Do you know what the future world will look like in 2050? Today, I will give you an inventory of the ten scientific and technological advances that are most likely to be achieved in 2050. 5 of them, and the remaining 5 will be inventoried for you in the next issue.
The first is the superbrain. By 2050, the world's first general-purpose artificial intelligence will be the superbrain that often appears in science fiction movies. It will have conscious creativity, strategic thinking, emotional cause and effect, reasoning common sense, counterfactual thinking, and awareness. This is a super artificial intelligence that is self-aware and has a strong ability to learn. Smarter than all humans on Earth, it can help humanity solve many problems that were previously thought impossible.
Of course, its birth will continue to be questioned and opposed, triggering fierce discussions in human society.
The second is the entry of bionic robots into the home. These bionic robots are extremely realistic in appearance, with facial expressions, body language, and emotional feedback, and will become more natural as the product is iteratively upgraded. Their price is roughly similar to that of an economy sedan. Its functions include cleaning, cooking, tidying up the house, and taking care of the elderly and children.
The third is the rise of smart cities. By 2050, a truly smart city will emerge. Everything in these smart cities is connected to a central network that tracks and counts all the information in the city, including the number of vehicles, road implementation data, weather emergencies, and more. Optimize redistribution and traffic will no longer be congested. The distance between autonomous vehicles is only 20 centimeters, but intersections can pass at almost full speed, and the traffic efficiency is extremely high.
The fourth is that brain-computer interfaces should be popularized. By 2050, brain-computer interfaces will be widely used in daily life, with VR headsets and a wealth of accessories, these devices will send some visual, auditory and tactile radio waves to the brain through neural interfaces, and the experience produced is almost indistinguishable from reality. And as game engines and world-building software advance, games will become more and more realistic. MPC and live players will be indistinguishable, and this gaming experience will also be disruptive.
The fifth is the space elevator. By 2050, the first space elevator will be built, and China will be the only country in the world capable of building a space elevator, which will be the largest engineering project in human history. Located near Earth's equator, the space elevator relies on the tension of centrifugal force to support the cable, and the material used to make the cable is carbon nanotubes, which are hundreds of times lighter in weight and hundreds of times stronger than steel. The cost of using space elevators to transport is less than one percent of that of rockets, which can greatly provide space transportation efficiency and accelerate the pace of human exploration of space.
