later

Fusion — the power source of the sun — could provide nearly limitless clean electricity.

Learning systems continuously adjust content, pace, assessment and support to the learner rather than the cohort.

Defensive and offensive cyber operations increasingly use autonomous AI agents operating at machine speed.

Legal, accounting, consulting, engineering and advisory firms redesign delivery around machine-augmented workflows rather than adding AI to old processes.

Continuous sensing and predictive analytics shift more healthcare from episodic diagnosis toward early intervention.

Distributed devices increasingly optimize, trade and respond to energy price and grid signals automatically.

Robotic field operations and machine vision reduce dependence on human presence for routine agricultural work.

Drones, robots and sensors continuously inspect bridges, pipelines, grids, buildings and industrial assets.

Autonomy becomes a network phenomenon linking vehicles, logistics, infrastructure, insurance and urban operations.

AI agents move from assisting individual tasks toward coordinating multi-step organizational processes with bounded authority.

AI systems increasingly generate hypotheses, design experiments and coordinate robotic laboratories.

Quantum computers could solve problems that today's fastest supercomputers can't — in drug discovery, materials and finance.

Compute workloads increasingly move in time or geography in response to electricity availability, grid constraints and carbon intensity.

Digital product passports, materials tracking and automated sorting make material recovery more measurable and economically useful.

Farming becomes a continuously modeled biological system combining AI, sensing, autonomy and precision inputs.

Skills evidence becomes more granular, current and portable than conventional degree-centered signals.

Brain-computer interfaces link the brain directly to a computer.

Technologies that encourage rain could ease droughts — but changing the weather carries real risks, so any use must be carefully tested and monitored.

Pull drinking water straight out of the air.

The minerals needed for batteries and electronics exist on the sea floor.

AI inference shifts into vehicles, factories, devices, medical equipment and infrastructure rather than relying only on centralized clouds.

Grow replacement organs and tissue in the lab, ideally from the patient's own cells.

Organizations adopt machine-readable provenance for data, media, model outputs and automated decisions.

Some regions experience periods of extremely low marginal electricity costs as renewable generation and storage scale.

Longer healthy life becomes a major design constraint for healthcare, financial services, housing, work and consumer markets.

General-purpose humanoid robots move from demonstrations into bounded industrial and service workflows.

Digital twins evolve from individual assets into connected models of factories, grids, cities and supply networks.

AI, robotics and additive manufacturing enable smaller highly automated production cells close to demand.

Storage expands beyond short-duration lithium-ion applications into multiple chemistries and thermal/mechanical systems.

Organizations require identity, permissions, provenance and audit systems for non-human actors operating at scale.

Software systems increasingly write, test, deploy, monitor and repair portions of their own code under human governance.

Controls, compliance checks and policy enforcement increasingly execute inside automated workflows rather than after decisions occur.

Software agents increasingly discover, negotiate, purchase and settle transactions with other machines.

Most of the ocean floor has never been mapped in detail.

Launch cost declines support growing in-orbit servicing, manufacturing experiments, communications and Earth-observation infrastructure.

Persistent agents coordinate information, scheduling, purchasing, learning and digital identity across services.

Move deliveries underground through tunnels and automated systems.

Organizations migrate cryptographic systems before sufficiently capable quantum computers make current public-key methods unsafe.

Biology becomes increasingly engineerable as computation, synthesis, gene editing and automation converge.

Quantum computing finds economically useful narrow applications before broad general-purpose advantage arrives.

Robotic capability increasingly becomes purchasable as an operating expense rather than a capital project.

Infrastructure combines sensing, predictive maintenance and advanced materials to detect and address degradation earlier.

Supply chains increasingly sense disruptions and reconfigure sourcing, inventory and routing with limited human intervention.

Electricity networks become increasingly orchestrated through forecasting, distributed resources, storage and dynamic control.

Persistent spatial intelligence spreads through vehicles, robots, buildings and devices even if consumer headsets remain niche.

Precision fermentation, cultivated systems and computational food design broaden the production architectures behind food.

The marginal cost of producing persuasive personalized media approaches zero, increasing the premium on provenance and trust.

Electric vehicles become dispatchable energy resources as standards, incentives and bidirectional charging mature.

Water systems use sensing, leakage analytics, reuse and distributed treatment to manage scarcity and infrastructure loss.

A dated future observation from Jim Carroll’s December 7, 2021 “101 Things We Know About Our Future” list.

A dated future observation from Jim Carroll’s December 7, 2021 “101 Things We Know About Our Future” list.

A dated future observation from Jim Carroll’s December 7, 2021 “101 Things We Know About Our Future” list.

A dated future observation from Jim Carroll’s December 7, 2021 “101 Things We Know About Our Future” list.

A dated future observation from Jim Carroll’s December 7, 2021 “101 Things We Know About Our Future” list.

A dated future observation from Jim Carroll’s December 7, 2021 “101 Things We Know About Our Future” list.

A dated future observation from Jim Carroll’s December 7, 2021 “101 Things We Know About Our Future” list.

A dated future observation from Jim Carroll’s December 7, 2021 “101 Things We Know About Our Future” list.

A dated future observation from Jim Carroll’s December 7, 2021 “101 Things We Know About Our Future” list.

A dated future observation from Jim Carroll’s December 7, 2021 “101 Things We Know About Our Future” list.

A dated future observation from Jim Carroll’s December 7, 2021 “101 Things We Know About Our Future” list.

A dated future observation from Jim Carroll’s December 7, 2021 “101 Things We Know About Our Future” list.

A dated future observation from Jim Carroll’s December 7, 2021 “101 Things We Know About Our Future” list.

A dated future observation from Jim Carroll’s December 7, 2021 “101 Things We Know About Our Future” list.

A dated future observation from Jim Carroll’s December 7, 2021 “101 Things We Know About Our Future” list.

A dated future observation from Jim Carroll’s December 7, 2021 “101 Things We Know About Our Future” list.

A dated future observation from Jim Carroll’s December 7, 2021 “101 Things We Know About Our Future” list.

A dated future observation from Jim Carroll’s December 7, 2021 “101 Things We Know About Our Future” list.

A dated future observation from Jim Carroll’s December 7, 2021 “101 Things We Know About Our Future” list.

A dated future observation from Jim Carroll’s December 7, 2021 “101 Things We Know About Our Future” list.

A dated future observation from Jim Carroll’s December 7, 2021 “101 Things We Know About Our Future” list.

A dated future observation from Jim Carroll’s December 7, 2021 “101 Things We Know About Our Future” list.

A dated future observation from Jim Carroll’s December 7, 2021 “101 Things We Know About Our Future” list.

A dated future observation from Jim Carroll’s December 7, 2021 “101 Things We Know About Our Future” list.

Agriculture: Rather than farming when the sun is up, we've moved to a world of continuous 24 hour farming, aided by robotics, autonomous self-driving technology, and virtualized farming platforms based on Farmville concepts. The entire process goes by the name "real time spatial intelligence farming." A continuous flood of new technologies has come into...

Cities and towns: Massive urbanization has taken hold, with 70% of the earths population now scattered into about 40 megacities. This has driven the arrival of all kinds of fascinating new trends and industries that are based on people living in close proximity. A good example is vertical farming, or in-city farming: it's everywhere, and involves 100...

Clothing and fashion: The arrival of smart, connected, intelligent clothing led to marriage of fashion, healthcare and wellness. New fibres and textiles that are smart now link into the data-grid around you, adjusting their warmth and cooling cycles based upon real time information analysis. New textile science has also led to clothing that evolves it's...

Construction : We used to send people and materials to a site in order for a building to be assembled. Now, we generally assemble the building offsite with robotic technology and 3D printing technologies, and send it to the site for final quick, fast assembly. Essentially, we've gone from building homes on site to building them in factories. AI and...

Education: We've gone from the concept of "foundational degree knowledge" to just-in-time knowledge - most people in the workforce have now mastered the skill of getting the right knowledge at right time for right purpose. The concept of the career has disappeared as most people transition from project to project at an absolutely furious pace - there is...

Energy and utilities : We've moved from a world of centralized energy production based on big facilities generating from carbon and nuclear, to a massively distributed architecture based on the input of millions of small, local renewable energy resources. We've gone from essentially dumb, one-way grids to highly intelligent two-way smart grids that...

Entertainment and media: The explosion of deep-fake technology in the early part of the decade made redundant the concept of CGI technology in film and media: instead, stock-footage of ready-to-fake video exists online. Actors have mostly become irrelevant - instead, avatars are ready off the shelf, ready to be turned into the next great performance. We...

Financial services: We used to take out mortgages and loans to acquire the things we wanted, but now we simply get the things that we want for but a short time, and then move on to the next thing. We generally just share the stuff that we need rather than purchasing it for the long term. The result is that most banks are now just short term lending...

Food: We used to eat the same food that everyone else ate. Now, we eat food that is grown specifically for our particular DNA, and matched to our particular metabolic profile, based upon real time insight from monitoring technology built into our smart phone and clothing. A world of continuous body and health monitoring has appeared, driven by the idea...

Healthcare: Rather than having a system of 'sick-care' that fixed people after things went wrong, we've transitioned a good part of the system to real 'healthcare' - anticipating what people are likely to become sick with. Based on that knowledge, we've realigned the architecture of the healthcare system to deal with health care issues on a proactive,...

Hi-tech and technology. We used to have things called computers, which were physically separate devices that we carried around or plopped on our desk. Now, intelligence is embedded everywhere; in our clothing, eyeglasses, cars, homes and factory. It’s just there. We don't even think about it much anymore, except when some hacker re-programs our...

Highways and infrastructure: They've become smart, intelligent, connected. Your self-driving car doesn't just drive itself, but talks to other vehicles around it, to sensors embedded in the road, and to light poles and other road-tech that helps to guide it on its voyage. Amazon and other disruptors now provide for pay-per-access to the best route based...

Insurance: We used to get insurance coverage based upon our historical behaviour or past actions. Now, insurance policies are written and adjusted in real time based on real time data and activities - so rather than looking back to assess and underwrite insurance risk, we increasingly do so by looking forward based on what we know right now. P&C, life...

Legal and professional services: The world of law and other professions is now driven by the acceleration of legal risk and hyper-complexity. This came about as the result of the rapid emergence of new risk, an era of ‘hyperconnected, shared risk’, more complex - and faster - corporate partnership risk, and other factors that came about as the result of...

Manufacturing: We've transitioned from a world of mass production, with millions of products that are all the same, to one of mass customization, based on 3D printing, advanced materials, agility-based manufacturing methodologies and iterative, regenerative product design concepts. End-of-runway manufacturing and the end of the concept of inventory has...

Material science and chemical industries: We used to have 19 million known chemical substances, but now we have some 5 billion. We witnessed the birth of countless new industries and opportunities through the rapid acceleration of pure science. Mines were mined automatically with virtual robotics, and materials were engineered from constituent materials...

Retail: While we used to go to stores to get the stuff that we need, we now find that the majority of stuff comes to us via a wide variety of automated, intelligent last mile delivery technologies - delivery bots, automated drones and more. Most homes now have drone pads on their driveways and robotic storage lockers that safeguard the product after...

Sports, fitness and recreation: A simple wooden baseball bat now exists only in a museum : the baseball bat of 2030 is now wirelessly connected to a web cam that automatically records a player’s swing style and speed. Kids live in a widely interactive world in which they are aware of all sports results and actions instantly through an online connection....

The Unknown Industry: Last but not least, we saw the emergence of a new industry that we simply could not conceive of, and which did not exist on January 1, 2020. That's because some companies appeared that made products or services that did not exist, based on ideas and concepts that weren't yet around, with methodologies that had yet to be invented,...

Transportation: We've gone from driving cars and trucks based on carbon, gas and the internal combustion engine, to vehicles based on big batteries and computers. They mostly drive themselves, or do so in cooperative packs, talking to each other on a continuous basis with respect to traffic flow and other important matters. Cars have become, essentially,...

A constant stream of bio-connectivity data drives healthcare decisions. By 2025, most people in the developed world will have 3 or 4 bio-connectivity medical devices linked to them on a 24/7 basis. Some will be small, intrusive chips buried under the skin that constantly monitor medical vital signs such as blood pressure, glucose levels, temperature,...

Africa will have ceased to be a rural continent. Worldwide, there is a massive migration of urban populations to cities; the majority of the world's population will live in less than 30 mega-cities by 2025. With that trend comes fascinating challenges with water, waste treatment, energy and other infrastructure. We can expect accelerating R&D in each of...

Apple is delisted. Once one of the world's most innovative, cash-rich, highly valued company, Apple enters a new phase in 2025 when it is delisted from most global stock markets. Why? Most industry leaders never survive; there is always someone with a better idea. It's the age old world of business.

Cash will have all but disappeared. We already have a generation that has been weaned on PayPal, online transactions and the Web. With the arrival of ApplePay and other initiatives that transform mobile devices into credit cards, the trend towards the decline of the use of cash will only accelerate. We'll see the trend pick up speed as we drop payment...

Crowd thinking has replaced most forms of peer research. Most long-established medical and science journals have transitioned - big time -- accepting a new form of instant crowd thinking as the best way to evaluate the new world of hyper-science. On an instant, a researcher can summon a crowd of vetted, quality specialists who have niche knowledge in a...

Domain names disappeared. Instead, people now purchase individual light spectrums (or wavelength's) for personal and business use. It was no longer necessary to have a cumbersome bit of software to figure out how to route yourself to global knowledge. Instead, with your own individual bank of light spectrum (of which there are an infinite number), people...

Grown up! The first 12-generation family is part of earth society. In 2015, the the most number of generations that were alive in a single family was seven. But in 2025, due to longevity, advances with health care and lifestyle changes, society saw the first great-great-great-greet-great-great-great-great-great-grandparent. Try and do the math. It will...

Jim Carroll shoots his age! In golf. His friends and family thrill at the moment!

Light has been stopped in its tracks. Within the confines of an innovative new network router technology, light has been slowed down from approximately 186,000 miles per second to - literally nothing. Zero. 0. Dead stop. The impact? Network routing technology that allowed for the instant evaluation of each individual light photon, and instant...

Micro nationals dominate global markets. The most successful, disruptive business organizations will consist of a small nucleus of people, focused on goals, ideas, innovation and strategy. They'll instantly decide to enter a new market, engineer a new product, or transform a concept into a radical new business model. They'll do so by having mastered the...

Most industries have gone upside down. Entire industries were flipped on their back by some pretty big trends. Genomic, or DNA based medicine, led us into a world in which we could more easily understand what health conditions you were susceptible or at risk for throughout your life. It moved us from a world in which we fix you after you are sick — to...

Much of the world has 'gone up.' One consequence of mass urbanization is that you only have so much space to place people and the infrastructure that goes with it. Two solutions: dig down, or build up. We'll see more of the latter as various groups figure out how to capitalize on new, innovative thinking with 'skyscraper' technology. For example, we're...

Paper is really something 'from the olden days'. It disappeared in about 2019, in most traditional forms, as most media organizations gave up on the idea of a business model from the 20th century that was ecologically unsound, physically impracticable and ridiculously expensive. The one bright spot? Getting a paper book via a drone from Amazon became...

Plants will 'talk' to us. And by doing so, they will help to continue to drive a furious rate of innovation in the agricultural sector. Through the same type of small-chip technology embedded in humans, plants will be able to analyze themselves and "report in" if they need a nitrogen boost or a drink of water. Farmers will have instant, predictive...

Poll-democracy takes flight. The mobile generation, weaned on the technology of text messaging and social networks, finally convinces a few brave countries to consider the idea of real time citizen-voting. Wary at first, these brave new democratic pioneers will discover that this new form of massively participatory democracy changes everything -- in...

Re-generative energy technology is everywhere; it's transformative, storable, re-usable. Most energy use is no longer based on a 'one-time' use; instead, most of the energy consumption in the world comes from re-generative devices. We will have seen a gradual but steady decline in the use of carbon and other energy sources (in which the energy source can...

Regenerative DNA farms will abound. Many people will have registered their DNA with a variety of medical companies that will guarantee to provide a personalized body implant on demand. Knee replacements made of bio-tissue that is based on your DNA. Hip replacements customized to your particular weight and balance profile -- based on information from last...

Sub-Saharan Africa emerged as the world's new China. Water was the big potential problem of the 21st century, and science attacked the challenge with a vengeance. The result? Fast paced advancements with water-osmosis, de-salinization and micr0-weather control led to the opportunity to bring a once desolate area back into opportunity. Efforts by the...

The concept of an education degree has come to an end; "just-in-time knowledge factories" dominate the educational landscape. University degrees disappeared; tenure was out the window. The concept of a resume was gone; you simply beamed your personal-knowledge-genome to interested skills partners. The rule of the economy became just-in-time knowledge: it...

The concept of TV as a 'physical device' has disappeared. By 2025, it will seem to be a quaint idea that many of us had physical devices known as 'televisions' - we might see a few in museums. Instead, most of us will carry around a variety of small 'beaming' technologies, embedded in our watches, mobile devices, glasses, car dashboards, clothing and...

The electrical grid of the early 21st century is gone; micro-grids dominate energy supply and use. The Napster and PirateBay generation grew up, bought homes, installed backyard solar and wind -- and figured out how to share the new magic they had in their neighbourhood. They built new, small, technologically driven backyard micro-grids, sharing their...

The fastest-growing profession involves people known as 'personal health concierges.' At the same time that the bio-connectivity data flood is fed into the health grid, it will be sent to the personal health coach - or concierge -- of individual patients. The concierge -- who more than likely will have in-depth medical knowledge, generated on a...

The package is the product. In 2025, food consumption was an entirely different thing because the packaging participated with you in the process! Packaging had long ago become intelligent, but now integrated with tiny bio-sensors within the food, pharmaceutical product or drink. You instantly knew about your consumption, calories, digestion rate....

We'll see the first human live to the age of 150. Rapid advances in medical science, the impact of lifestyle changes, and new forms of a "super-health" diet will lead to global celebration of the birthday of the first human to live to the age of 150. Yet at the same time, society will be grappling with a fascinating new dichotomy. There will be a growing...

What we did for heart health in the 20th century, we did for brain health in 2025. Cholesterol, heart disease and blood pressure became phrases from a bygone era as global scientists attacked the challenge of an aging population. Alzheimer's, dementia, muscle shutdown and other diseases that came with an aging brain took over the agenda. The global...