What kind of technology will be available in a million years from now?

[Uri Zlatnik]

What kind of technology will be available in a million years from now? Is the world going to be a better place in a million years from today?

Will it be possible to solve chess or have completely self-driving cars and self-driving trucks in a million years from now?

 

[fresh_42]

What kind of technology will be available in a million years from now? Is the world going to be a better place in a million years from today?

Will it be possible to solve chess or have completely self-driving cars and self-driving trucks in a million years from now?

Have you ever watched an old sci-fi movie where they showed their vision of the future? "Future" displays, keyboards, and communication systems already look old-fashioned by now! What was futuristic in the sixties was already out of time in the nineties. Machines that were futuristic in the nineties are now in your pocket and you call it a phone.

Keeping this in mind, I say, that your question cannot be answered. Every thinkable reply will already be outdated in a couple of centuries. The only realm I can think of, where such a question may make sense is geology. I think we have a good understanding of how plate tectonics work and what will happen to certain areas in a million years. Otherwise, I wouldn't even bet if "we" would still be here by that time, let alone how our technical achievements look like.

 

[topsquark]

What kind of technology will be available in a million years from now? Is the world going to be a better place in a million years from today?

Will it be possible to solve chess or have completely self-driving cars and self-driving trucks in a million years from now?

We could be dead.

We could be as gods.

We could be alive and blithering idiots.

How can you possibly think anyone can give a serious answer to that question?

-Dan

 

[Uri Zlatnik]

How can you possibly think anyone can give a serious answer to that question?

-Dan

I just hope that the world is going to be a better and happier place by then and I just hope that we don't return to the stone age or some other dark, ignorant and violent era of human history.

 

[Vanadium 50]

A million years ago there were no people.
There were not even Neanderthals.
There were some Homo Erectus.

Extrapolating a million years forward is just guessing.

 

[fresh_42]

I just hope that the world is going to be a better and happier place by then ...

This is a philosophical question and depends on what better and happier even means and most of all: to whom of us?

... and I just hope that we don't return to the stone age or some other dark, ignorant and violent era of human history.

This is a matter of how you consider mankind and whether and how far we will be able to overcome the rules that created us. My personal expectations of men's ethics are pretty low. They are a luxury we are able to afford because we exploit our resources carried by the hope that new techniques allow us to develop new resources faster than we ruin the old ones. I doubt whether this race can be kept winning. We will be back to predator-prey pretty quickly when it comes to survival on what will be left.

 

[Hill]

I just hope that the world is going to be a better and happier place by then and I just hope that we don't return to the stone age or some other dark, ignorant and violent era of human history.

What does it have to do with technology, your thread topic?

 

[JT Smith]

I just hope that the world is going to be a better and happier place by then and I just hope that we don't return to the stone age or some other dark, ignorant and violent era of human history.

I'd posit that in a million years that we won't be "we" any longer either because we evolved naturally, modified our species intentionally, or ceased to exist altogether.

But really, even 100 years from now is not an easy forecast.

 

[pinball1970]

What kind of technology will be available in a million years from now? Is the world going to be a better place in a million years from today?

Will it be possible to solve chess or have completely self-driving cars and self-driving trucks in a million years from now?

Ok it's been said but..

In the next 500 years they may have fusion as a viable energy source.
Quantum computing, cures for all cancers.
Global birth control, population control and a scientific approach to harmonizing with our environment so no person on the planet is hungry or not able to access a safe water supply.
Every person on the planet is educated to the best of their ability.

Or not.

Annihilation death and destruction via nuclear war or some other disaster before we mature as a civilization.

 

[BWV]

We in the US will all be very rich, if you grow per capita real income at 1.5%, conservatively lower than the long-term historical 2% growth rate, the median income will grow from around $70K to #NUM! We have centi-billionaires today, no trillionaires, but a million years from now the average US citizen will be a #NUM!ionaire

 

[Vanadium 50]

You could make the same argument with average body weight - in a million years we will all weigh the same as a large asteroid.

 

[BillTre]

Will it be possible to solve chess or have completely self-driving cars and self-driving trucks in a million years from now?

Yes, for sure if people are still around.

What kind of technology will be available in a million years from now?

A million years is a long time.

1)
Assuming a continuity of human culture, impressive engineered productions will be made biologically by making a series of changes (over many design generations) to mold existing forms into new forms. Like some of the wildest of Sci Fi stories that are not psychic or have other special powers.

The same things would probably happen to people.

2)
Integration of electronics (or more modern stuff) with bodies and nervous systems (both human and non-human).

Is the world going to be a better place in a million years from today?

Depends on what better means and if people are still around.

 

[fresh_42]

Depends on what better means and if people are still around.

There are tribes on this planet who would consider the absence of people already a great achievement.

The average North American or European is by far not "we".

 

[BillTre]

There are tribes on this planet who would consider the absence of people already a great achievement.

If people aren't still around, then the tribes would not be around either.
So they would have an opinion.

 

[fresh_42]

If people aren't still around, then the tribes would not be around either.
So they would have an opinion.

I didn't mean Nietzsche's nihilism. I meant that there are tribes who could easily survive without "us" who use up - what is it currently? - two and a half earthes per year.

 

[berkeman]

What kind of technology will be available in a million years from now? Is the world going to be a better place in a million years from today?

Well, if the Krell are any example, our technology will likely still be around (and running), but we most likely will not...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krell

 

[BillTre]

Well, if the Krell are any example, our technology will likely still be around (and running), but we most likely will not...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krell

Even if the tribes were the only ones left, their populations would expand, they would spread out and eventually come to reproduce the major themes of current societies.

 

[topsquark]

Well, if the Krell are any example, our technology will likely still be around (and running), but we most likely will not...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krell

Cylons. All that will be left is Cylons.

And Daleks. Don't forget the Daleks.

-Dan

Addendum: And polka. Polka will never die!

 

[tech99]

I cannot predict even a very few years. Even as a telecom engineer I only found out about the internet in 1995. In 2000 I asked colleagues what was next after the internet, and no one had any idea. Then we started developing the third generation mobile phone but no one at the company could imagine what any user would want with Megabit/s of capability. I think it is nearly impossible to predict more than one or two years ahead.

 

[DennisN]

I thought I wasn't going to post in this thread since speculation of what the world would be like in a million years from now is kind of difficult. Sort of.

But the answer @BillTre gave lured me into replying (see below).

But first I'll reply to the OP....

What kind of technology will be available in a million years from now?

I have no idea.

Is the world going to be a better place in a million years from today?

I have no idea (and for instance, better for whom? Humans or other types of animals?).

Will it be possible to solve chess or have completely self-driving cars and self-driving trucks in a million years from now?

I don't know what you mean by "solving chess", but "self-driving cars and self-driving trucks" seems at least quite feasible to me.

And now to the post which lured me in...

A million years is a long time.

1)
Assuming a continuity of human culture, impressive engineered productions will be made biologically by making a series of changes (over many design generations) to mold existing forms into new forms. Like some of the wildest of Sci Fi stories that are not psychic or have other special powers.

The same things would probably happen to people.

2)
Integration of electronics (or more modern stuff) with bodies and nervous systems (both human and non-human).

Both points are eerily close to how I see a possible future.

 

[tech99]

Although mankind has survived for a few million years already, I am doubtful about his making another million. Information technology is simply the latest manifestation of his brain evolution. Mankind has always lived by modifying his environment; in other words, he is engaged in a continuous fight against Nature. If Nature loses this battle, man will die. If Nature wins the battle, man will be dead already.

 

[Vanadium 50]

Although mankind has survived for a few million years already,

Not Homo Sapiens. You need a pretty broad view of "mankind" to go that far back. And forward - if some other species of Homo were all that were around, would we say we have "survived?" What if that species were completely non-technological?

No, I still think the OP - who seems not to be participating in this thread anymore - is asking us to extrapolate by a factor of around 5.

 

[BillTre]

if some other species of Homo were all that were around, would we say we have "survived?" What if that species were completely non-technological?

This sounds like a continuity based on inherited culture (in a very wide interpretation).

 

[kuruman]

What kind of technology will be available in a million years from now? Is the world going to be a better place in a million years from today?

A better place for whom? When people ask this kind of speculative question, answers usually focus on seemingly wonderful innovations and gadgetry but there is no mention ever of how the plight of the poor, the disenfranchised and the starving might change. Is the assumption that they will somehow be elevated to join the elites of the future and share in the technological innovations or that they will simply die off and one would not have to worry about them?

Watch this video about South Sudan and imagine how far in the future they can see at a time when the food aid they receive lasts for only part of a month.

 

[BWV]

A better place for whom? When people ask this kind of speculative question, answers usually focus on seemingly wonderful innovations and gadgetry but there is no mention ever of how the plight of the poor, the disenfranchised and the starving might change.

And this only starts at 1990, as bad as things can be, we live in objectively the best time that has existed for humanity since at least the dawn of agriculture

 

[pinball1970]

As long as we can avoid potential evolutionary "dead ends" according to this article,.

Luckily we appear to be stuck in only 12 of them which are described as "in an advanced state" and "moving in the wrong direction" in 10 of the 14.

so it could be worse.

https://phys.org/news/2023-11-potential-evolutionary-dead-humanity-ways.html

 

[Hornbein]

I once tried to figure out technology 25,000 years from now. If things continue at the current pace it would be far beyond imagination. So I gave up trying.

 

[nuuskur]

I see a giant comet smashing into the planet within a million years' time in the realm of possibilities.

 

[fresh_42]

I see Einstein becoming right once more: "I do not know with which weapons WW III will be fought, but it will be sticks and stones in WW IV."

It is simple: subtract a (potential?) linear growth in food production from our exponential demand due to population growth, subtract further the linear(?) decrease of freshwater supplies due to the exploitation of current reservoirs and (linear?) shrinking of freshwater reservoirs due to CC.

 

[BWV]

I see Einstein becoming right once more: "I do not know with which weapons WW III will be fought, but it will be sticks and stones in WW IV."

It is simple: subtract a (potential?) linear growth in food production from our exponential demand due to population growth, subtract further the linear(?) decrease of freshwater supplies due to the exploitation of current reservoirs and (linear?) shrinking of freshwater reservoirs due to CC.

But populations are not growing outside of Africa

 

[fresh_42]

But populations are not growing outside of Africa

This is not how growth on a compact manifold works. We call the averaging mechanism migration, and it already has begun.

 

[pinball1970]

But populations are not growing outside of Africa

World population 1918 was 1.8 billion people
2023 8 billion

UK population 1918 was 40 million
2023 67 million

 

[BWV]

World population 1918 was 1.8 billion people
2023 8 billion

UK population 1918 was 40 million
2023 67 million

https://www.ined.fr/en/everything_about_population/data/world-projections/projections-by-continent/

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/06/global-decline-of-fertility-rates-visualised/

 

[pinball1970]

Back to the next 1 million years thing, a few searches on Smithsonian state roughly 1 million years for a species before it is in danger of going extinct with an upper limit of 10 million years.

 

[BWV]

Back to the next 1 million years thing, a few searches on Smithsonian state roughly 1 million years for a species before it is in danger of going extinct with an upper limit of 10 million years.

Maybe an average, but plenty of animals around today that predate the dinosaurs