Wild Economic Game Changers for the Next Decade
Happy New Year. Welcome to 2010.
The next decade promises to be the most revolutionary period in our history.
Researchers and scientists believe that the theory and technology is already there to make technological leaps in energy, medicine, computing and communications. And they should know. They’ve seen behind the screen that separates the laboratory and the marketplace.
The technology and the theory are already in place. The last decade included some of the biggest laboratory breakthroughs ever. These are called transformative technologies.
Once these innovations filter from the labs into the marketplace, they’ll change–if not revolutionize–the economy.
Based on the work of some great bloggers, like Next Big Future, Future Current, Singularity Hub, Kurzweil AI, and Future Pundit, here are some exciting ideas that are poised to make dramatic changes to our world in the next decade.
Energy
Superconducting wire
Most of our energy never even gets to the home or business. Superconducting wire can increase this efficiency. (Although it will have some competition from non-distributive types of power.)
Fusion-Fission energy
According to the Next Big Future, fusion-fission hybrid power may be an intermediate step before tapping the efficiencies locked away in pure fusion energy. Magneto inertial fusion energy is another possibility.
Glitter-sized Photovoltaics
Scientists from the Sandia National Laboratories are developing solar cells the size of glitter flecks that can produce 100 times the energy of normal silicon-based cells.
Digital Quantum Batteries
Digital quantum batteries, which uses nanocapacitors to tap into the potential of quantum effects, could exceed the power of lithium batteries, according to a post from Future Pundit. That could make things like an electric car more feasible.
Technology
Super-super computers
Computers are still no match for the human mind. Expect that preeminence to be challenged in this decade.
AGI
The preeminence to the human mind may be challenged not just by supercomputers, but by AGI, artificial general intelligence.
Crash-free computing
Bug-free codes and crash-free computers are also on the way.
Semantic Web
The ability for the web to be intelligent hasn’t even been tapped. (For anyone whose spent some time perusing Youtube videos, this comes as no surprise.)
Medical
Stem cell therapy
Stem cell therapy is poised to reach the market in this decade. According to Singularity Hub, the effects are already moving out of the lab and into the hospitals and clinics.
Increased Longevity
As long as resources increase (and they will), the economy will benefit from healthier people. Medical science is paving the way for increased longevity. SENS, which stands for “Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence,” are medical techniques that can restore youthful molecular and cellular structure to aged tissues and organs. Longevity could increase 300 percent from SENS alone. You can read about it here.
is one of my favorite financial books of all time. It's an allegory about a guy who has a terrible job, and how he overcomes challenges to achieve his dreams.
Thanks for a great post and predictions. There is way too much doom and gloom related to financial issues and I see a lot of opportunity.
I foresee this decade as the beginning of an energy revolution, where people take control of their own energy resources. Once enrgy monopolies are broken, we will no longer be subjected to extorsion and price manipulation. Local generation and storage will be the key. Two exisitng technologies may allow this to finally happen.
Boeing has developed a solar panel for satelites, that triples the energy efficieny by splitting the light spectrum with prisms. This technology is widely used in fiber optics to increase bandwith. And, a professor at MIT has developed an energy storage device, based on photosynthisis. It works similar to a fuel cell, but it can be produced cheaply, with non-caustic chemicals.
Here is to a brighter future.
Thanks for you comments and those additional game-changers.
I agree 100 percent. The more I researched this post, the more I realized how close we are to moving from the age of scarcity to the age of prosperity. There are no guarantees and there will be bumps along the road, but I’m optimistic that we’re up to the challenges.