What technological advancements and inventions do you expect in the next 30 years?

Widespread usage of nano bots, in health care.
AR contact lenses.

Great Question… I’m hoping for fusion to finally arrive but who knows… so I’ll say
human microchipping and bio hacks.

Fusion for electric power.

Hydrogen powered airliners.

VR so realistic people won’t care if they live in what we will call base reality. What we know as the “real world” will be the equivalent of a boiler room that supports the rest of the building. Hopefully not a dystopian nightmare like many will think. We’ll be able to live more sustainably.

There will be more interaction with robots, but I do not believe that the Singularity will take place as soon as Kurzweil does. It will take an additional 50 years.

Gene editing will be huge. We’ve passed the very early days of this and the tech will start to become much more mature. It will create interesting/worrying dilemmas.

Additive manufacturing will be transformative for how things are designed, built assembled, stored and shipped.

Robots are coming and will replace many low-skill jobs (e.g. “pickers” in places like Amazon warehouses).

Deep learning AI will continue to impress, but I don’t foresee an actual, self-aware artificial intelligence.

I’m hoping to see significant advancements/discoveries in green energy production/storage/distribution and the electrification of the transportation sector.

It’ll be interesting to read this in 30 years (assuming we’re around in 30 years) to see how our predictions turn out.

If we can think of them today (2022) then they are already on the horizon.

It’s impossible to guess what technologies (that don’t exist today) will be invented in the next 30 years.

Science has been talking about curing cancer and flying cars and teleportation and exploring the cosmos for 50+ years and none of that has happened yet…

@gorillapaws That robot revolution is going to be huge, and it’s right around the corner. I feel like it’s going to take most people completely by surprise.

@Blackwater_Park For sure. They’re already being used in high risk tasks such as patrolling hazardous facilities in set paths monitoring for things like gas leaks, or temperature spikes outside of predetermined limits. When you depreciate the cost over a 5-year lifespan they’re already cost efficient for many tasks. Battery life will remain a challenge, but should benefit from the explosive growth in battery research for EVs and consumer electronics.

I’m much less concerned about which advances in technology we have in store. It’s the decisions on their applications and deployment which are crucial. As the fella asked “Are we headed toward Star Wars or the Matrix?”

Artificial intelligence and machine learning will make a lot of human workers unnecessary, including current knowledge workers like lawyers and writers.

Not all lawyers and all writers, but lots of them.

Unlike multiple others, I do NOT think Fusion will be commercially viable in 30 years. Quite frankly, if we even get a LAB experiment with a Q ration over 1 in 30 years, I’ll consider us ahead of schedule. Don’t get me wrong, fusion is the future of energy…but it’s still the distant future.

1) Organ Printing – We’ve been doing this in labs, and I think within the next 30y, we’ll be doing it on a regular basis, greatly extending lifespans.

2) AI – There’s going to be an explosion in AI applications that will make things more efficient. I think some people overstate how DEEP AI will penetrate certain jobs, but it will definitely be a huge labor saver.

3) Self-driving cars – We’re not as close to this as the marketing material says…but 30y is a long time. I think we’ll have realistic self-driving cars by then, and we’ll start seeing ride-hailing apps with fleets of cars making the need for anyone to own their own virtually nil in population dense areas.

4) Full-on cure for cancer – For decades we misunderstood the cancer problem, but in the last decade we’ve made huge strides and now we’re starting to see how to dial the body’s immune system to attack cancerous cells while leaving healthy ones alone. Watch for most cancers to be ‘cured’ within the next 30y.

5) Micro-fission – I don’t think Wind & Solar are realistic answers to providing the main source of power in an economy. Too erratic, not energy dense enough, to reliant on rare earth elements in massive quantities. As I said above, i think fusion won’t happen fast enough. To bridge the gap, I think mini-reactors that can be mass produced and bring economy of scale to fission power (not to mention increased safety and efficiency thanks to next generation designs…most nuclear plants right now are using the same design from the 1950s). I think these micro-fission reactors will be the perfect bridge between using LNG to lower emissions now, and the long term of fusion. It will take the politicians awhile to come around, but as W&S become majority players in some energy economies, expect some very high profile blackout and brownout problems that will change their minds.

@Entropy, the micro nukes are called SMRs or “small modular reactors” they’re cheaper, built underground and fueled for life. Ground is already breaking for them in places.

Skin tight flexible spacesuits.

Thanks for the answers