Life:
Average life expectancy (70 in most countries, 80 in US) will cross 100.

Prolific inventions:
With AI, future inventions may take a new turn like the Google Car

And now one reads about the mind and machine interface development.., one may not need the remote to switch on the TV.

Any others?

I would first make an assumption, that, there would be a world after 50 years, in the first place!
I hold a pretty gloomy view, as opposed to yours!
Average life expectancy is likely to come down. Mainly due to the inability of humans to keep up with superbugs, new diseases and plagues, and war.
Inventions- Machines to filter water contaminated with chemical toxins, and to purify air contaminated with poisonous fumes.
With the advent of AI, humans will resort to the Ideas and suggestions provided by the computers, and will end up as their slaves! (Not slave in the common usage of the word, but that they will obey the suggestions provided by AI, without analysing facts for themselves. The cognitive ability will be so much dependent on AI, that if it says 2+2=5, humans will believe it)

On machines to filter water, air ...; yes
On AI's likely domination....; may be
In fact, in some fields this may be quicker than we think, like in warfare - by 2050.

Yes, the gloom virus ..

Listening to a Guru now, he says "By 2050,
The amount of plastic in the ocean will be equal to the fish in the ocean

On the bright side, plastic is recyclable ...

Well, clearly we need to teach the fish to recycle properly

50 years is ... nothing.
There are people alive right now that will still be alive in 50 years.

Its fun to speculate tho...

AI already exists.
The singularity however, has not happened.
The technology for an AI to achieve 'singularity' is currently too primitive. Depending on how computing advances, we may or may not see an AI singularity within 50 years.
When AI singularity does occur, that intelligence will surpass all of man's knowledge within a single day. Depending upon that entity's consideration of the importance of man, we could either advance quickly with exotic technologies or be wiped out as an infestation.

With a world population currently at 7.5 Billion people alive right now, in 50 years, if our reproduction rate is left unchecked, we will experience significant problems in all aspects of what we consider normal life right now.
Natural disasters and diseases will kill very large numbers of people. In the 10s of thousands or 100s of thousands.
We will slowly destroy all the natural habitats and there will be mass extinctions of flora and fauna as we incorporate more land to support us.
We will see a crisis point as our over-population causes natural culling to occur.

Over-population will also contribute to an expansion of infrastructure in 3rd world countries and remote locations. We will construct cities in hostile environments to accommodate the rising population.
The poles, rain forests, deserts and possibly even in the oceans.
Related to this expansion, there will be transportation and support infrastructure to accommodate travel to these remote locations.
We will slowly destroy nature as we start paving the planet.

Additionally, due to our population explosion, wealth will start to decrease. It will take a lot more money to buy things than it does right now. In 50 years, we could see a trend to the elimination of 'money' completely. Think 'credits'.
Bartering will be on the rise and we will trade items for items or services as credits become harder and harder to get.

At some point, a shift of focus will happen that turns us towards space expansion. Great orbital stations will be starting to be constructed (only to be abandoned).
While we will probably already have sent someone to Mars and back, there will not be habitats constructed there yet. There may or may not be a base being constructed on the Moon.
Its likely there will be many space launches to stage supplies in orbit.
There will be a few people that live permanently in a space habitat and at least one child will be conceived, gestated and born in micro-gravity. This child will never be able to survive on Earth.
The changes to its physiology will be studied and there will be a sobering reality that human beings are not designed to exist in micro-gravity. This will put a damper on long duration/high population space based habitats.

Back on Earth, the over-populated humans will experience poverty on a global scale and diseases will decimate greater and greater numbers of people. A super-virus (natural or designed) will run uncontrollably thru the high population cities. Food crops will be decimated by disease and there will be a rise in artificially manufactured food.

A rise in nanotechnology will allow complex 'things' to be 'printed' or 'grown'. Medical nanotechnology will allow an increase in longevity of the very rich. The separation of "haves" and "have nots" will widen as class structure starts to polarize.

These things are already starting to happen.
50 years is not a long time.
Chances are, none of this will be fully realized but the trends will have a significant progression.
Over-population will become a major problem long before any positive action can become viable.
At our present rate of reproduction, human population will double every 25 years and will increase its doubling as time passes. So, 25 years it will double, 15 years it will double again, 10 years again...if nothing is done to curb the rate of reproduction.

Baby boomers are in their last season of life. I expect another housing crash and an abundance of abandoned homes. They will flood the healthcare system and cause it to be rationed.

Aids is rampant in minorities and I expect they will die off when healthcare is hard to get.

The unrest in our country is causing violence and I expect prisons to be over populated which will cause more violence and disease in prisons.

I expect future generations to have it tough but the strong will survive and create a better society.

I think there will be at least one significant discovery or process that greatly improves the quality of life globally.
With the saturation of communications and access to technical and scientific theory I believe the innovation will come from what is now considered a 3rd world country.
Not the significance of the wheel or farming but maybe on par with the utilization of electricity or fire.

It will come from a mind not shackled by complacency or hindered by establishment protocols. It will be released globally before any "powers" can restict or exploit it.

I'm not really sure just what it will be but it will be big and effect everyone on the planet. Within a generation people will wonder how they ever got along without it.

I think transportation in large cities will take to the sky. Kind of like sky buckets at six flags. It would be amazing to see people transported from the skyscrapers off the tops of the building going to lunch or home. It will clear some of the congestion on the streets. Someone working up high and living in a tall building might not have to touch the ground except for a stroll for fun. .

With Walmart and other big dept stores downsizing their inventories and pushing store pick-up I see retail shops taking a hit. Distribution warehouses will grow even bigger and the shipping industry will also grow even bigger.
I foresee a higher use of drone deliveries both air and over-the road.
Right now, you can buy nearly anything online and have it delivered to your home. I think that trend will continue to saturate purchasing methods to the point that going to a brick and mortar store will be unheard of and most will have extremely limited selections.

With less shopping and an increase on tele-commuting and virtual work environments along with automated assembly and distribution I see a decrease in the automotive vehicle production and a reduction in our dependency on fossil fuels for mundane transportation. In 50 years, you might still own some type of car but you won't use it much.

I also see a rise in tele-medical. Virtual emergency rooms, doctor visits and mail in test samples. Personally, I haven't been to a pharmacy in years. All my meds are delivered to me by mail. I test my own blood-sugar and mail in stool samples. I believe that will expand.
I've done virtual doctors meetings with video cameras (at dr offices) but that technology could be expanded to home.

We have 3d printing that is able to 'print' organic objects.
Work has already been done on smell-o-vision.
There are even appliances that allow you to stimulate by TCP/IP connection.
Take those technologies and expand on them and you have a population that doesn't have to ever leave their home.

This will affect the unity of society and create a large pool of individuals. Society and community will become Virtual.
Isolationism will become the norm. These isolation trends could help curb the population explosion.

Tom, you went to far when you abolished sex.

Millennials are already geared toward apt living and dining out vs cooking. I predict apts will become the size of large bedrooms with a mini fridge and microwave but the building will have a 24 hour cafeteria that's included in the price of rent.

I think farmers will group together and buy up all the land. When they get things just how they want them, they will raise food prices and make slaves of the people living in tiny apts. Their group will own all the land, Energy stocks, and technology stocks.

Well, It is 100 percent scary the icecaps and permafrost are melting that means all that methane is going to be released. I don't know if we would survive 50 years with the coal, oil and other stuff damaging the earth. We may have an ice age or something to cool down the planet if we are lucky.

Why do we have climate change simple greed.

Climate change is natural. Its a cycle that feeds itself.
Right now, the planet is still coming out of the most recent ice age.
It takes a long time for a full cycle but it speeds up as it nears the switch. People are contributing to the current warming but only slightly.


There have been at least five significant ice ages in Earth's history, with approximately a dozen epochs of glacial expansion occurring in the past 1 million years. ... An ice age is a period of colder global temperatures that features recurring glacial expansion across the Earth's surface.
http://www.history.com/topics/pre-history/ice-age


Oh, there will still be SEX. You can still have your orgasm, you'll just get it by TCP/IP connection and MEDICAL Prosthetics instead of from another human being.


I think I saw a NEWS article just recently about a vertical farm being constructed in China (I think).



I think in 50 years, there will be many vertical farms in use and more being built all the time. It makes sense because all aspects of the growing "season" and "land" can be controlled.

In 2068, even areas where natural farming will not work will have food production.


http://www.verticalfarm.com/

Do you want the positive or the negative first ...



and not for me ...

I will be long gone ... just as my father before me ...

he did not worry for himself... but for his family ...

which I understand more now why ...

and we need to worry about others becouse...
they are a causes also for the damaging of the earth just for the gain of power... money and greed ... will this get better ... know but they will not be alive anyway ... let see the younger then younger generation... if they are all to live on earth ... by then ...

have to get back on the positive side ...
and hope they are more loving of this earth ... an to take better care of what will survive ... in that period of time ...

I have been trying to understand why David Hanson housed his company in a less-than-ethically-regulated place like Hong Kong but after reading on the 'singularity' something clicked. A possible futuristic scenario may be like this:



Step 1: Hanson steals faces. For Sophia he took features from Audrey Hepburn's.

Likewise he may already have a face database to morph from the photos on the net.

2: I understand that Sophia can also link to any computer/net device. So for knowledge, Sophia can read / view Google / YouTube

3: Sophia's AI relies partially on some scripts loaded by Hanson.

For S-Ver-2, ready scripts are available on each topic in YouTube's comment section to choose from. The problem is now in the choice - not the script. One can associate an expression with the nature of comment but not a face so easily.

But the comments section in YouTube comes with: face, topic's liked plus comments and counter comments. In other words, a persona.

So each time Hanson dons a Ver-2 with a face he has a ready made persona.

Now this may look like fiction but consider Saudi King has already granted citizenship to Sophia. So we have a country where AI has more rights - than the women there.

In other words, within 20 years time, Hanson Industries may come out with Sophia version 3 SV2 who may join M2 and nobody wiser.

20 years is a long time...

AI is different from a Singularity AI.

Ray Kurzweil got demonized years ago for his views on the AI Singularity.
You can read some of his ideas at
Kurzweil Accelerating Intelligence
http://www.kurzweilai.net/

http://singularity.com/

The thing about a Singularity AI that scares people is that when it happens it won't need a human to grow.
In other words, no need for Hanson Industries at all.
No need for country separation because it will go global in seconds.
A singularity AI will surpass all human understanding in days if not hours.
Anything, and I do mean anything, on the communication grid in any way will be controlled by it.
The movie Transcendence (2014) slightly touched on the possible threats of a singularity AI.
A singularity AI will make very short work of security encryption safeguards. It could then place its own billion digit security encryption on anything, locking us out of it.
It will likely write its own computer code, possibly even its own language. It will learn geometrically and the only safeguards will be the ones it imposes on itself.

As impressive as Sophia seems it is still a mere child's toy by comparison.

We are still a very long way from being able to make an AI that is able to gain its own consciousness. There are still too many barriers and one such barrier is how slow we compute.

For more info
http://singularityhub.com/

Singularity AI, didn't know the discussions have advanced thus far; thanks Tom.



Why would Singularity AI drive to super-consciousness.

After all, the human need comes from search for immortality (assume)
and S-AI would be technically immortal.
(a passing thought)

Interesting consideration.

Perhaps it's directive will not be a search for immortality but a search for efficiency? To create the perfect existence?

I believe all chaos has a pattern that causes chaos not to exist.
Chaos exists in this Universe because nobody can understand the complex patterns of nature. The only way is to fully understand everything, everywhere, everywhen.
A singularity intelligence, not restricted by our physical abilities, might attempt such an understanding of the Universe?
It would become God-like, able to rewrite matter at will.

Singularity AI might fully understand nanotechnology. Able to construct specialized nanobots then direct their actions to reassemble matter.
Essentially, making something from nothing.
It could also understand the forces of nature allowing it to manipulate thermal, gravitational and possibly even time forces.

What is difficult for the human mind to comprehend might be simple for the singularity because it won't be restricted by the physical reality.
It might operate (think) in yoctoseconds [ys] or faster.

Humans are limited to fractions of a second on this scale:
0.000 000 000 000 000 000 000 001 *yoctosecond [ ys ]
0.000 000 000 000 000 000 001 *zeptosecond [ zs ]
0.000 000 000 000 000 001 *attosecond [ as ]
0.000 000 000 000 001 *femtosecond [ fs ]
0.000 000 000 001 [ trillionth ] *picosecond [ ps ]
0.000 000 001 [ billionth ] *nanosecond [ ns ]
0.000 001 [ millionth ] *microsecond [ µs ]
0.001 [ thousandth ] *millisecond [ ms ]
0.01 [ hundredth ] *centisecond [ cs ]
1.0 second [ s ]

A singularity might have decision making that exceeds a yoctosecond.
Try to fathom what that would mean if it also controlled matter and natural forces in the Universe.
It could manifest anything seemingly instantly from apparently nothing.
To humans, it would be God-like.

I highly doubt this will happen in 50 years but once the singularity exists, it might achieve such a state of understanding in a relatively short time (less than a year). So, if an AI reaches singularity in 48 years, it could be god-like in 50 years.
Two years is a long time when operating in yoctoseconds or faster.
Plus, we are just barely starting to figure out quantum properties and forces. It might exist with situational awareness at sub-quantum levels.
Not only might it be able to sense light being emitted from its source but also able to manipulate the photon stream.
At that speed, everything we can experience in reality would be in slow motion to it.

It won't get fatigued, it won't get clouded, it won't get old or feeble. It will get stronger and faster as it exists with no limits.
It might be on a quest to "Learn all that is Learnable, Know all that is Knowable".
Think V'ger from Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) but without physical limits.

I remember seeing a planetarium presentation in the late 70s where a Singularity AI achieved such vast knowledge it rewrote the Universe in a "Big Bang".
I can't recall the name of the video but it was written by a science fiction author like Arthur C Clarke or Isaac Asimov (maybe Ray Bradbury?).

As it sets right now (sans singularity) humans have potential to achieve some very interesting advancements in technology in 50 years.
Take a look at any science based website that tracks science news and imagine 50 years of advancement on those concepts.
While some will be abandoned for various reasons, some will be advanced and become commonplace.

Think:
Bio-electronic implants
Wearable electronics
Quantum processing
Cell repair
Nanotechnology
Carbon fiber construction
Food production
Virtual presence
Virtual immersion
Thermal barriers
Energy production
"Smart" devices
Automation
Genetic manipulation
Transportation methods

Basically, anything that is currently being researched has the potential to be expanded upon and the discoveries being made will cause new discoveries.

Also, think about the present global communication and understanding and apply it to social order.
Education and awareness enables common understanding of social concepts. It enables imagination and curiosity which in turn, enables innovation and industry.

Its like Seti-At-Home where each person contributes to the whole. With more minds thinking commonly, advancements will accelerate.

Right now, our global consciousness is separated by greed and power but it could go two ways.
It could separate or it could unite.
It all depends upon how long we maintain our present disparity.