The Future: Unnerving or Exciting?

The future can either be a very scary thing to think about, or it is very exciting. At times, I am not sure which side I am on because frankly there is a lot of both. At the pace that technology is advancing, we will be experiencing big changes in the not too distant future. Jobs will be affected in numerous drastic ways. But questions will be raised that we have never really had to deal with a whole lot until now. Like just because we CAN do something, does that mean we SHOULD?

Technology is both going to create jobs and take jobs. The entire job field in America is going to change in just a matter of time. Since drones are becoming more and more advanced, people with jobs such as delivery drivers, taxi drivers, and truck drivers are all in danger of being replaced by a drone or something similar to it. People that work on assembly lines are going to lose their jobs to robots as well. Farmers will be out of work due to self-driving machines and automation. Amazon now has stores that don’t require any cashiers because there is a chip on everything that is scanned as you leave the store. But technology will also create jobs for some. So what happens when the machines break, the drones malfunction, or the robots stop working? We are going to need people to work on the robots. Engineers, computer programmers, and technologically advanced people are going to be in very high demand. It’s definitely good news for all of us that are studying computers and technology. But, the drivers and workers in danger of losing their jobs either must adapt and learn these new skills, or be out of a job.

I like where Michio Kaku is going when he says we must allow innovation to flourish if we ever want big changes in the future. Kaku has many great ideas about what to expect in the future, but the truth is, nobody knows for sure. Everybody likes to try to predict the future, but that is near impossible to do. Kaku claims that invisibility will be available to us in the next decade. In another video of his, Kaku explores the idea of programmable matter. He talks about the idea of making a computer chip so small that it acts as an atom. So when these chips are put together you can program them to change the shape of whatever it is. So if you have a block of clay, you can click a button to change it into a beautiful pot, or a house, or even an entire city. Though this sounds completely out of this world, it is actually not too far away. Intel has actually been looking into it for quite some time now.

I am convinced that in the next 10 years, we will have drones that you can stand on and fly around like Green Goblin in the Spiderman movies. It’s going to happen, you just watch. I also am certain that we will have driverless cars very soon. There will be no need to own your own car when you can press a button and one appears at your house. Then you don’t have to waste time driving, but you can get work done while your car drives you to wherever your heart desires. The truth is that nobody knows what the future holds, but it sure is fun to try to guess.

We live in a world where we are always looking forward to the next thing. We are always trying to make our lives easier by inventing something new to help us in some way or another. I am a tech-head so all of this future talk really excites me. I can’t wait to see what humans invent next. But there is a fine line between something really cool that helps us, and something unnecessarily smart that will be dangerous if it gets out of hand. Though we may have the abilities to create some really cool stuff like artificial intelligence, we must not get caught up in it. We need to take a step back sometimes and really think of the long-term effects of our efforts. The future holds many exciting possibilities and I am very excited to see what breakthrough invention is next.