Immortals and C3-PO: The world of 2050?

Computer models have predicted today that by 2050, climate change will have wreaked huge change on our planet - with the tropics hit hardest.

As ever, scientists and politicians have been sharply divided on the paper  - and the public have heard many such predictions of doomsday before.

But the world of 2050 might not be defined by swirling seas and submerged cities, says Dr Ian Pearson, author of Total Sustainability - nor will it be a techno-Utopia.

Instead, “Black Box” firms where all the workers, from managers on down, are robots, will create a life of ease - for some - while others live in poverty. Improved manufacturing techniques will lower Man’s ecological footprint even as demand for goods such as robots rises.


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Domestic servant robots will resemble droids such as C3-P0 - not because technology has advanced, but simply because we want them to. And instead of smartphones, we’ll carry tiny jewels with all our information inside.

The divide between rich and poor may even have narrowed - and other exotic novelties such as robot prostitutes might spring up to entertain us.

Others believe that by this point humans will be immortal - or that terrible war will have torn the century apart, with America “falling from power” by 2035.

“It will be a mix of good and bad,” says Pearson, a “futurologist” who consults for Hollywood films, “Technology will change things so that our demands fall. Today, we carry a smartphone which can carry out work you’d have needed a tonne of equipment for in the Nineties.

“By 2050, we’ll wear jewellery which does the same. Our demands will fall - and we’ll be able to make devices with less material.”

“Yelling about eco-apocalypse from the rooftops is bananas - we have problems, but we won’t solve them by howling about doom and gloom.”

Futurist Ray Kurzweil predicts that by 2050, man and machine may have “merged” - with humans augmented with robot parts, giving them superhuman intelligence.

"We ultimately will merge with this technology,” said Kurzweil, “It's already very close to us. What now fits in our pockets would fit in a blood cell in 25 years.”

Pearson predicts a more modest version - where robots are common, but artificial "intelligence" is still limited.

By 2050, robots - the walking, talking sort we understand from films such as Star Wars - will be real. The Robo-Cup - held each year - believes that humanoid robots will “beat” human teams by 2050.

Pearson says that domestic servants and bartenders - similar to C3-PO and R2-D2 - might be common - simply because the public demand robots that look like them.

“Your dishwasher is a robot,” says Pearson, “But you don’t think of it like that. By 2050, we’ll see a “convergence” of nanotech, smart machines and smarter materials that will allow “robots” to assume other roles.”

In their paper ‘Robots, men and sex tourism’ Ian Yeoman and Michelle Mars of the University of Victoria Management School in Wellington, New Zealand, say that robot prostitutes will be common - but expensive.

They imagine Amsterdam brothels offering, “a range of sexual gods and goddesses of different ethnicities, body shapes, ages, languages and sexual features.”

By 2025, variations of Europe’s Tanaris drone will be able to carry out missions entirely unaided by humans, flying for up to 36 hours with radio “off” - although human rights organisations are already fighting against the idea of machines which can decide to kill.

New jet technologies may permit flights from London to Sydney within 90 minutes - and others predict jets flying “in formation” to save fuel.

By 2050, 3D printers will be able to “print out” entire planes, Airbus has predicted - and ordinary people may be able to create clothes and other objects at will.

But Pearson says that grim visions of the future such as this year’s Elysium - where the rich “watch” a ruined Earth from a paradise-like space station - may be a distortion of the facts.

“Robotics and 3D printing will allow for companies to automate more - managers will think, “Do I upskill this person, or make redundancies?” says Pearson.


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But Pearson believes that while robots and other technologies may “take” manufacturing jobs, the world will find a balance.

“A Black Box economy, where everything is automated, and there are no human employeees, and all the money goes to the rich cannot work,” says Pearson. “Who buys the products? Those companies have to have a society around them, and distribution.

“ In my book, I suggest a “knowledge tax” to even things out - but I also don’t think we’ll all be reading on the beach while robots do the work.”

Others, of course, predict war.

Jacques Attali, a writer who predicted the financial crash in 2006 - predicts that by 2050, one long-running “empire” will have fallen.

 "After a very long struggle and in the midst of a serious ecological crisis, the still dominant empire- the United States- will finally be defeated around 2035,” writes Attali.

Cambridge scientist Aubrey de Grey believes that the first human beings who will live to 1,000 years old have already been born.

Ageing is a disease, suggests de Grey - and can be cured. His theories are based on the idea that treatments that extend lives will speed up, so that eventually they match the speed at which we age.

 “Life expectancy is growing by wo years per decade at the moment,” says de Grey. “But it will be one year per year”.


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By 2050, “wearable computing” will have taken off - whether in the form of rings, or watches, or glasses, but there may have been a consumer fightback against the all-seeing devices.

“In the future world, you’ll be watched 24-7 - by people with Google Glass, or its successors, or by your TV,” says Pearson. “Those thiings are happening now - trying to sell you adverts based on your emotions. To me, that’s a nightmare world.”

Privacy will, he predicts, become a key issue, as we surrender more and more information to machines - and let them make decisions for me.

“Privacy is already on its last legs,” says Pearson, “But I think many people may draw the line at machines whiich make decisions for them.”