Unit 2: Looking Ahead

Do you enjoy reading books, watching films or playing video games set in a dystopia? A dystopia is an imaginary place where life is extremely difficult. Let's look at two different visions of what is to come.

Vision 1: Bright

In many ways, human life on this planet is better than it's ever been. In many countries across the world, crime has been dropping steadily. This may be due to better education, or perhaps to a reduction in extreme poverty. In 2018, the proportion of the world's population living in extreme poverty fell to around ten percent. With luck, no one will be living in this way within a few decades.

Technology is also making our lives easier and safer, and this trend is bound to continue. For example, driving is sure to become safer. Human error is the key reason for most car accidents, and well-programmed driverless cars may save huge numbers of lives. Such cars are already a reality and are going to become more common in the next few years. And finally, life expectancy is already higher than it's ever been and as a result of better medicine, people are likely to live until the age of 100.

Vision 2: Terrifying!

We may have seen some improvement in poverty and crime in recent decades, but why assume that this pattern will continue? I'd argue that for most people life is actually unlikely to get better. Advances in robotics and artificial intelligence will not only reduce the number of unskilled jobs available, but will also eliminate semi-skilled jobs which can be done by a computer.

By 2050, young people will have been trying, and failing, to get a job for most of their 'working' lives! In 30 years' time, a few lucky people will be rich and the rest of us will be poor. Within 20 years, we will have stopped fighting over oil – we'll be fighting over water instead, as global warming is certain to lead to more water shortages.