Comment by mrwh | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mrwh | Hacker News Reader

Salt sensor (2009!): https://foodchannel.com/2009/salt-sensor-introduced-to-help-...

...so one of the predictions pretty much already existed, at least by the terms the author seems to be grading themselves (5/10?).

But then no one is good at predicting the future. So let's try.

Some predictions for 2032:

1. Smartphones are still ubiquitous and still look like black rectangles. They haven't been replaced by smart glasses or whatever.

2. Half the cars on the roads in the west are electric, and half of regular commutes are majority self-driving.

3. Self-driving taxis are a thing but barely profitable.

4. Actually profitable just-in-time grocery delivery services do, just about, exist.

5. Huge climate-change-related migrations of people. Politics gets even uglier.

6. Everyone is talking about conflict with China, and conflict between China and India. The leaders of China and India are the leaders we have in 2022.

7. London gains a couple more gaudy towers but otherwise look exactly the same. Ditto New York.

8. Popular music: pick a decade, it sounds like that. No music made in 2032 couldn't have been made in 2022 (or 2012).

9. There is no general AI, but a lot of people say that there is.

10. No human has been to Mars.

I'm going to put these in a Google calendar entry for 2023/05/07 - and hopefully get a laugh then.

I'm going to piggyback off this.

1. Smartphones are ubiquitous, some are foldable.

2. Half the cars on the roads in the west are electric. Of those, Tesla is not even in the top 5. Self-driving is just lane-assist and adaptive cruise control rebranded.

3. You still cannot get a self-driving taxi from any major international airport (more than one terminal) to your hotel at any hour during the day.

4. Just-in-time grocery delivery services exists at 3 national grocers (e.g.: Whole Foods, Walmart, Costco).

5. Mass migration due to sea level rise is still 2 decades away. China and India to bear the brunt.

6. China, having hit peak population in 2023, struggles to grow the economy. Exacerbated by the aging population, cracks in the CPC begin to form.

7. Texas almost surpasses California for most populous state.

8. Latin American influence due to shifting demographics results in many "firsts" for Spanish songs at the Grammys.

9. No general AI but one AAA game is made where the quests/dialogue/storyline/world are generated by AI according to player inputs. Game becomes #1 meme generator within a month of launch.

10. No human has been on Mars. People are pushing for 2035 mission as Earth and Mars are at its closest.

Curious about #3. 10 years is a long time for Cruise or Waymo to get to SFO. Any particular reason?

Partly disillusionment honestly! I was in a self-driving car six years ago and it all seemed imminent, and wasn't. Turns out getting the last 5% of the way there is much, much harder than hoped.

> 5. Mass migration due to sea level rise

Sea level rise is far from the only impact of climate change that will cause mass migrations. Droughts, floods, changes in growing season, changes in temperature, migration or death of fish populations are some other impacts.

Much of the war in Syria is blamed on a drought, for example. Parts of the world are starting to experience 50C temperatures.

11. Google Calendar still exists and you still use it

Hehe, yes. And let's add: my most stable address is still my Gmail one.

we all know that Google will have abandoned and replaced all of their services at least 3 times until than

Not a bad attempt.

And I know this is all just a bit silly fun, but I'd prefer such predictions to reflect a world view/philosophy of how one thinks society will be designed (same or different) in that future. Some of these are too niche to reflect this - e.g., that London/New York will look the same. That doesn't really say much. Much more interesting would be some ideas about urban centers more broadly rather than cherry picking 2 which have already been relatively stagnant for a while.

And some are just not specific enough such that I'm actually confused. e.g., what does it mean to say that the leader of India in 2032 will be the same as in 2022. Do you literally mean that Modi will be India's PM? While India doesn't have a term limit for the PM, Modi will be ~82 in 2032. Or do you mean that the BJP party will still be in power? If so, do you mean that a RSS member of the BJP will be in power or a non-RSS member? Will the BJP be in power with a relative majority like it currently is, or with a particularly large coalition like in say the early '00s under Vajpayee (when the BJP won less than 24% of the vote but formed a coalition of 13 parties, as opposed to right now where the BJP has over 50% of the seats alone). The answers to these mean _very_ different things about India's direction come 2032.

I do mean Modi. Just my uninformed guess of course, and Xi is a surer bet on the China side. 2030s are going to be a gerontocracy for much of the world. (I rather hope to be wrong on this!)

Yes, fair. And I actually agree with you. But if on a technicality Modi isn't in power in 2032 and say Yogi Adityanath or someone is, I'd still treat your prediction as a correct one!

I'll agree with all of these except maybe number 10... with a caveat. They won't have been there, no. But the mission is setting up the groundwork. They will be sending the modules, support systems and return craft necessary for such a system to work. The shortest flight time (six months I think) only comes around every two years or so (26 months, technically).

I would add that while self-driving cars are going to still be rather limited, self-driving trucks are going to be a normal view on highways, often in convoys with one human driver team and a bunch of autonomous followers. In cities, or near terminals, local human drivers will board and take over.

This will change what does it mean to be a trucker a lot.

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