In 2100 humanity will exist on software

· Software in the year 2100

Software will fill every basic human need. What will be left? Art and entertainment.

In the year 21001, humanity will exist on software2. I mean that literally.

Don't believe me? Find a basic human need that will not be eventually filled by software. Feel free to take a moment.

...Anything?

...Do you need more time?

...Hello?

I thought so. I elaborate.

Mining whatever is left of our natural resources will be done by autonomous machines3. When I say mining, this includes, of course: prospecting, digging, extraction, refining and site reclamation. Yes, also asteroid mining. Pay attention!

Our food will be produced on fully automated farms4. Grain, fruit and vegetables will be planted, grown and harvested by machines. Because, why not? Machines, on their own, will be making wine, orange juice, cookies, ketchup and specialty fruit flavoured kefirs.

Machines will be picking out the ingredients and cooking our meals.

If we continue to stay hooked on our crazy meat diet, billions of livestock animals and poultry5 will live short awful, automated lives and die gruesome, automated deaths.

Getting from point A to point B will be fully automated6, whether by ground, water or air. I guess we'll still have walking, swimming, and riding a bike.

Anything we will think we may need will be manufactured by machines7 and assembled, if necessary, by other machines from templates (template as another term for software). I guess that means hardware will end up being software.

What about machines? Autonomous machines will be building machines (Yes: Star Wars8). Cheap labour humans will not be assembling machines (No: Elysium9).

The building, finishing and demolition of any permanent or temporary structure where we may want to live, spend time in, or simply enjoy will be done by machines.

The generation, distribution and storage of energy will be completely automated.

Justice will be delivered and overseen by machines. Hopefully10, with some say by humans.

What else...

If you think seriously about it, you will probably reach the same conclusion. The only human activities that will not be fully divested to our binary logic friends will be:

  1. Art
  2. Entertainment

In 2100, you probably still may:

Oh, and by 2100 entertainment and art will probably mean the same thing.

Humanity will exist on software and machines. Clearly all machines will be running some sort of software. I rest my case ∎  

If you disagree, want to improve this post or have someting else to say, please don't hold back! Drop me a line, write a comment on HackerNews, or post a considered, biting rebuttal in your own blog :).

Cheers!

profile Manuel Z

  1. I picked 2100 because it's such a nice round number and 2100.fun is still available. It will probably happen much earlier. ↩︎

  2. The category of "software" obviously includes the more worthy descendents of the baffling multitude of time and energy wasting stuff we now hillariously call "Artificial Intelligence". ↩︎

  3. China seems to be taking mining automation very seriously. Check out this story and internalize the quote: "No person working underground. That is our ultimate goal". ↩︎

  4. Automated crop quality evaluation and fruit picking are totally a thing. High-cuteness-factor strawberry-picking robots are coming! ↩︎

  5. Review about the state of the art in poultry farming. Imagine 75 years from now. ↩︎

  6. I will not bore you with links about self-driving cars, self-landing planes or references for this or anything else further in this post. ↩︎

  7. Minority report: "Car factory" (a very enjoyable video). ↩︎

  8. Star Wars: "Machines making machines! How perverse." (video). ↩︎

  9. Elysium: "Robot factory" (video). Opinion: cheap human labour would be less reliable and more expensive than a fully autonomous factory. ↩︎

  10. Elysium: "Hair products" (video). ↩︎

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