Many of these experts expressed great hopes for a future in which human lives are augmented by artificial intelligence. Among the many hopes are that governments will move more quickly toward soft and hard regulation of AI and that more technology leaders will focus on human-centered AI design over profit motives. A string of other examples from the pieces in this chapter: “Humans will live in multiple ‘geographies’” due to the expected arrival in the 2030s of fully immersive VR with zero latency. | “AI will [lead to a] more-equitable, sustainable society that relies less on consumption as a driver of productivity and instead evaluates productivity based on human-flourishing metrics.” | “AIs will act as coaches and cheerleaders that help us to access the better angels of our natures.” | “The removal of language barriers will ensure that every individual can engage in decision-making processes and advocate for their interests.”
Ben Shneiderman
We aim to assure that AI supports human self-efficacy, creativity and connectedness
Ben Shneiderman, professor emeritus of human-computer interaction at the University of Maryland and consultant to many U.S. AI boards and panels, shared insights written for readers of his “Notes on Human-Centered AI” column. He commented,“Those of us who believe in human-centered approaches have much work to do to encourage design of artificial intelligence user experiences, audit trails, independent oversight, open reporting of incidents and other governance strategies. Our commitment to amplify, augment, empower and enhance human performance can result in applications that inspire human self-efficacy, creativity, responsibility, social connectedness and collaboration tools.
“The U.S. White House published President Biden’s Executive Order on Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence Oct. 30, 2023, a 20,000-word document that produced a torrent of analyses important to the future of humanity and AI. I was pleased to see strong human-centered statements focused on developing a positive future, including: ‘the critical next steps in AI development should be built on the views of workers, labor unions, educators and employers to support responsible uses of AI that improve workers’ lives, positively augment human work and help all people safely enjoy the gains and opportunities from technological innovation.’
“This executive order shifts the discussion from long-term worries and vague threats to short-term efforts to fix problems, prevent harms and promote positive outcomes. Critics may complain that it should have made more demands on tech companies, but the actions of federal agencies, if followed through, will have a profound effect on big tech and big companies that use AI technologies. The nearly 100 requested actions include tasks such as ‘Establish guidelines and best practices, with the aim of promoting consensus industry standards, for developing and deploying safe, secure, and trustworthy AI systems … Establish appropriate guidelines … to conduct AI red-teaming tests to enable deployment of safe, secure and trustworthy systems. … Streamline processing times of visa petitions and applications, including by ensuring timely availability of visa appointments for noncitizens who seek to travel to the United States to work on, study or conduct research in AI or other critical and emerging technologies. … Support the goal of strengthening our nation’s resilience against climate change impacts and building an equitable clean energy economy for the future.’
“The contrast between this White House order and the much-heralded statement delivered at the UK- and U.S.-led Bletchley Declaration by Countries Attending the AI Safety Summit Nov. 1, 2023 is striking. The Bletchley Declaration makes familiar calls for positive steps: ‘We recognise that this is therefore a unique moment to act and affirm the need for the safe development of AI and for the transformative opportunities of AI to be used for good and for all, in an inclusive manner in our countries and globally. … The protection of human rights, transparency and explainability, fairness, accountability, regulation, safety, appropriate human oversight, ethics, bias mitigation, privacy and data protection needs to be addressed.’ This is fine, but the declaration only restates well-worn terms like ‘must,’ ‘should,’ ‘we resolve,’ and ‘we encourage’ without indicating who does what by when.
Those of us who believe in human-centered approaches have much work to do to encourage design of artificial intelligence user experiences, audit trails, independent oversight, open reporting of incidents and other governance strategies. Our commitment to amplify, augment, empower and enhance human performance can result in applications that inspire human self-efficacy, creativity, responsibility, social connectedness and collaboration tools.
“The Bletchley Declaration repeats virtuous phrases with no immediate action. Biden’s executive order contains 90-plus tasks to be carried out by U.S. federal departments and agencies, with deadlines mostly in the 60- to 180-day range. On the positive side, the Bletchley Summit brought together representatives of 28 nations, including China, to consider ‘wider international cooperation on AI.’ South Korea and France have agreed to host future meetings. Maybe both approaches are needed: specific short-term actions by specifically-tasked government agencies and wider international cooperation. While the Bletchley Declaration avoids AI ‘extinction’ rhetoric, it invokes a new phrase – ‘frontier AI’ – which is described as ‘highly capable general-purpose AI models, including foundation models, that could perform a wide variety of tasks … that match or exceed the capabilities present in today’s most advanced models.’
“The UK plans to launch an AI Safety Institute (AISI) supported by a vague agreement by companies to submit new models to rigorous testing. The AISI could become a positive force for evaluations and research. Of interest during the AI Safety Summit was a side-event conversation in which British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak interviewed technology titan Elon Musk, who has often expressed concerns about potential dangers of AI. Musk told Sunak that ‘AI can create a future of abundance’ and added that there is an 80% likelihood of AI being a definite net positive to society, but only if humanity is cognizant and careful about the fact that it will also have a 20% downside. ‘AI will be a force for good, most likely,’ he said. ‘But the probability of it going bad is not zero percent.’
“The Biden Administration’s U.S. executive order is an astonishing document that has the potential to produce substantial changes in U.S. government activities that could significantly influence the future of AI, what businesses and universities do, as well as what other countries will do. Naturally, as some commentators have pointed out, the question is how well all these tasks can be carried out.”
José Cordeiro
The big picture is that this tech is mostly a big positive, but do fear ‘human stupidity’
José Cordeiro, a fellow of the World Academy of Art & Science based in Madrid, Spain, and vice president at Humanity Plus, expects great things out of more-advanced AI by 2040. He commented, “Life will be much better in general thanks to AGI. Overall, I am not afraid of AGI, but I do fear human stupidity!”
Andy Opel
Positive outcomes must be imagined before they can become reality: Aim for human flourishing
Andy Opel, professor of communications at Florida State University, said, “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.
“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.
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.
“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?”
Clifford Lynch
We will be better off overall in 2040 if AI does not progress much, though social recalibration will be disruptive
Clifford Lynch, director of the Coalition for Networked Information, said, “I start with two assumptions. The first is that we won’t see much progress on general-purpose AI in the next 15 years or so. If this is wrong, all bets are off, and one of the biggest challenges is going to be sorting out all kinds of human-species-oriented bias; these intelligences won’t be human and won’t act like humans.
“My second assumption is that we won’t see radical advances in human-computer interfaces (direct brain/neural connections), or if so only among small elite groups in the sciences, the arts, finance, medical care or the military (to name a few possibilities where the advantages may be so compelling that we’ll see adoption of those technologies).
By 2040 most people won’t spend much time thinking about ‘AI’ per se. AI technologies (machine learning, natural language processing, robotics, some generative technologies, etc.) will be embedded in and connected to everything, and most people will use them within the context of other tasks and systems, not as ends in themselves. For example, in scientific research, engineering and drug discovery we’ll see automated labs or collections of instruments that can perform guided scientific discovery and optimization of materials or processes under high-level human guidance. We are already seeing early examples of this, and over the next 15 years these will steadily grow in capacity and levels of autonomy.
“Given those assumptions, one of the most compelling conclusions for me is that by 2040 most people won’t spend much time thinking about ‘AI’ per se. AI technologies (machine learning, natural language processing, robotics, some generative technologies, etc.) will be embedded in and connected to everything, and most people will use them within the context of other tasks and systems, not as ends in themselves.
“For example, in scientific research, engineering and drug discovery we’ll see automated labs or collections of instruments that can perform guided scientific discovery and optimization of materials or processes under high-level human guidance. We are already seeing early examples of this, and over the next 15 years these will steadily grow in capacity and levels of autonomy. But they will remain limited in their ability to formulate new hypotheses and design ways to explore them, or to deal with really unexpected or novel situations.
“We’ll see a lot of AI technologies packaged as consultants, advisors or assistants to human ‘experts’ in various sectors today. Obvious examples would include in health care, financial advising, perhaps sales and some forms of teaching. There are likely to be many more. Progress in these areas will be gradual. I don’t expect severe and sudden disruptions in general, though there is certainly the possibility of dangerous, suddenly disruptive uses of these technologies.
“I can imagine some significant crises arising in the financial markets if risk isn’t recognized and managed appropriately, but this doesn’t feel fundamentally new but rather just an additional set of tools to allow humans to do stupid things. I’m more concerned with warfare and warfare-adjacent applications of AI (e.g., terrorism, asymmetric warfare), which may be characterized by high levels of desperation and the need to match or one-up opponents in what are perceived as existentially threatening scenarios. These situations could produce horrible outcomes.
“We are at the beginnings of a major reconsideration of our conceptualization of the role of creators and how we recognize and delineate their rights over their creations. We are gaining the ability to easily and convincingly re-animate performers (e.g., deceased film stars, sports heroes), to author new works ‘in the style of’ previous authors and to involve various kinds of computational and AI technologies intimately in new creative work.
“Legal controversies are already arising over the use of copyrighted or otherwise protected materials as ‘training data’ for AI-based systems. These developments, which are being accelerated by AI-related technologies, do not fit well within our existing cultural or legal frameworks and our understanding of creative works and creators. Resolving this is going to be a slow – and definitely disruptive – process. It may have some very unexpected and important second-order effects, for example in the ways that we relate to our cultural history and centuries of creative works that form part of this history, or even in the way we relate to our individual or family histories (computational re-animations of our ancestors).
As a society we are going to have to learn to understand and deal with the results of these technologies. The effects of these social changes will ripple through areas as diverse as the legal system, politics and news reporting, as well as in entertainment and the arts and sciences, and will perhaps cause profound changes in the conduct of day-to-day interpersonal relations. Sorting through this is going to be very difficult and disruptive but seems unavoidable. We need a complete social recalibration of how we think about evidence and truth. Generative AI technologies and applications such as deepfakes have brought us to the point where we can no longer believe our eyes and ears in any straightforward way.
“Sources, provenance, and chains of custody have become critical, along with issues of corroboration and consistency. I am very skeptical that we will be able to restrict or control (e.g., through watermarking requirements) the technologies that can generate utterly convincing sounds and images of events that never took place. Rather, as a society we are going to have to learn to understand and deal with the results of these technologies.
“The effects of these social changes will ripple through areas as diverse as the legal system, politics and news reporting, as well as in entertainment and the arts and sciences, and will perhaps cause profound changes in the conduct of day-to-day interpersonal relations. Sorting through this is going to be very difficult and disruptive but it seems unavoidable.
“We need a complete social recalibration of how we think about evidence and truth. Generative AI technologies and applications such as deepfakes have brought us to the point where we can no longer believe our eyes and ears in any straightforward way.
“Closely related here are developments in computationally-based ‘friends’ or ‘companions’ which will make heavy use of AI technologies. These also raise issues about intellectual property and indeed issues about the extent to which we regard them strictly as property; perhaps the ways we think about pets today will become a relevant point of departure. Overall, I am optimistic. On balance, these technologies will leave us in a better place as individuals and as a society, though there are going to be many surprises along the way.”
Jason Hong
The possibilities for a positive future in education and learning seem endless
Jason Hong, a professor at the Human-Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon University now also working on his second new-tech startup, commented, “One of the most likely positive changes from AI will be improvements in education. Everyone will have access to a range of intelligent tutors. It will help young children learn to read better and faster, identifying where they are struggling and helping them when they need it. For middle schoolers and high schoolers there will be a range of tutors available to assist them, especially for math and science subjects. This can lead to significant improvements in learning and retention.
Our educational systems will adapt to figure out good uses of these new tools and figure out how to incorporate them into education. But things won’t stop there. These AI systems can also help people of all ages learn necessary skills quickly. Some specialized training might be offered using a combination of wearable computing and sensors and videos.
“Right now, all schools (K-12 and college) are struggling with finding the appropriate use of ChatGPT and other large language AI models (LLMs), but I expect things will end up not too different from what has happened after the initial societal worries upon the arrival of calculators and Wikipedia. That is, our educational systems will adapt to figure out good uses of these new tools and figure out how to incorporate them into education.
“But things won’t stop there. These AI systems can also help people of all ages learn necessary skills quickly. Some specialized training might be offered using a combination of wearable computing and sensors and videos. For example, if I have never changed a tire and need to figure it out right now due to a flat tire, AI systems might be able to data mine YouTube videos, figure out the steps needed, adapt the steps to my specific car and circumstances, and display it to me step by step. The same could be true for a wide range of activities, from maintenance to sports to lab work.”
Paul Jones
What if AIs could eventually become the realization of kind beauty?
Paul Jones, professor emeritus of information science at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, said, “Although I was raised on doubt from the very first time I read science fiction books as a young man, something in me thinks that artificial general intelligence, while not emulating a human mind precisely, might be possible. I say ‘general’ in the sense that many domains and sensors will be integrated in such a way that something that resembles a human conscience might be achievable.
Something in me thinks that artificial general intelligence, while not emulating a human mind precisely, might be possible. I say ‘general’ in the sense that many domains and sensors will be integrated in such a way that something that resembles a human conscience might be achievable.
“This would not take physical form in a Robbie the Robot, R2-D2 or C3P0 kind of way, but it would take shape in a way that may seem discorporate, even ghostly, and yet pervasive. I cannot escape the fear the lessons from Karel Čapek’s 1920 play ‘Rossum’s Universal Robots’ about the parallels between enslavement, revolt and general AI creations. I cannot escape that fear.
“But what, I ask myself after a light mind-relaxing Sazerac, what if such a general AI creation was benevolent? What if instead of bending to the will of malicious rulers and economic opportunists as in Čapek’s robot revolt instead of killing us the AIs decide to be our angels, reformers and protectors? What if they care about our health? What if they understand and improve local living conditions and transportation and distribution systems? What if we, like Walter Benjamin, thought more deeply about art in an age of changing means of composition and saw one more kind beauty there? What if they were to be something wonderful?”
Jean Paul Nkurunziza
We can rethink how education is delivered and extend its reach
Jean Paul Nkurunziza, expert moderator with the Internet Society and researcher at CIPESA Burundi, wrote, “I have great hope for AI’s impact on educational systems by 2040. Over the past few years, we have seen the emergence of AI systems that we can implement to do a better job of assisting students in all aspects of their education. We need to rethink the educational goals at all levels of schools. Each school level currently aims at introducing and teaching a set of defined skills to a learner, allowing each to address given situations in their lives in a correct way. In the future, AI systems found in mobile devices might have an embedded capability to address such situations on behalf of the owner or informing the owner of what they should do. At some level, it is possible that schools – as we have them now – might disappear.”
Kelly Quinn
AIs’ talent for managing the transit of information, people and vehicles will reshape our lives
Kelly Quinn, professor of communication at the University of Illinois-Chicago, said, “Life will change markedly by 2040 due in part to the huge strides in the evolution of large language models that we are already seeing.
“Education systems will necessarily be reconfigured to accommodate the use of generative tools. New methods of teaching and new ways to determine whether we have met educational goals and learning outcomes will be required, as we will be unable to determine the locus of understanding in our students with our current methods.
What stands out to me is the way in which AI is already reconfiguring time and space to suit individual and organizational purposes. I expect this momentum will carry to the future in greater measure. The ability to use AI to manage transit flows – of people, vehicles and information – will shape future expectations tied to space and geography, along with our ability to move through it efficiently.
“Generative tools may also shape societal values in ways that are unanticipated – for example, if artistic works can be generated through the use of AI, how will we value creativity? What stands out to me is the way in which AI is already reconfiguring time and space to suit individual and organizational purposes. I expect this momentum will carry to the future in greater measure.
“The ability to use AI to manage transit flows – of people, vehicles and information – will shape future expectations tied to space and geography, along with our ability to move through it efficiently. This may be a gain for societies that are already choked by traffic and will benefit all types of political and economic actors. At the same time, I am concerned that we may lose something valuable due to the way in which AI technologies configure and compress time.
“On the surface, the use of AI seems like a positive benefit, as it gives us the ability to generate quicker responses with greater and better information. But it can also result in an erosion of our ability to use time to our advantage – to make considered judgments, to feel and process emotion, to alter an earlier-made response. This would be a major loss, as it is these are the very things that make us human.”
Daniel Pimienta
Challenges posed by AI will provoke the paradigm shift necessary for good societal outcomes
Daniel Pimienta, leader of the Observatory of Linguistic and Cultural Diversity on the Internet, based in Nice, France, observed, “On the positive side, there is an aspect which did not appear in the previous questions that could be extremely relevant. So far, the historical progress of computing and networking has been very poor in supporting linguistic and cultural diversity. This is due mainly to historical reasons related to the circles of action of that progress, primarily in occidental countries and English-speaking, as first or second language, communities (pushed by the domination of the English language in Research publications).
“I personally think this period is over now (even if this fact is not yet clearly perceived by the general public and short-sighted researchers/professionals), especially for linguistic diversity and much less in cultural diversity.
In 2040, the world (especially the digital world) will definitively be much more prone to deal with multilingualism and cultural diversity, and although AI cannot be credited alone for that major change it will be a strong catalyst and amplifier of it. The lingua franca of the digital world will not be more English, but translation assisted by powerful AI tools
“AI will accompany and amplify this fundamental change in the world. Studies from our Observatory of Linguistic and Cultural Diversity already witnessed the premises of this profound change; the extraordinary born ability of AI to deal with multilingualism will increase the speed of that change and provoke the paradigm change which will make it full reality. In 2040, the world (especially the digital world) will definitively be much more prone to deal with multilingualism and cultural diversity, and although AI cannot be credited alone for that major change it will be a strong catalyst and amplifier of it. The lingua franca of the digital world will not be more English, but translation assisted by powerful AI tools and this change will start affecting other realms such as Research (while it is already pregnant in e-commerce).
“On the negative side, the amount and depth of ethical challenges posed by AI will also represent a paradigm shift and, if it is not joined by a paradigm shift in regulations, the future may be quite dark. The experience of the Internet so far, where huge companies have imposed their rules to maximize their profits, in clear non-adequation with general interest, triggers a lot of pessimism. However, signs are growing (in particular from European Union policies for data) that a shift is underway and there is the possibility that the depth and weight of the ethical challenges posed by AI will provoke the paradigm shift required in regulations for personal data protection, algorithm transparency, non-anonymousness in social networks, source transparency and credit in AI.
“However, even if this regulation paradigm shift is obtained, it will hardly be followed by non-democratic countries and the threat will come from that side of the world amplifying the already growing tensions between ethical concerned countries and those which are not.
“‘The end justifies the means’: the allegiance or not to this statement by powerful companies and by non-democratic countries will be the criterion that will decide on the balance between a world marked by progress assisted by AI or chaos provoked by AI.”
Nrupesh Soni
Look ahead to a blend of exciting innovations and challenging disruptions
Nrupesh Soni, founder of the Facilit8 digital consultancy, based in Namibia, wrote, “The proliferation of AI by 2040 could lead to profound changes across many facets of individual and societal life. Here are some of the likely impacts:
- “Economy and Employment: AI and automation could displace jobs, particularly in routine or manual tasks. The churn in the job market could lead to job insecurity, especially for individuals in routine or low-skilled jobs. However, its success and broader adoption could also foster new types of jobs, especially those requiring AI-human collaboration.
- “Productivity and Efficiency: Companies could become more productive and efficient, thanks to AI-powered analytics and automation. This could potentially lead to economic growth.
- “Society and Daily Life: Enhanced Services: Individuals might enjoy more personalized, efficient services in areas like healthcare, education and retail.
- “Smart Environments: With the evolution of the Internet of Things and AI, our homes, cities and transportation could become smarter and more responsive to our needs.
- “Political Systems: AI could aid in data-driven policy-making. However, it could also result in new challenges regarding privacy and data security.
- “Public Services: AI could streamline public services, but it could also raise concerns about bias and inequity in AI-driven systems.
- “Autonomy and Privacy: One of the most significant changes could be the erosion of privacy due to pervasive data collection, which is a cornerstone for AI systems. This trade-off between convenience and privacy might be a central theme.
- “Education and Skill Development: As AI reshapes the job market, continuous learning and skill development might become crucial. Education systems may need to evolve to prepare individuals for a rapidly changing workforce.
- “Innovation: The synergy between AI and other technologies could foster unprecedented innovation, potentially solving complex challenges like climate change and issues in healthcare.
- “Quality of Life: Enhanced services and smart environments could significantly improve the quality of life.
- “Social Equity: Without careful management, the benefits of AI could be unevenly distributed, exacerbating existing social inequalities.
“The next 15 years could see a blend of exciting innovations and challenging disruptions due to the proliferation of AI. Balancing the gains while mitigating the potential losses and ethical challenges will likely require thoughtful policies, inclusive education and robust public discourse.”
Anonymous respondent
AIs will act as cheerleaders and coaches to help us access our better angels
A computational social scientist studying cooperation and collaboration in online communities, predicted, “There may be a real opportunity for AIs to act as coaches and cheerleaders that help us to access the better angels of our natures. Relatedly, I think it’s very likely that AI therapy proves to be widespread and helpful, combating the mental health crisis to a small or large degree. The social implications are really difficult to predict.
“On one hand, AI-generated deepfakes make it harder to determine what is real and could throw things into chaos. On the other hand, there have already been promising experiments showing that AI can help people to communicate across party lines, to reflect on their behavior, etc.
Over the next 15 years, it is very likely that we will all have AI assistants, helping us to navigate the world. It is becoming obvious that AI-generated content will be very good, and that humans and AI will work together to produce art, prototypes, etc. Many, many more jobs will involve generating and evaluating output from AI and then re-arranging what the AI has produced.
“Over the next 15 years, it is very likely that we will all have AI assistants, helping us to navigate the world. It is becoming obvious that AI-generated content will be very good, and that humans and AI will work together to produce art, prototypes, etc. Many, many more jobs will involve generating and evaluating output from AI and then re-arranging what the AI has produced. While self-driving cars have been elusive, they are getting closer, and by 2040 it seems likely that most driving-based jobs will be automated. I am hopeful about the role that AI will have in design. We have seen that it can be effective at figuring out protein folding. Other challenges, like turbine design, materials design, etc., seem amenable to a similar approach.”
Anonymous respondent
2040 could bring a more-inclusive, sustainable, compassionate world that transcends linguistic biases and celebrates human diversity
The manager of a futures studies organization wrote, “In the year 2040, as we here in South Asia continue our journey towards gender equality, universal basic income and a sustainable way of life in a developing country, the changes brought about by AI will be truly profound.
“It’s a future in which folks from both struggling and thriving nations can communicate, read, write and share in their native languages without any added oppression based on language differences. Yes, the most significant shift we’ll witness is the breaking of language barriers thanks to AI and AGI. People from all walks of life will be able to communicate in their mother tongue, regardless of whether they come from richer or poorer countries. This inclusiveness ensures that no one feels left behind due to the language they speak. It’s a remarkable step towards embracing cultural diversity and giving people the freedom to fully express themselves.
Governments must provide universal basic income, ensuring that every citizen, irrespective of their linguistic background, has access to the resources needed for a decent life. This economic security will provide people with the opportunity to overcome the limitations of poverty and actively participate in the world around them. Addressing wealth inequality will continue to be a priority as AGI transforms traditional economic structures. Guided by a strong sense of empathy and ethics, wealth will be distributed more fairly.
“Putting an end to poverty will remain a difficult and central goal in this future. The work of enhanced artificial general intelligence (AGI) in taking over repetitive and memory-based tasks will play a crucial role in achieving this. Governments must provide universal basic income, ensuring that every citizen, irrespective of their linguistic background, has access to the resources needed for a decent life. This economic security will provide people with the opportunity to overcome the limitations of poverty and actively participate in the world around them. Addressing wealth inequality will continue to be a priority as AGI transforms traditional economic structures. Guided by a strong sense of empathy and ethics, wealth will be distributed more fairly.
“Making knowledge accessible to all is another noteworthy achievement. AI-driven translation tools and language learning resources will bridge the language gap, making an education and all information available in every language. People from everywhere will be able to learn in their preferred language. This will not only lead to a revival of local culture, art and innovation but also foster a sense of pride in one’s cultural and linguistic heritage while promoting a deeper understanding of the world.
“Sustainability remains at the heart of our existence in 2040. We will be committed to eliminating carbon emissions and embracing eco-friendly technologies. Our linguistic diversity will contribute to preserving indigenous knowledge and ecological practices. AGI, in tandem with language inclusivity, will facilitate more-profound conversations between communities and ecosystems, helping us protect and restore our planet.
“The removal of language barriers will ensure that every individual can engage in decision-making processes and advocate for their interests. The gains in this future are nothing short of remarkable. The freedom from language-based oppression, the eradication of poverty, universal access to knowledge, sustainable living and equitable wealth distribution will empower people to break free from the chains that have held them back for generations.
“However, challenges and potential setbacks are still on the horizon. The transition period as AGI reshapes the job market may bring about economic instability and resistance to change. Governments will need to adapt to new social and economic structures, ensuring that UBI and language inclusivity are managed effectively and fairly. Balancing economic growth with environmental sustainability remains a complex task. Resistance to change, particularly from those who have benefited from existing power structures and profit-driven motives, may persist.
“Achieving this 2040 vision will require a collective commitment to building a more-inclusive, sustainable and compassionate world that transcends linguistic biases and celebrates the richness of human diversity.”
Continue reading: Briefer responses tied to the primary research question