Explore The World
Is this a future you would want to live in? This is a featured application from our Youth section. See what our younger generations have to say about the future.
Timeline
A Day In the Life in 2045
Man-sing(Mason), China, 25
Hi everyone! My name is Man-sing, which means ten thousand successes in Mandarin, and that reflects the expectations of my parents. At the moment, I work as a lawyer at a renowned firm known as Dentons (Dacheng) in Beijing. My life took a lot of turns since 2022, while all days were not equal for me, on average, every day ended and ended interestingly. Nowadays, nerve sensory and heat sensory begin to play a big role in how to begin a day and end a day without even knowing how times changed with technological innovations. When I wake up on a typical day, my nerve-sensory system can sense my daily routine and wants and sends signals to the internet of things to make a coffee or open the blinds on the windows. I start the day at a regular time around 5:30 am. The first thing is getting up is to head to the bathroom, where automatons move around my hair to comb and fix it to the style I wanted, as programmed earlier I head to the bathroom to sit for 15 min while the automatons move around fixing my hair and brushing my teeth. Getting me ready for the day, although it’s pointless, considering that I don’t leave home, one can never neglect personal hygiene. Subsequently, I take my breakfast which most of the time is done through a hyper cooking machine, which again is programmed with a variety of food for the entire week. This machine cooks food within one second and one can make anything from it and I normally stock up the ingredients in the machine for a week so that I do not need to order my drone grocery delivery every day. Following breakfast, I occupy a workspace, which became a norm after a series of pandemics starting from COVID-19 in 2021. I resort to a nerve-gear machine as I start functioning in my office space. The concept of nerve gear is to bring the user into a virtually built world by connecting the cerebral cortex to a digital network and transferring data(which is embedded in their memories and thoughts) into a digitized world. The virtual world is the same as the real world except that the physical body does not move in here.
However, the actions experienced still transfer to your body such as eating, lack of sleep, or working out. Along with that the characters in this virtual world are based on your real-world appearance and cannot be modified. They said it’s to maintain authenticity so that identity theft will never be a problem. Work is still the same. I wake up each morning and I go for a run to build up kinetic energy to use for the day. Nowadays the time people start their day is early just so that they can create energy to store for the day. After I finish all my morning routine I attend to my firm’s virtual office, making my holographic presence at the virtual meeting table, where we hold meetings and seminars and wait for our clientele to show up. Most of the time, the cases I deal with pertain to issues against the state due to invasion of privacy. While dealing with all of these problems I still work in a 9-5 day job unless overtime is compensated. Nevertheless, the concept of nerve-gear eases life as I don’t go home, write a list of groceries, rush to market, and prepare food. All are taken by mere sensory instincts. This kind of routine induces a lot of fatigue and monotony in life and sometimes makes life so mechanical. This very thought of mine is often sensed by sensory gear and an array of options is projected on a wall which is activated automatically. I opted for the suggestion for me to log off from the virtual world and augmented reality and interact with nature without the aid of any technology. In all honesty, technology has taken over people’s minds and is surrounding us everywhere. Sometimes I realize that I can’t even walk two meters without seeing some sort of digital device prompting me for something or other. Consequently, I decided to keep working in a garden keeping technology at bay, which rejuvenates me mentally and keeps me sane. As I complete the chores again as programmed including the gardening, I prepare my dinner, which takes more time than the preparation of breakfast, roughly about 12 seconds. As my sleep pattern has been erratic due to mental pressure and technological fatigue, online medical bots diagnosed that I live with a syndrome called “stressunmanio”, which would require me to sleep in a cryofreeze environment to relegate my stressful thoughts and exhaustion due to excessive doses of technology. This environment automatically releases enough oxygen and helps the body produce ample melatonin. Before I realized it, the technology-driven by AI has taken over control of my life and I also understand that my life will be at stake if the present technological aids are taken away from me even for one day. I realize that we are no more leading independent lives rather have become subservient to machines, without even realizing that the machines with their programmed intelligence system are dominating our lives; thankfully they are yet to behave erratically and have their judgment, though predictions say that by the year 2100, machines ( mostly robotic ) may start behaving on their own because of mutation of programs and algorithms, and may also to claim their rights, including voting rights. Hopefully, I will not live that kind of doomsday unless the present research to extend human life to 150 years materializes, and with these thoughts, I am slowly nurtured to sleep by the cryo freeze machine.
Dhiraj, Dhiraj, 25
My name is Dhiraj and I live in New Delhi, India. Right now, at the age of 25, I work at a technology company specializing in AI software analysis. Crazy right, we are in the year 2045 and the existence of AI has already celebrated five years of its existence. Different AI applications were quite resourceful and helpful in advancing human society in these last five years. While my day in the year 2045 has been very influenced by AI and other technologies, the struggle continues at many levels. My typical day starts as I wake up at 5.30 am, precisely my windows amplify the rays of the sun to drive the urge in me to cuddle a bit on the bed. The AI-driven light amplification has replaced older-day digital alarm systems. My breakfast is delivered as I order the breakfast a night before I sleep through my AI helper known as Anya ( she is still a prototype). This saves me a lot of time as I am constantly hard-pressed despite so much advancement in technology. My physical presence at the office has been fluctuating as the policies of the government and private sector were not consistent. At the moment, my company insists that we attend the office thrice a week, which means that commuting still dominates my time during those days. India has become the most populous country, surpassing China 19 years back. As a result, there is still a lot of pressure on basic services like transportation and health. Though road network work has improved in India, especially in megapolis cities like New Delhi, the access to quality transportation services is governed by whether one is rich or poor. India now has multi-level lanes and traffic is monitored through AI-enabled monitors, which relay signals to my car, but come with a lot of tariffs for usage, which is beyond the reach of a middle-class person like me. Yet, I have no complaints when I hear the stories of earlier years’ traffic jams from my father. Once I arrive at work my car is taken by a conveyor belt and stored in the warehouse facility till I need to use it again, while the auto-driven cars of my bosses find their way to designated slots. The employees in my office are divided into four sections: generating ideas(GI), testing ideas(TI), creating the product(CP), and advertising and marketing(AM). I am in the TI group, where we take ideas that could be put to use and test them against a system to evolve prototypes and also identify flaws to suggest improvisation of the systems. Most of the time a project takes around three months on an average, which may seem short, however, keeping in mind that all of us work a 9 to 5 job, means we would have worked 728-736 hours on one project, which is far higher compared to many western nations. Though there is no notion of developed or developing countries as every year witnesses fluctuating economies. Especially after the depletion of oil and natural gas in many countries coupled with the high improvisation of alternative and renewable energy sources, the world economic balance has changed. Most of the Arabs, which were previously rich due to oil resources have been relegated to the status of middle-income countries with low GDP. Many people from Arab countries come to China and India in pursuit of work and many of my colleagues are from Iran and Iraq. The unemployment rate has drastically reduced in India like many countries heavily outsourced many functions related to AI, banking, and service sector since in a while, I am required to travel to the US and thankfully, high-speed supersonic hyper airplanes take only two hours to reach New York. I reach NY the same night and can return the next day after I complete my work with clients. However on a typical day, I am back from the office at around 6.30 pm and thanks to Anya who regulates the temperature of my rooms according to my requirement If I feel a lot of fatigue, Anya changes the temperature of the room to replicate the sauna atmosphere for me to perspire a bit followed by a cold shower. This keeps my skin supple and we have shunned most cosmetics. Sometimes I feel bored with the local cuisine and order food from other countries. , which is delivered in an hour or so. I order the food before I leave my office and it is ready by the time I reach home as Anya receives the food delivered by the food delivery bot. Bed as the best place has not changed over time but even became more comfortable as beds now can be adjusted to a particular temperature and softness. Though cryo-stasis chambers are available for the most comfortable sleep, the system is beyond my economic reach. There is a technological divide based on the economic affordability of people. The inequalities still exist but assume new forms of manifestation compared to the olden days. The new Universal Governance system which replaced the United Nations announced that such inequalities will be eliminated in the next 30 years. Hopefully!
Answers to prompts
Q. AGI has existed for at least five years but the world is not dystopian and humans are still alive! Given the risks of very high-powered AI systems, how has your world ensured that AGI has at least so far remained safe and controlled?
A. All Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been programmed to follow “Asimov’s Laws”. These are: “a robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm”, “a robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law” and “a robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws”. While AI have their own thought process, they are still machine driven algorithms without a multitude of options or solutions that can replicate the human brain or escape their core programming laws. There were concerns with the ambiguity of law 2, as the AI system may potentially have acted against the law under human orders. Therefore law 2 was revised to reflect this necessity: “A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law or when it is in jeopardy of breaking the law of the country they reside in or international law”. Along with that AI in specific sectors have been fitted with personalities to match the ideal personality of the sector. Following the discussion of programming personalities with this justification that the AI is now a being that cannot hurt human life forms, because they have been programmed to follow the limitations set by human beings. It has also been modeled to help assist humans without algorithms dominating human logic.
Q. The dynamics of an AI-filled world may depend a lot on how AI capability is distributed. In your world, is there one AI system that is substantially more powerful than all others, or a few such systems, or are there many top-tier AI systems of comparable capability? Or something else?
A. Much like the world of 2022 where most tech services were provided through corporate based companies, so too is AI in 2045. There is always (healthy) competition between the companies that gained notoriety as the pioneers of AI. The companies that specialize in AI are all very large entities since the creation of AI is by no means a cheap project. Due to their corporate nature each AI has its own feature indicating that it is from a certain company, i.e. logo, mold, voice or face. The AI products are comparable to the smartphones of 2022 which had regular updates and provided a model of AI functionality available at a cost. However, each system comes with its own limitations and capabilities ensuring existing AI systems are interdependent and no system is superior on its own.
Q. How has your world avoided major arms races and wars, regarding AI/AGI or otherwise?
A. In 2045 the delegations of nations or diplomats are composed of AI beings with humans as monitors. AI in specific sectors have been fitted with personalities to match the ideal personality of the sector. With their sophisticated skills and unlimited capacity to process vast amounts of data in complex, dynamically evolving systems they will naturally be able to come up with peaceful solutions thus eliminating the possibility of war. They must be impartial.The potential for exponential improvements in weaponry has grown from year to year. The parallel improvement in diplomatic science under AI guidance has meant that there is no demand. The arms industries of yesteryear have become financially unviable and unattractive to investors. accordingly the large accumulations of weaponry characterizing the early years of the 20th century have withered away. In 2045 the arms industry was largely restricted to producing light weapons for the use of the police. Along with the diplomatic sector, all legislative branches in the world are supported by AI assistants to help remind them of new guidelines in regards to avoiding war by all means possible, ensuring governments think twice before resorting to war.
Q. In the US, EU, and China, how and where is national decision-making power held, and how has the advent of advanced AI changed that?
A. In regards to solutions that affect the country as a whole humans still maintain the power in that aspect as they have the final say. However with the issue of identity being brought up in 2022, it is most likely that AI will be classified as sentient beings, this will give them the right to live which will then open up lanes to carry out many human activities, such as the right to vote. With that being said the division of national decision-making power seems to be balanced. AIs with their small margin of error thought process appeal to people, while human empathy creates the charm towards which they focus their energy. A balanced national decision-making power has emerged, humans still hold executive power while being constantly supported and corrected by AI.
Q. Is the global distribution of wealth (as measured say by national or international gini coefficients) more, or less, unequal than 2021’s, and by how much? How did it get that way? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gini_coefficient)
A. Globally the wealth margin has increased. Even with the expansion of innovation the concept of the wealthy remains rooted in human society and will be for a long time. This is because as the world becomes more wealthy and opportunities to produce wealth increase, the rich get richer by utilizing these opportunities, including AI, to their fullest potential. In regions such as North America (excluding US and Canada), South America and South and South-East Asia the Gini index coefficient is somewhere between 0.4 and 0.6 and this is because these countries are either EE’s (emerging economies) that have successfully emerged or are MEDC’s (more economically developed countries). These countries are heavily watchful towards their economy and the individuals here value food as a large fortune as they have just experienced what it is like to be wealthy. The wealthiest people in these regions have maintained their wealth because emerging economies create a difference in income between class and ambition. However regions such as East Asia, Middle East and Australia have a very low Gini coefficient estimated to be 0.15 to 0.3 because these countries have a culture that creates an atmosphere of equality, in addition AI technology helps to manage the economic state of the country. In comparison to 2022, the gaps between the countries have widened, however in contrast overall wealth and quality of life has improved considerably due to the implementation of AI management.
Q. What is a major problem that AI has solved in your world, and how did it do so?
A. AI has had multiple impacts in the world we live in. Starting with the issue of sustainability, human beings have been trying to solve this problem for generations upon generations. Thanks to the introduction of AI, humans now have an impartial strategist to solve this major problem. When people set out to plan a sustainable future they often take into account cost and self interest as well as the risks. AI does not take those factors into consideration and focuses solely on improving the infrastructure of the world to achieve the desired sustainability. Along with the issue of sustainability, AI has also helped secure the future of renewable energy with Kinetic Transformation Energy (KTE), storing kinetic energy produced by the body in a source box and then converting it into any form of energy required such as electrical or fuel. This has revolutionized the issue of energy, reducing dependence on fossil fuels and marginalizing environmental pollution.
Q. What is a new social institution that has played an important role in the development of your world?
A. With the world expanding faster than ever by 2045 the newest social institution would be technology. Technology has become a cornerstone in the world and an essential element of survival for everyone. Depending on how modern the technology is, will indicate how stable one is in terms of living. For example, the latest AI system has many supporting features that can be used to ensure safety such as a built-in home doctor, chef or call system to alert police. However if the technology is not up to date, many features will be excluded making an individual unable to join society and understand their daily lives. This in turn causes great discord amongst the masses, this is not ideal as the goal for every nation is to achieve world peace and this can cause a problem. That is why everyone is bound to be functionally tech-savvy and stay technologically up to date.
Q. What is a new non-AI technology that has played an important role in the development of your world?
A. Kinetic Transformation Energy (KTE). This is an energy in which a Foam Energy Absorber absorbs the kinetic energy a human produces and stores the energy in a “power box”, the energy is transferred from the power box to an appliance as required. KTE played an important role in reducing global warming to a net zero. As a result of this innovation many wonders lost to environmental decline began to resurface and new natural wonders formed as well. Reliance upon oil ceased, energy is now practically free as the way to recharge is to simply move your body, this encouraged people to be healthy as well which in turn lead to a decreasing trend of obesity, heart diseases (including coronary artery disease and heart attack), high blood pressure, high cholesterol, stroke, metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes, certain cancers (including colon, breast, and uterine cancers), osteoporosis and falls, feelings of depression and anxiety. Accordingly, the average life expectancy for the whole world has risen, creating a much happier and more positive environment for people to live in daily.
Q. What changes to the way countries govern the development, deployment and/or use of emerging technologies (including AI) played an important role in the development of your world?
A. The deployment of AI is in no way in the hands of the government. The government would utilize AI as a means to watch their citizens, since the law regarding AI has not been completed and adopted universally as of yet. Distribution of goods and services is handled by the corporations or third party distributors. Blockchains powered by AI are beginning to take over. Governments have little management of and reduced interference with AI products. It is the corporations or third parties (under delegated agreements) who manufacture the products and accordingly they have been given the right to distribute them. The corporations or agreed parties have an universal mandate for such deployment and use of emerging technologies. This has had a better economic impact than distribution by the state.
Q. Pick a sector of your choice (education, transport, energy, healthcare, tourism, aerospace, materials etc.) and describe how that sector was transformed by AI in your world.
A. AI thought processing power has facilitated the greatest improvements in areas of transport and energy in correlation. Focusing on transport, with the help of AI the emission rates of GHG (greenhouse gasses) has dropped to almost net zero. As a result of AI technology the speed of transportation has increased, as well thanks to the concept of the ultra super sonic train and hyperloops which travel faster than the speed of sound. The time of travel has drastically increased productivity while reducing energy consumption and with almost zero levels of pollution. Despite skepticism on China’s intentions, the world had no option but to adapt to these advancements to address the pressing issues for the human race and the globe. As a consequence, China’s influence has expanded as has its economy. These effects were repeated as alternative energy sources like solar, hydropower, wind, geothermal and kinetic based energy benefitted from innovations in storage and transmission. With these alternatives the world’s pollution fell, thereby creating a cleaner environment and allowing investments to now be diverted to other productive sectors.
Q. What is the life expectancy of the most wealthy 1% and of the least wealthy 20% of your world; how and why has this changed since 2021?
A. Global life expectancy has increased to the point where most people may look forward to living past their platinum jubilee (70 years). Despite this the gap between the poorest and richest in terms of life expectancy has not decreased but rather increased, showing a difference of about 20 years. Alongside that the concept of cryo-freeze, preservation, cell rejuvenation and artificial organs, which are costly interventions, gained popularity among the wealthy. These practices have distorted public records because, technically speaking, recipients of such treatments have not died, but at the same time they are not alive, or actively contributing to society. Hence the category that they are placed under remains ambiguous. In the final analysis no conclusive results have yet been achieved, making the experiment look like a failure. In one sense all such individuals are forever dead, adding many early deaths to the list. Some of the wealthy have lived beyond 125 years.
Q. In the US, considering the human rights enumerated in the UN declaration, which rights are better respected and which rights are worse respected in your world than in 2022? Why? How?
In one other country of your choice, which rights are better respected and which rights are worse respected in your world than in 2022? Why? How?
A. In the US the greatest focus in the years since 2022 has been on the rights of race and gender, as highlighted in article 1 and 2. Even in 2022 the issue of race was a very big topic in use especially with the “Black Lives Matter Movement” and the topic of “Pride March”. These have gained notoriety on the global stage and will likely be a very resounding issue in society for years to come. However, because of the introduction of AI, articles 11 and 9, which were neglected and due to this, the rate of false accusations has skyrocketed. With regards to China, the laws regarding marriage and procreation have always been a topic of debate and controversy. Nevertheless since 2022, article 16 which highlights the right to free marriage has been a key focus of the Chinese government, as they have expressed their intent to create a country that is free and for all, the focus was to create a world in which marriage does not require specification of requirements, but rather of one’s feeling towards the partner. However the same issues regarding article 18 and 19, which highlight freedom of expression, thought and speech, have been further disregarded to create an environment of restraint, which does not promote the goal of a country that is free and for all.
Q. What’s been a notable trend in the way that people are finding fulfillment?
A. Fulfillment is a process in which you achieve something that was desired or promised. In 2045 the world has taken to two forms of fulfillment, which have resulted in a dichotomy, one being to detox from technology while the other is to further deep dive into it. With the world evolving rapidly, the need for and usage of technology is exponentially increasing to a point which no one predicted: that being surrounded by technology all the time could also be a burden to the people. As a result most people are opting to detox from technology and live with and in harmony with nature and lead a life that is free of technological havoc. This is said to help clear their minds and achieve what is called the “modern day enlightenment”. However, the other form of fulfillment emanated with people getting immersed in technology, which eased their lives and simplified conducting business. This dichotomy existed from time immemorial and still continues, as when some argued Earth is flat and others tried to prove that Earth is round and both had their convictions and had their own sense of fulfillment.
Media Piece
Art Piece
The Team
Sai Ankit Venkumahanthi
Sai, is 16 years old from India, he is studying at NIST International School of Bangkok and will soon embark on the journey of the IB Diploma Program. He aspires to learn about economics and sports journalism, focusing on the linkages of behavioral science in sports. In parallel he is an athlete and passionate player of basketball, volleyball, Track and Field and any other physical activity that keeps him in shape.