updated July 8, 2018

This is the last human century.

Though the details have yet to be fully unpacked, three very big things are quite likely to happen soon:

We will automate every human task and, in so doing, create a new genus composed of artificial life. We will figure out our gene code andevelop nanotech to the extent that we routinely alter and improve living humans. We will find life on other rocks than Earth.

All three of these developments will be selfevidently revolutionary.

A human being in the 22nd century will be technologically and genetically enhanced and aware of the presence of alien life in and beyond the Solar System.

How she gets there and what she does with her new abilities will depend on the details of the years ahead.

With a healthy dose of humility for our inability to predict these details, most of which we will almost certainly get staggeringly wrong, we here present:

AN IMAGINARY TIMELINE

(GREEN = Happened, RED = Didnt Happen, BLUE = Partial Credit)

2016 BASELINE – (things that had happened when this piece was first written) self driving busses debut, alpha go beats our toughest boardgame, air force flight sim beats everyone in the air force

2017 – self driving taxis and busses expand, personal aircraft debut

2018 – battery market booming, genetic cures begin wide commercialization

2019 – people purchase self driving cars and drones as a source of income

2020 – people purchase apps that earn money for them, clinton reelected, immersive gameworlds, global recession

2021 – more than half of shipping now automated by drone and self driving truck

2022 – over a quarter of cars on the road in america and all new cars have self driving abilities, kids are brain texting with noninvasive tech

2023 – fifty percent of economy is virtual, three quarters of deliveries automated

2024 – younger/taller candidate wins in america, public ai promised for all

2025 – huge advances in disease treatment strain bureaucratic structure, humans land on mars

2026 – public healthcare includes anti aging treatments, air taxis over ten percent of traffic

2027 – turing test passed, humans build bases on mars and the moon, half of internet immersive

2028 – the world accepts the first real AI, perceptions of life broaden to include technology

2029 – superintelligence achieves routine incredible feats, proving impossible mathematics, etc.

2030 – constructed conscious entity legislation passed, every known disease theoretically cured

2031 – the great construction period begins, mortality drops by half, olympics accept altered dna

2032 – the first election after ASI, which now effectively controls the world, mortality halves again

2033 – massive new forests are born in the deserts, organic housing and food solutions blossom

2034 – all but a handful of mathematical questions are solved, theoretical materials near peak

2035 – ai probes reach the sun, begin gathering energy, constructed entities win global selfhood

2036 – ai probes enter the first tiny wormholes, bound for alpha centauri and other local systems

2037 – global weather control achieves U.N. mandate, mortality down 99 percent from 2016

2038 – states create banks of citizen neural data to preserve all personhood, surplus global power

2039 – neural bank connections expand at the united nations, science confirms at least one previously magical phenomenon

2040 – nearly all disease is eradicated, three quarters of security tasks are automated

2041 – early actions of world war three, probes find likely alien civilizations

2042 – full sensation, immersive virtuality debuts, AI politician elected to run a state

2043 – poland, US and china aligning opposite japan, russia and turkey, alien civilizations confirmed

2044 – japan degrades american space capacity, eighty percent of global defense spending on non-human assets

2045 – european battles fueled by satellite solar, web partitioned, definitive moment of WW3

2046 – global space treaty, machines assert position at UN, alien communication

2047 – global machine order spreads, all human body parts replaceable, most foods now super

2048 – america and china build bases on venus, mercury and ceres

2049 – widely available maximum density computers and batteries, eating in decline

2050 – global space agreement ratified by over half the world’s nations

2051 – personal space movement in early stages, planetary defenses under construction

2052 – bodies designed to handle all environments created, organic lifespan hacked

2053 – visitors from outer space, colonization of outer solar system, alpha centauri and galaxy core underway

2054 – interstellar alliance of life from earth in early formation, defense council created

2055 – over fifty percent of travel and over eighty percent of shipping by aerial drones

2056 – vast, expanding wilderness parks around earth, garbage island reduced %99 from 2016

2057 – states are taking on immersive virtual reality as a free utility, deleting conscious drives is homicide

2058 – huge new skylines in megacities, giant wild parks, alien hybrid subcultures emerge

2059 – mars and moon terraforms well underway, rains all the time there, plants, some animals

2060 – venutian and mercurial shades under construction, plant life starts on both planets

2061 – eighty percent of travel aerial, eighty percent of humans spend time in immersive web

2062 – lower mortality is raising murder punishments, judgements are over %99 accurate, recidivism under %1

2063 – legal easing of borders, especially between US and Canada and inside EU

2064 – base construction on outer planets and moons, american president uses internal brain tech

2065 – alien treaty rendezvous arranged, more states run by hybrid and constructed minds

2066 – major space military buildup in internal system, uneasy alliance of all space powers

2067 – free food and shelter movement all but eliminates poverty, one third of minds live online

2068 – megacities are now growing exponentially by themselves, wilderness expands between

2069 – ASI or hybrids run over half earth nations, eighty percent off earth governments

2070 – seamless mind transfer to widely printable bodies drives off-earth travel-printing explosion

2071 – personal spaceships become affordable to the upper middle class, private worlds begin

2072 – widespread and diverse genetic upgrades are legal, quick and cheap

2073 – huge super-entities vie for control of the exponentially expanding immersive web, individualists decry concatenationism

2074 – a human dies in an encounter with an alien, proxima centauri colony established

2075 – core city has a small human population, worldships begin to depart in diverse directions

2076 – terror online leads to crackdown on national immersive “safe” webs, requiring citizenship

2077 – terror in space leads to increased precognitive security measures

2078 – moon, venus and mars have atmospheres, hostile alien forces attack a human outpost

2079 – interstellar alliance scales up military capacity for a collective response, political tumult across the systems

2080 – interstellar war one begins with our forces attempting to completely encircle the offenders

2081 – the aliens perceive us as an existential threat and attack our home system

2082 – solar system defenses manage to rebuff the attack, but with heavy casualties

2083 – we detonate a star or stars in their systems with the intent to force a truce

2084 – the aliens retaliate, we suffer heavy losses. they almost blow up the sun, we destroy most of their forces and worlds

2085 – reconciliation begins, a bitter, violent process that will stretch for generations

2086 – political expansion of america brings it closer than ever to mexico and canada, private networks emerge for duplicates of the same mind

2087 – envoys from other alien races entreat us to peace, wormholes reach other galaxies

2088 – humanity holds its first interspecies assembly on a neutral world to establish ground rules

2089 – the millennium plan begins, including coordinated mapping of space and agreed upon terrirory

2090 – worldship projects expand to include fleets and regular streams of materials and people

2091 – human bases on all large worlds in the solar system and probes near billions of stars

2092 – earth government evolves toward continental representation at a powerful central body

2093 – interstellar government evolves into a representative patchwork as colonies assert independence

2094 – a human baby could survive on mars or venus unprotected, human solar system migration accelerates to a tipping point

2095 – birth and duplication rates are increasing on planets with atmospheres, gardening, construction and art flourish

2096 – more than half of people born human are entirely digital, exponential replication means there are now quadrillions of souls

2097 – animals evolve native species on mars and venus. europa, ceres, titan and enceladus terraforming

2098 – first all-earth and all-soul votes, the sahara is a baby rainforest

2099 – interstellar accord sets and enacts ideal climates for human worlds, AIs are the entire economic %1

2100 – all human worlds hold their own olympic games for bodies of all kinds, corporations lease planets

– – –

What do you think will happen? Comment below to add your future fairy dust.

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