Imagine printing out your next meal or wearing contact lenses that know your thoughts and feelings.1,2
What if your house could learn about you … and then anticipate your needs?3
Mind-blowing inventions like these could be just around the corner. And they’re not even the wildest things that we may see by 2050.
Advancements in artificial intelligence (AI), virtual reality, and nanotechnology are putting the unbelievable on the horizon.
This could change life as we know it in the not-so-distant future.4
In fact, everything from our mundane routines to our fanciest gadgets may soon be obsolete. If that happens, we could have new and totally different ways of experiencing life.
We could also have far better ways of improving it.
So, what’s the stuff of science fiction and what could really happen?
There’s no way to know for sure, but we do have some clues about what may lie ahead.
Let’s check them out and see how they could change our lives by 2050.
“When we’re able to stay flexible… we’ll be able to adapt and make the most out of whatever the future throws our way.”
Why Flexibility Is Smarter than Trying to Predict the Future
Innovation promises to alter life in some amazing and drastic ways over the next few decades.
Technology is clearly getting more and more integrated into our lives, and that could make some things easier and others more complicated. It may even force us to deal with new, complex issues and challenges we never saw coming.
That may be one reason why about 2 in 3 people aren’t optimistic for the future.24
And why we can’t help but worry about the uncertainty of it all.25
Even though there’s a lot we don’t know, we do know that innovation can make life better.
Things were never the same after some of the biggest inventions of the last few decades — like the internet and smartphones. And we really don’t even think twice about those things today (unless they aren’t working).26, 27
We also know that technology and time can change our beliefs and values.28
We just aren’t very good at predicting how — we usually underestimate it.
In fact, even though most of us admit we have changed in the past 10 or 20 years, we still think we’ll stay pretty much the same when we look forward a decade or two.29
That can make it difficult to plan ahead by ourselves. And it can create problems for those who refuse to adapt.
When we’re able to stay flexible and adjust our plans as things change, it doesn’t really matter if predictions miss the mark or the future brings something we never saw coming. We’ll be ready, and we’ll be able to adapt and make the most out of whatever the future throws our way.