What do you see as being the next big advances in technology between now and 2030?

[Milchshake]

I'd say battery and solar technologies will continue to see big break through. There's just more market interest and accessibility to help push innovation.

Which will cause a social revolution of an unintended sort. Petro states will become massively unstable. More refugees from the Middle East and Russia.


So there will be plenty of fresh blood for the Peter Thiel Immortality Project!

[yetgdhfgh]

Sex bots!

Also, "cure for cancer" is a misnomer. There isn't a some kind of a single entity called "cancer". All cancers are very different, they are just called by the same name.

A cure for a​ cancer is a possibility, though.

I always thought cancer was just a single cell that has gone rogue so if we could work out how to never let a cell go rogue could that mean we found the cure to cancer or am i misunderstanding this?

[chazus]

These options are... hard to work with. I interpret the question as "What do I expect to come true" and not "What would I LIKE to happen"

Advancements in Stem cell research - This is already happening. So, I mean. I see this happening.

A cure for cancer or major treatment - I don't see this happening because cancer is an ongoing and changing thing. We'll be 'treating/curing' it 5 years from now, and 50 years from now.

The first man to step on mars - Wont happen. Our best, most fantastic estimates, with funding and political backing, is looking at mid 2030s for even ORBIT, let alone landing.

Advancement in genetics reversing aging - Already being worked on, so again, I wouldn't be surprised.

Cybernetic technology. (Part Man/Some Machine) - This here seems most reasonable. We already have muscle-machine systems in place, and we're starting to see neural research spinning up. So this is the most likely thing that isnt "already going" that is likely to occur soon

[Deleted]

Making Cells divide indefinitely IE eternal life

Personally I hope this. I'd like to see the end of the world just to see how far humanity can go. This comes from a person with a job that will never be replaced by machinery though so I know I'll be safe finances as long no war breaks out.

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I always thought cancer was just a single cell that has gone rogue so if we could work out how to never let a cell go rogue could that mean we found the cure to cancer or am i misunderstanding this?

Kinda, but the cause of said cell becoming cancerous is different for different kinds of cancers. I personally don't have high hopes for curing cancer, best you can hope for is that they will develop something better than beaming your entire immune system to oblivion.

[Skulltaker]

I always thought cancer was just a single cell that has gone rogue so if we could work out how to never let a cell go rogue could that mean we found the cure to cancer or am i misunderstanding this?

Cancer is usually used as a term to describe a malignant growth, a tumor. Not all tumors are bad. It's not a single cell, but a wrongly 'programmed' cell due to faulty or damaged DNA is a possibility. That's the kind of cancer you can get from radiation, for example. At one point, damaged cells will start to break off of the tumor, spread through the body, nest themselves in and start growing new tumors. That's why simply cutting it out often doesn't do the trick.

There are other forms from other causes, a great many of them, like foreign substances. Lung Cancer can, for example, develop from tiny particles damaging your lung, and the lung 'growing' over them.

And a universal cure for it is, at least from our current knowledge, impossible. There are some ideas, like using nanobots to 'patrol' the body, but that's all science fiction. Also, cancer is by far not anything new. Signs of it have been found on ancient skeletons. I always felt that it's somewhat older name was way more fitting - consumption.

[Zafire]

I think around 2030~, AI is going to become an integrated part of our lives. It's going to be everywhere, and you'll start seeing it in a lot of receptionist type jobs. It will be self-learning (Recognizing faces, for example), but it won't get to a level of self-awareness. You may start hearing about affordable housework-type robots around this time, but it won't be too widespread until later.

We may figure out how to "turn off" certain STD's like Herpes. A vaccine for HIV might be released. Cancer will still be killing people.

Solar power is going to be huge. Solar powered/Electric/Gas car hybrids will be affordable. You'll rarely need to spend gas if driving during the day unless going on a long commute. A lot of factories will switch over to solar power in an effort to save money and get on certain government certifications easier.

Socialism will start taking off, as people in this generation start getting unhealthy and realizing that medicine is overpriced. I think it will take until about 2030 for this to happen.

Marijuana will be legal for recreational use in all fifty states.

[vilememory]

Thought scanning devices to detect racist, sexist, or problematic thoughts as they are thought up, policing the minds of the people to prevent wrong think.

Automation of all low skilled service industry jobs, customers find that screaming and berating machines not as fulfilling as treating other humans as personal shopping slaves.

[Deleted]

Self-driving electric cars will revolutionize the way we move around the world. I'll still chalk this up as a technological advance under development since the tech will need to mature a lot to be able to have a public infrastructure that supports the dream of a driverless world.

[Charge me Doctor]

Improvements in energy storage definitely