What 2050 will be like: the world in the future

The World in 2050

Let’s time travel to estimate how will the world be in 2050, based on current scientific forecasts.. Assuming of course that climate change has not killed the planet.

Demographics,
It’s expected that 9.8 billion people will be living on Earth, and the number will keep growing.The average fertility rate will decrease to 2.2 births per woman, but people will live longer. In general, the age population pyramid will be uniform, but in developed countries like Japan, China or the UK, the pyramid will be inverted.

Artificial Intelligence
AI will have a leading role in our society, taking over dangerous jobs like bomb defusing or dealing with hazardous chemicals. Also, it will contribute with information about stock markets and increase their influence in marketing studies, even more than it already does today. Have you seen “Her”? Well, AI will bring us personal assistants “Samantha”, just try not fall in love, ok?

Spoiler Alert.


Transportation
Transportation systems are likely going to change completely. With a billion light-duty vehicles on the roads and some of them self driven. Flying cars in our streets? Yes, but sadly, their safety concerns are probably not going to make them widely available yet. Systems like Hyperloop will be a pretty standard form of transportation.

It’s likely that we’ll be able to ride in a hypersonic jet, high in the atmosphere by 2040. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office approved a patent for an Airbus that could transport you from London to New York in just one hour.

World Economies
It’s likely that the world largest economy will be China, their annual GDP growth rate has been decreasing, but their population has not, (expected to be 1.3 Billion 2050), reaching a peak in 2030. Shanghai and Beijing will continue to be the largest cities in the country, and their efforts on renewable energies, are seeming to pay off.

India will be the crowdest country in the world and the second leading economy; the US will be the third one, with a relatively low population and the slow annual GDP growth. Surprisingly, Indonesia is expected to be the fourth economy of the world thanks for the long-term structural reforms to their system in the last few years.

SOCIAL NETWORKS
It’s not easy to predict how Social Media will work, companies like Facebook, which was founded almost 15 years ago, have changed a lot and it continues to do so, but our research revealed some non-profit organizations fighting the lack of privacy in social media. Also, the struggle against fake news will likely, still be a thing. It could sound harsh, but social media could be a war zone in the future, sort of like it is today.

HEALTHCARE
And what about our health? New technologies will bring us new diseases, most of them stress-related. But new tech will also bring us new ways to deal with them, thanks to the radiology advances; there we will develop a multi-functional machine, like the one on Elysium, which will be able to detect plenty of medical conditions, biomarkers, and symptoms at once.

We already have some technology along those lines, like the iKnife, which works as a scanner knife for the body chemical composition, and can help detect tumors.

3D printing will help us to build badass and realistic prosthetics. Database and neurological advances will allow us to upload our minds to a computer… yeap! Immortality as you never imagined it, unless you’ve been watching Black Mirror.

Do you want a pill bottle turning blue when it’s time to medicate? In 2050 you will have it, same as microchips inside pills, which will send your health info to a computer.

And remember this word: CRISPR. A new technology that is already allowing us to edit human DNA.. this means altering people’s DNA to get rid of diseases like cancer, forever.

ENVIRONMENT
And what about the planet? All of those advances need a planet where they can be developed, and this is something we should talk about.

It’s expected that the ice caps will keep melting, and the planet average temperature will keep increasing. That will speed up the water cycle and for that reason, it will rain more and the sky might be cloudy most of the time.

Also, the pH level of the oceans will change, and the CO2 levels will rise, which will cause significant problems for ocean wildlife.


Effects like thee will bring consequences, like climate refugees, for example, people affected droughts will migrate to healthier places. Also, seaside cities like Miami, The Hague, Osaka or Rio de Janeiro will be changed drastically with rising sea levels.

Buildings and architecture will be forced to change too, many new structures will need a higher first floor.

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Here at Explainosphere, we like explaining things. As curious and eccentric as they may seem, we believe there is always someone, somewhere, trying to figure out how things work.

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