“The first public, widely-accessible generative AI tools became available in the fall of 2022. In the 12 months since we have seen significant advances in every AI tool that is available. The speed of innovation is challenging for even the most adept computer science professional, much less the millions of people globally working in the myriad professions that AI is already beginning to impact.
“We have not even begun to see the truth of the overwhelming influence of these tools. They are still obscure to many individuals across a range of professions in which they will soon become a critical tool. So predicting 15 years into the future is an exercise that is more likely to capture the current moment’s aspirations and anxieties about these technologies, than it is to produce an accurate picture of what life with AI will look like in 2040.
AI will create the possibilities for a more equitable, sustainable society that relies less on consumption as a driver of productivity and instead evaluates productivity based on human-flourishing metrics such as happiness, longevity, access to healthcare and education and time for family, friends and community. The new economy will not rely on planned obsolescence and endless consumption but instead will be based on principles of renewable energy, circular production and zero waste. AI will reinforce efficiency throughout social and economic systems.
“Given the state of the climate crisis, conflict in the Middle East and Ukraine, political divisions in democracies across the Western world, mass extinction of some species and the potential for destabilizing migration patterns, it is too easy to predict the worst possible outcomes for AI technologies. Instead, I am going to offer some hopeful possibilities that we may work toward. I offer a somewhat utopian vision of what AI could possibly bring one step closer to becoming reality by 2040, sharing three of the important sectors in which AI may mostly help to improve daily life in the coming years.
1) Human flourishing: By 2040, AI is likely to replace jobs across the economy, requiring a transition to shared benefits through new economic policies such as a universal basic income (UBI). Society and the current economy will not tolerate mass unemployment, and the historic examples and experiments have consistently demonstrated the benefits of UBI. Liberating people from formalized jobs while maintaining economic productivity through AI and robots will promote fundamental human flourishing, allowing the time and space to create, care for the young and old and pursue the meaningful work that only humans are capable of.
“This transition may not come easily, but neither democracy nor authoritarian state violence will be able to sustain a system in which a few individuals own AI tools and large populations are displaced or out of work. AI will create the possibilities for a more equitable, sustainable society that relies less on consumption as a driver of productivity and instead evaluates productivity based on human-flourishing metrics such as happiness, longevity, access to healthcare and education and time for family, friends and community.
“The new economy will not rely on planned obsolescence and endless consumption but instead will be based on principles of renewable energy, circular production and zero waste. AI will reinforce efficiency throughout social and economic systems, helping to restore humans’ connections to the ecosystems that sustain life on the planet. While this may seem like an improbable outcome, AI is appearing at the very moment when our economic system has pushed our ecological systems to the brink.
“2) Transparency: AI will make fact checking easier and more accurate, as large datasets are accessed and summarized by AI far faster than any human could possibly work. Proprietary data will be increasingly difficult to keep out of reach of AI, leveling the playing field between consumers and corporations. While individual privacy will suffer as AI proliferates, the same processes may be used to reveal corporate and political behavior, potentially empowering citizens and consumers to make more-informed choices about the products and services they purchase and the government regulations they would like to come to pass in order to protect public and environmental health.
“Through AI, the logics that drive social media analytics and data mining of everyday life can also be applied to the corporate and political realm, making dark money harder to keep out of the light and disinformation campaigns easier to fact check.
“3) Accessibility: Access to specialized knowledge through arcane language is the foundation of many current professions, especially those associated with the legal system. AI will improve the public’s understanding of and access to legal processes, clarify contracts and loan agreements and offer anyone immediate assistance in overcoming historic barriers created to deny people everything from fair housing to pay equity. AI will empower citizens to use the legal system to advance democratic and constitutional values such as ‘equal protection under the law,’ helping to bypass the high cost of legal representation and allowing citizens more direct access to the code of law.
“Change is inevitable. Positive outcomes must first be imagined before they can become reality. New pathways forward are emerging. The open question remains: How will we respond to the technological and ecological upheavals rocking our world?”
This essay was written in November 2023 in reply to the question: Considering likely changes due to the proliferation of AI in individuals’ lives and in social, economic and political systems, how will life have changed by 2040? This and more than 150 additional essay responses are included in the report “The Impact of Artificial Intelligence by 2040”