Many have a vision of the future as provided by Hollywood and SciFi authors. While they are helpful in providing a version of what is possible, most often the focus is dystopian. We are conditioned to fear what we believe is coming.
The truth is that, over the last 40 years, we saw incredible advancements in technology. Throughout each decade, life for humanity improved. Certainly there are some drawbacks. However, it is hard to dispute the fact that life, overall, is improving. We are seeing the metrics across the globe registering better numbers.
People are living longer. Even though the wealth gap has spread, people have a higher standard of living than ever before. We are seeing improvement in areas such as heart disease and cancers. Due to the Internet. we have access to the world's knowledge base, something that was not available to the President of the United States in the 1980s.
Nevertheless, people still have fears of what our future will look like. Topics such as AI send fear rippling through people. Mention the convergence of man and machine, people have the image of the Terminator.
Sadly, it will not be anything that dramatic. The idea of us operating in a physical, robotic state is fairly outlandish. Instead, we will simply keep merging in the same ways we have for decades, just to a greater degree.
At present, we are seeing machines becoming more humanlike while humans are becoming more machine like.
Our technological advancements are going to change everything. In the next few decades, we will see society changed completely. Every aspect is going to change. Our march towards the Metaverse is already underway. By the middle of the next decade, we are going to see the process in full bloom.
Life is consistently becoming less biological and physical. The Metaverse is going to provide us with a realm whereby we spend a great deal more time in the virtual. Couple this with intelligent avatars which can operate in many different simulations at the same time, we can see how we are truly entered an abundant age.
As "intelligence" keeps expanding, the networking effect will generate the "global brain". This will be a level of intelligence that is not human in nature.
Of course, this is where people usually drift to the idea of Skynet and AI attacking humans. The problem with this viewpoint is that it is not in the future. It is already here.
Consider for a second, the Internet. This is a preliminary global brain, albeit rather mundane in its capabilities at this time. Nevertheless, it is all knowing, ever present, and always online. As our ability to "log on" expands, we will see it become ubiquitous in nature.
In short, the Metaverse will turn the Internet from a two dimensional network to 3D. Suddenly, we will become a part of the Internet. In other words, the "intelligence" will not be separate from us. We all will be one.
This is the age that many believe when we becomes "superhuman" or "godlike". The pace of advancement will be something that we can only speculate at. Essentially, our knowledge will grow at a pace that we cannot comprehend at this moment.
What this means is that wealth will take on completely new meaning. Consider the idea that a sign of the well to do was owning a set of encyclopedias. These ran a couple thousands dollars 30 years ago. It was something that few had in the home.
Today, for free, people have more information in their phone than was in all the encyclopedias combined. Yet the average person with a smartphone, in any country, has access to it for free. Thus it is in every home regardless of economic class.
We are going to see that spread into all areas of life. The price of much of what we have in life is going to decrease. Just like phones, televisions, and computers all saw increases in capabilities while seeing costs drops, the rest of life will be that way.
On the income side, people will be able to manifest money very quickly. As we see the convergence, our personal AI systems will be able to act upon the ideas we have. We can come up with an idea, one which our personal AI will be in tune with, and it will instantly start the process of bringing it into being. Suddenly, we will be able to generate our own AI systems that can expand the Metaverse while staking our claim to it.
How much wealth will this generate?
The wealth gap does not negate the fact that incredible wealth has been created over the last few decades. What is the problem is who owns the means of production. We have seen more of that fall into the hands of even fewer people.
This is going to change over the next 10 years. As each of us can tap into the unbelievable potential that exists, we are going to be able to add to the expanding ecosystem of wealth that is being created. The main difference as compared to the last few decades is that, this time, we will be able to profit from the increased means of production. Instead of it being in the hands of a few, the wealth will be spread out among the many.
It is a future that the SciFi films do not promote yet this is a realistic path that we will be following.
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