020, the complete industry will start to be disrupted. You don't want to own a car anymore. You will call a car with your phone, it will show up at your location and drive you to your destination. You will not need to park it, you only pay for the driven distance and can be productive while driving. Our kids will never get a driver's license and will never own a car.\n\nAutonomous cars will change the cities, because we will need 90-95% less cars for them. We can transform former parking spaces into parks.\n\n1.2 million people die each year in car accidents worldwide. We now have one accident every 60,000 miles (100,000 km). With autonomous driving that will drop to one accident in 6 million miles (10 million km) That advance will save a million lives each year.\n\nMost car companies will probably become bankrupt. Traditional car companies try the evolutionary approach and just build a better car, while tech companies (Tesla, Apple, Google) will do the revolutionary approach and build a computer on wheels.\n\nMany engineers from Volkswagen and Audi; are completely terrified of Tesla.\n\nInsurance companies will have massive trouble because without accidents, the insurance will become 100x cheaper. Their car insurance business model will disappear. Real estate will change. Because if you can work while you commute, people will move further away to live in a more beautiful neighborhood.\n\nElectric cars will become mainstream about 2020. Cities will be less noisy because all new cars will run on electricity. Electricity will become incredibly cheap and clean: Solar production has been on an exponential curve for 30 years, but you can now see the burgeoning impact.\n\nLast year, more solar energy was installed worldwide than fossil. Energy companies are desperately trying to limit access to the grid to prevent competition from home solar installations, but that can't last. Technology will take care of that strategy.\n\nWith cheap electricity comes cheap and abundant water. Desalination of salt water now only needs 2 kWh per cubic meter (@ 0.25 cents). We don't have scarce water in most places, we only have scarce drinking water. Imagine what will be possible if anyone can have as much clean water as he wants, for nearly no cost.\n\nHealth: The Tricorder X price will be announced this year. There are companies who will build a medical device (called the \"Tricorder\" from Star Trek) that works with your phone, which takes your retina scan, your blood sample and you breath into it.\\[2\\]\n\nIt then analyses 54 biomarkers that will identify nearly any disease. It will be cheap, so in a few years everyone on this planet will have access to world class medical analysis, nearly for free. Goodbye, medical establishment.\n\n3D printing: The price of the cheapest 3D printer came down from \\$18,000 to \\$400 within 10 years. In the same time, it became 100 times faster. All major shoe companies have already started 3D printing shoes.\n\nSome spare airplane parts are already 3D printed in remote airports. The space station now has a printer that eliminates the need for the large amount of spare parts they used to have in the past.\n\nAt the end of this year, new smart phones will have 3D scanning possibilities. You can then 3D scan your feet and print your perfect shoe at home.\n\nIn China, they already 3D printed and built a complete 6-storey office building. By 2027, 10% of everything that's being produced will be 3D printed.\n\nBusiness opportunities: If you think of a niche you want to go in, ask yourself: \"in the future, do you think we will have that?\" and if the answer is yes, how can you make that happen sooner?\n\nIf it doesn't work with your phone, forget the idea. And any idea designed for success in the 20^th^ century is doomed to failure in the 21^st^ century.\n\nWork: 70-80% of jobs will disappear in the next 20 years. There will be a lot of new jobs, but it is not clear if there will be enough new jobs in such a small time.\n\nAgriculture: There will be a \\$100 agricultural robot in the future. Farmers in 3^rd^ world countries can then become managers of their field instead of working all day on their fields.\n\nAeroponics \\[the growth of plants in air and water mist-Ed\\] will need much less water.\\[3\\] The first Petri dish produced veal is now available and will be cheaper than cow produced veal in 2018. Right now, 30% of all agricultural surfaces are used for cows. Imagine if we don't need that space anymore There are several startups which will bring insect protein to the market shortly. Insect protein contains more protein than meat. It will be labelled as \"alternative protein source\" (because most people still reject the idea of eating insects).\n\nThere is an app called \"moodies\" which can already tell in which mood you're in. By 2020 there will be apps that can tell by your facial expressions, if you are lying. Imagine a political debate where it's being displayed when they're telling the truth and when they're not.\n\nBitcoin may even become the default reserve currency. Of the world!\"\n\nLongevity: Right now, the average life span increases by 3 months per year. Four years ago, the life span used to be 79 years, now it's 80 years. The increase itself is increasing and by 2036, there will be more than one year increase per year. So we all might live for a long time, probably way more than 100.\n\nEducation: The cheapest smart phones are already at \\$10 in Africa and Asia. By 2020, 70% of all humans will own a smart phone. That means, everyone has the same access to world-class education.\n\nEvery child can use Khan academy for everything a child needs to learn at school in First World countries. There have already been releases of software in Indonesia and soon there will be releases in Arabic, Suaheli and Chinese this summer. I can see enormous potential if we give the English app for free, so that children in Africa and everywhere else can become fluent in English and that could happen within half a year.\"\\[1\\]\n\nHow will these changes affect your life and family? How will medicine change? What will neurosurgery be like by 2030? How will it change? Trauma surgery and osteoarthritic spine surgery will probably still be treated surgically, but by the end of the 21^st^ century, as I have lectured around the world, surgery and neurosurgery will become of historical interest. What should you do to plan for these major changes in your life?\n\n# REFERENCES","meta":{"dup_signals":{"dup_doc_count":1948,"dup_dump_count":74,"dup_details":{"curated_sources":2,"2023-50":14,"2023-40":24,"2023-23":15,"2023-14":21,"2023-06":20,"2022-49":24,"2022-40":18,"2022-33":7,"2022-27":22,"2022-21":17,"2022-05":19,"2021-49":7,"2021-43":24,"2021-39":12,"2021-31":22,"2021-25":10,"2021-21":14,"2021-17":17,"2021-10":15,"2021-04":23,"2020-50":4,"2020-45":13,"2020-40":24,"2020-34":15,"2020-29":23,"2020-24":17,"2020-16":16,"2020-10":11,"2020-05":28,"2019-51":8,"2019-47":28,"2019-43":15,"2019-39":26,"2019-35":28,"2019-30":32,"2019-26":23,"2019-22":29,"2019-18":28,"2019-13":27,"2019-09":46,"2019-04":36,"2018-51":44,"2018-47":38,"2018-43":40,"2018-39":54,"2018-34":32,"2018-30":53,"2018-26":47,"2018-22":47,"2018-17":53,"2018-13":50,"2018-09":55,"2018-05":59,"2017-51":58,"2017-47":43,"2017-43":62,"2017-39":27,"2017-34":57,"2017-30":28,"2017-26":53,"2017-22":29,"2017-17":25,"2017-09":21,"2017-04":15,"2016-50":3,"2016-44":2,"2016-26":1,"2016-22":1,"2024-30":15,"2024-26":14,"2024-22":10,"2024-18":26,"2024-10":16,"2017-13":46}},"file":"PMC5609448"},"subset":"pubmed_central"} | |