The future is not what it used to be

Until 1800, life expectancy was less than 40 years old; thanks to technology, by the 20th century, it had already doubled. What we will see in the 21st century will be even more impactful.

A few days ago, the futurist José Luis Cordeiro visited our country, one of the founding professors of Singularity University within NASA in Silicon Valley, where the future of humanity is studied with exponentially growing technologies. The talk, which took place at Google Mexico's offices, showed us how the upcoming technological versatility in the next decades will be a challenge for many and an opportunity for others.

Dr. Cordeiro is renowned for studying and lecturing worldwide on revolutionary technologies that are about to transform the world. The esteemed engineer discussed future technological advancements that seem entirely science fiction: "Humanity is experiencing the most wonderful time; we are facing a technological revolution in every sense. The last human invention will occur between 2029 and 2045, as around this time, computers will have more transistors than the brain has neurons, thus causing the end of the human era and ushering in the post-human era. With a digital cloud, brains millions of times more powerful than current ones will be created. In the future, we will communicate telepathically, allowing us to express ourselves much more efficiently than speech. We will merge with robots, which by then will already have feelings. What I mean is that today's science fiction is tomorrow's reality."

When touching on these topics, what comes to mind for many people is something similar to the movie Terminator; however, in Asia, the vision is completely different: there, robots are seen as friends, saviors, and even lovers. Just look at medicine as an example to realize how the world is improving tremendously thanks to technology. "It's worth remembering that until 1800, human misery was common, life expectancy was less than 40 years, and thanks to technology in the 20th century, this figure had already doubled." However, what we will see in the 21st century will be even more impressive, says José Cordeiro, who guarantees that we are not the end of evolution, but rather humans are about 30 years away from curing diseases or, even better, preventing them, putting an end to death, and taking the next leap in human evolution, which will be more technological than biological.

On the other hand, Dr. Cordeiro talks about how solar technology is growing exponentially, and although it currently only represents around 1% of global energy, if it continues at this rate, by 2030, 100% of energy could be covered by clean sources, indicating that by 2030, Mexico will no longer need Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) or the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE), which are two of the country's most important companies. Dr. Cordeiro's revelations are not mere words. His ideas are grounded in close proximity to the world's top scientific community, including his alma mater, MIT, and the think tank The Millennium Project, a scientific community dedicated to studying the future. It's striking to think how the perception of the future depicted in Hollywood movies in the 1980s is completely different from the vision we have today about the future, and this undoubtedly shows what Mafalda said: "the future is no longer what it used to be."