Futurist Ray Kurzweil likes to make predictions about technology. Indeed, he’s been making them since 1963 and has amassed a following in the millions. In his 2005 book The Singularity Is Near, he predicted that by 2045, machines would become as smart as humans. Due to advancing technology, he’s moved the expected arrival date up to as soon as 2029.
When, or if, machine intelligence eventually does surpass human intelligence, it will trigger rapid and unprecedented progress in all fields. But whether or not we reach the Singularity, as Kurzweil describes, it’s clear that the rapid advance of generative AI, and the imminent arrival of artificial general intelligence, will continue to be major forces of disruption headed to 2035.
As futurist Langdon Morris points out in Hello, Future: The World in 2035, AI is a driving force of change and disruption, but the unanswered question is: will it also be a destructive force, killing jobs by the millions and forcing society into some tough choices?
Indeed, AI is already fomenting profound and unprecedented changes across human civilization, as the benefits and threats from this technology spool out daily. On the productivity side, AI is answering emails, setting up meetings, and making travel plans. It recognizes images, translates languages, transcribes speech, and plays games like chess and Go at the highest levels of proficiency.
More significantly, important scientific and medical breakthroughs are already being developed using AI, and more exciting breakthroughs are just around the corner. So are 3D-printed houses and clothing, Waymo’s autonomous vehicles are spreading from Phoenix and San Francisco to Austin and other cities, all powered by AI capabilities.
And soon we may have digital companions, coaches, motivators and task-mastering robots that will accompany us everywhere. “These are advanced AI agents designed to replicate and emulate our unique decision-making processes,” notes futurist Amy Webb in a Wall Street Journal roundup of futurist perspectives on AI in 2030.
But some futurists, myself included, are wary on a lot of fronts. McKinsey estimates that 30 percent of the world’s workforce could lose their jobs to AI within a decade, as many as 400 to 800 million people, possibly a worst-case scenario whose negative consequences would be immense. I’m also concerned about the dehumanizing power of AI, as it has the potential to undermine (or possibly overwhelm) the complexity and dignity of human consciousness while it also exacerbates societal inequalities, compromises individual autonomy, and erodes moral and spiritual values.
We already know that AI systems, driven by large language models and recommendation algorithms, can manipulate human behavior on a massive scale. It’s used to affect public opinion, spread misinformation, and even nudge people toward destructive and self-destructive actions, all without their awareness that machines are influencing their behaviors.
As AI systems become more advanced, they will have the capacity to exert even greater control over our choices, reducing human agency and potentially undermining the democratic process. Perhaps this is why historian Yuval Noah Harari suggests that we’re at the end of human history. “Not the end of history,” he emphasized in a recent interview with The Economist, “but the end of human history, as control is shifting to non-humans.”
As AI has come to dominate discussion around shaping the future, some futurists sense that no one in the conversation is talking about the simultaneous revolutions now occurring – in science, economics, climate, energy, demographics, geopolitics, politics, and culture and their vitally important impacts on what life will be like in 2035.
“It isn’t just AI that we should be concerned about,” notes Morris, in a recent Navigating the Future interview. “During the next ten years, the world will go through numerous massive and highly unsettling shifts that will affect every aspect of society. The global economy will be transformed, radical new technologies will be disrupted, and the damage caused by climate change will worsen. The geopolitical situation will continue to be turbulent, with war and the threat of war. And politics everywhere will continue to be highly polarized. The significance of this can hardly be overstated, because just about everything is unchanging.”
Morris sees signals all around that suggest people are at the end of their tolerance of the pace of change today, much less tomorrow, when futurists suggest there will be more change over the next decade alone than during the prior 100 years. “The whole MAGA movement is essentially an expression of millions of people who are experiencing anxiety because of too much change. “They’re afraid, they’re angry, they’re upset, they want to go back to how it was 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago. The symptoms that Alvin Toffler describes in his 1970 book, Future Shock are what we’re living out in a very public way in society today.”
He noted that while AI has come to dominate so many discussions around the shape of the future, he suggests that we need to engage in a much broader conversation. “It isn’t just AI that we should be concerned about,” he advises. “During the next ten years, the world will go through numerous massive and highly unsettling shifts that will affect every aspect of society. The global economy is being completely transformed, and the damage caused by climate change will worsen. As a consequence of the climate, we’ve already begun shifting the global energy system.”
In his book Morris examines the social consequences of all this change, and observes that many people have already reached the limits of their tolerance for today’s pace of change, much less tomorrow’s. And yet we know that there will be more change over the next decade than during the prior 100 years.
“The whole MAGA movement is essentially an expression of millions of people who are experiencing anxiety because of too much change. They’re afraid, they’re angry, they’re upset, they want to go back to how it was 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago. The symptoms that Alvin Toffler describes in his 1970 book, Future Shock are what we’re living out in a very public way in society today.”
But change is not going to slow down so we can catch up. “How organizations operate, the course of industries, and even the very social structures of nations and regions are being, and will continue to be altered,” Morris observes. “Looked at from a global perspective, geopolitics, politics, the climate, regional wars, the state of the human population, continuing urbanization, and the transformation of the global economy are all critically important, and just as fundamental as technology.”
As an organizational futurist, Morris works at the highest levels to help companies prepare for the different world of tomorrow. He helped France-based oil company Total to understand the future of the energy industry, which soon led to major shifts in corporate strategy. The company even renamed itself “Total Energies” to reflect the eventual decline of the oil business and the shift to alternative fuel sources. He has also led similar projects for the US Coast Guard, L’Oréal, Kaiser Permanente, and India’s leading corporation, Reliance, among others.
And how does he work with clients to help them prepare when so much about the future is uncertain?
“You need a clear strategy, and the ability to pivot when conditions change, which they undoubtedly will,” he responds. “You need to plan investments, develop your staff, create innovations, grow your markets, and adapt to change. And doing all this well, of course, requires attention to developing strategic foresight.” All this change is coming fast, and you need to be prepared.” And so he asks the pressing question, “Are you ready? And is your team ready?”
And as we do so, we must not become distracted by technology and lulled into thinking that when and if the Singularity arrives, it will bring abundance and heightened intelligence. As Morris points out, if we delegate clear thinking and judgment and decision making to technology, we’re most likely not going to be happy with how things turn out.
“As inhabitants of this modern era, we should think about the unique place to which we have arrived. Now that human activity achieves impact on a global scale, there is great value and significant importance to thinking about the future. Human actions are responsible for what happens in and to society, and now to an increasing degree what happens to the Earth. Thus, we understand that today’s choices influence not only what happens to us, but also what happens to Us.”