what to expect in the future !!!

[mario]

i came across this last week and i really can't remember where, but it fit a topic here from last month about the old shops closing. it is a long read but worth the time.
ciao,
mario caimotto


> Subject:  Very
> Interesting Predictions
> Really is food for
> thought...and
>  scary too....Young folks should
> pick careers
>  carefully

> The
> Future

> Auto repair shops will
> go away.
> A gasoline engine has
> 20,000 individual parts. An electrical motor has 20.
> Electric cars are sold with lifetime
>  guarantees and are only repaired by dealers. It takes only
> 10 minutes to remove and replace an electric motor. Faulty
> electric motors are not repaired in the dealership but are
> sent to a regional repair shop that repairs them with
> robots. Your electric motor
>  malfunction light goes on, so you drive up to what looks
> like a Jiffy-auto wash, and your car is towed through while
> you have a cup of coffee and out comes your car with a new
> electric motor!

> Gas stations will go
> away. Parking meters will be replaced by meters that
> dispense electricity. Companies
>  will install electrical recharging stations; in fact,
> they’ve already started. You can find them at select
> Dunkin Donuts locations.

> Most (the smart) major
> auto manufacturers have already designated money to start
> building new plants that
>  only build electric cars.

> Coal industries will
> go away. Gasoline/oil companies will go away. Drilling for
> oil will stop. So say goodbye
>  to OPEC!

> Homes will produce and
> store more electrical energy during the day  than they
> use and will sell it back to
>  the grid. The grid stores it and disperses it to industries
> that are high electricity users. Has anybody seen the Tesla
> roof?

> A baby of today will
> only see personal cars in museums.

> The FUTURE is
> approaching faster than most of us can
> handle.

> In 1998, Kodak had
> 170,000 employees and sold 85% of all photo paper worldwide.
> Within just a few years, their
>  business model disappeared and they went bankrupt. Who
> would have thought of that ever
> happening?

> What happened to Kodak
> will happen in a lot of industries in the next 5-10 years
> and, most people don't see
>  it coming.

> Did you think in 1998
> that 3 years later, you would never take pictures on film
> again? With today’s smart
>  phones, who even has a camera these
> days?

> Yet digital cameras
> were invented in 1975. The first ones only had 10,000
> pixels, but followed Moore's law.
>  So as with all exponential technologies, it was a
> disappointment for a time, before it became way superior and
> became mainstream in only a few short years. It will now
> happen again (but much faster) with Artificial Intelligence,
> health, autonomous and electric
>  cars, education, 3D printing, agriculture and
> jobs.

> Forget the book,
> “Future Shock”, welcome to the 4th Industrial
> Revolution.

> Software has
> disrupted, ... and will continue to disrupt most traditional
> industries in the next 5-10 years.


> UBER is just a
> software tool, they don't own any cars, and are now the
> biggest taxi company in the world!

> Ask any taxi driver if
> they saw that coming.


> Air BnB is now the
> biggest hotel company in the world, although they don't
> own any properties.

> Ask Hilton Hotels if
> they saw that coming.

> Artificial
> Intelligence: Computers become exponentially better in
> understanding the world.


> This year, a computer
> beat the best Go-player in the world, 10 years earlier than
> expected.

> In the USA, young
> lawyers already don't get jobs. Because of IBM's
> Watson, you can get legal advice (so far
>  for right now, the basic stuff) within seconds, with 90%
> accuracy compared with 70% accuracy when done by humans. So,
> if you study law, stop immediately. There will be 90% fewer
> lawyers in the future, (what a thought!) only omniscient
> specialists will remain.

> Watson already helps
> in diagnosing cancer, it's 4 times more accurate than
> human nurses.
> Facebook now has
> pattern recognition software that can recognize faces better
> than humans. By 2030, computers
>  will become more intelligent than
> humans.

> Autonomous cars: In
> 2018 the first self-driving cars are already here. In the
> next 2 years, this entire industry
>  will begin to be disrupted. You won't want to own a car
> anymore as you will call a car with your phone, it will show
> up at your location and drive you to your destination. You
> will not need to park it ... you will only pay for the
> driven distance and you can
>  be productive while driving.  Very young children of
> today will never get a driver's license and will never
> own a car.

> This should change our
> cities, because we will need 90-95% fewer cars. We can
> transform former parking spaces
>  into parks.

> 1.2 million people die
> each year in car accidents worldwide including distracted or
> drunk driving. We now
>  have one accident every 60,000 miles; with autonomous
> driving that will drop to 1 accident in 6 million miles.
> That will save a million lives plus worldwide each
> year.

> Most traditional car
> companies will doubtless become bankrupt. Traditional car
> companies will try the evolutionary
>  approach and just build a better car, while tech companies
> (Tesla, Apple, Google) will do the revolutionary approach
> and build a computer on wheels.


> Look at what Volvo is
> doing right now; no more internal combustion engines in
> their vehicles starting this
>  year with the 2019 models, using all electric or hybrid
> only, with the intent of phasing out hybrid
> models.
\
> Many engineers from
> Volkswagen and Audi; are completely terrified of Tesla and
> so they should be. Look at
>  all the companies offering all electric vehicles. That was
> unheard of, only a few years ago.
\
> Insurance companies
> will have massive trouble because, without accidents, the
> costs will become cheaper. Their
>  car insurance business model will
> disappear.
\
> Real estate will
> change. Because if you can work while you commute, people
> will move farther away to live
>  in a more beautiful or affordable
> neighborhood.
\
> Electric cars will
> become mainstream about 2030. Cities will be less noisy
> because all new cars will run on
>  electricity.
\
> Cities will have much
> cleaner air as well. (Can we start in Los Angeles,
> please?)
\
> Electricity will
> become incredibly cheap and clean.
\
> Solar production has
> been on an exponential curve for 30 years, but you can now
> see the burgeoning impact.
\
> And it’s just
> getting ramped up.
\
> Fossil energy
> companies are desperately trying to limit access to the grid
> to prevent competition from home
>  solar installations, but that simply cannot continue -
> technology will take care of that
> strategy.
\
> Health: The Tricorder
> X price will be announced this year. There are companies who
> will build a medical device
>  (called the "Tricorder" from Star Trek) that
> works with your phone, which takes your retina scan, your
> blood sample and you breath into it. It then analyses 54
> bio-markers that will identify nearly any Disease. There are
> dozens of phone apps out there right
>  now for health purposes.
\
> WELCOME TO TOMORROW
> â€" it actually arrived a few years
> ago.

[Jason Edge]

The autonomous car section is spot on and will do the most to unnerve us car guys and gals.  This is where the techy in me is at odds with the old car guy in me!   Driverless, Uber-like transportation that whisks us to the front door (or unloading dock) of our destination and the huge amount of real estate it will free up since we do not need the huge parking lots is coming, … which will probably relegate driving our old Cadillacs to designated car parks.  Things like this can happen sooner than later, but is hard to predict how fast it will happen.  There was a quote from someone around 1910 in New York City as I recall, that said this horseless carriage thing would never catch on. I will have to find the actual quote.

[Bill Young]

I expect that most if not all of the future predictions listed will come to pass and sooner rather than later. All well and good , however one major problem with all this technology is everything we touch do and live with as well as create all requires less and less people. The problem I am alluding to is that without the ability for gainful employment one looses their self respect and self worth. Perhaps many of the factory jobs of the first half of the 20th. Century were not exciting and glorious however they provided a handsome paycheck and benefits for a Man to provide for his Family and himself. Everyone is not intelligent enough or wired to be a Physicist or a software engineer. So what happens in this brave new so called exciting new world where ordinary folk cannot obtain a job or make a living wage? Go for a drive in their classic Cadillac etc. I must say that I am 64 and am glad of it. The future you predict holds NO interest for me. I lived in Rochester New York and witnessed the downfall of KodaK , Bausch and Lomb and Xerox etc. and many more and also in neighboring Buffalo New York. Personally I yearn for the past. It was exciting , fulfilling and joyful. None of which does the future you describe look to hold in my opinion.

[Bob Hoffmann CLC#96]

Mario,
Could you please send me a copy of your post to bobscads@comcast.net. I want to be able to share it.
Thanks, Bob

[Eric DeVirgilis CLC# 8621]

So much oversimplification and half-truths in that article I would not know where to begin.

[z3skybolt]

At age 71 I am glad to have lived when I did. As I tell my children "I will get out of this world just in time".  Makes me wonder what life will be like for my five adult children: the Janitor, the Nurse, the Lawyer, the Teacher and the Commercial Writer...when they are my age.

I am encouraged that none of them fear the future.  Many of us have just "outlived our time".

Bob(the dinosaur)

[Eric DeVirgilis CLC# 8621]

I think the teacher, nurse and attorney will probably be fine...especially the attorney. 

[Jay Friedman]

......All well and good , however one major problem with all this technology is everything we touch do and live with as well as create all requires less and less people......

I agree with Bill.  How will society deal with all the people who have nothing to do in this future?  There will only be a limited need for people to take care of the robots.  The trend is already clear at the present time with the limited amount of existing automation.  When it becomes all pervasive, a huge percentage of mankind--at least in the developed "1st World"--may become redundant.

Another question I have is how will we deal with the "moral decisions" that may occasionally have to be made by driverless cars.?  For example, the driverless car is rolling along a narrow road and approaches a bicyclist on the right side of the road.  A large truck is approaching from the opposite direction.  The cyclist hits a bump or something and swerves into the path of the driverless car which can't swerve to the right for some reason.  The choice is running over the cyclist or swerving into the path of the truck.  Will the human passenger want a computer to make this decision?

Another question is what will all the jurisdictions and police departments do about all the violations, infractions and crimes associated with driving and the resulting revenue gained from fines.  Some notorious places, as is well known, depend on the revenue from assessing fines on drivers.  Can a passenger in a driverless car be held liable if the car speeds, runs a red light or commits one of many other infractions?  Or will it be the owners of fleets of driverless cars, who will most likely be large corporations with much greater means to defend themselves than individual drivers?

[Bobby B]

The problem I am alluding to is that without the ability for gainful employment one looses their self respect and self worth.

Why do you think so many people need prescription drugs to cope with life today? Why are there more suicides than ever? Why are there more crazies than ever before committing heinous acts? Your above statement holds a partial answer to my above statements.....

The future you predict holds NO interest for me. Personally I yearn for the past. It was exciting , fulfilling and joyful. None of which does the future you describe look to hold in my opinion.

Bill,
  I'm only 57 and couldn't agree with you more. Once I lose my ability to satisfy my curiosity, work with my hands to create something, or get personal satisfaction and joy out of solving a problem or accomplishing something, there's not too much to live for, other than my Family. I could never sit back and have everything done for me. Just not me....
                                                  Bobby
P.S.: The above topic has been hashed around forever over the years.

[Scot Minesinger]

Life today is better than previously, and yes there are certainly some aspects of it that appear not to be better.  Comparing all the pros and all the cons with life 50 years (or pick a significant time span) the pros to me prevail.  Life will be better in the future. 

Unfortunately, the future may not be kind to our hobby, but who knows.

[Bill Young]

I must add that driving an old Cadillac is more a part of me than just a hobby , like some use Golf , fishing or playing video Games ( none of which do I do ). After my oldest Son was killed in the Marine Corps. and my first wife left me and our other 3 kids with me , I sought some professional counseling. The professional after some time said to me one session that He had finally unlocked why Cadillac's of the 50's thru 70's were so importent to me. He stated that most people are nurtured in the home however in my case as my Father was an alcoholic thru my formative years that I was nurtured conversing with my Mother on the front seat of a 1968 Cadillac DeVille Convertible. So these cars have played a large part in my development and subsequent life and therefor hold much more meaning than just a hobby or passing interest. The idea of being prevented from ownership of one of these cars and especially of ever driving one again assumes the proportions of a nightmare to me. This I am sure is not a position shared with many people.

[WTL]

The cars need much better batteries.  Better electrical storage will change the world.

[Mike Josephic CLC #3877]

I think the teacher, nurse and attorney will probably be fine...especially the attorney. 

Lawyers are not as "safe" as you might think.  Many new
legal grads are already having trouble finding jobs.  "AI"
is creeping up behind them.

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/02/17/lawyers-could-be-replaced-by-artificial-intelligence.html

Mike

[Bill Hedge CLC 14424]

Mike:

I am an attorney and I agree with your assessment.   Technology has already had a tremendous impact on the way we do business.  The legal profession is not immune to these changes.

[Steve Passmore]

One thing that always confuses me with the exponents of electric cars to which they never have an answer, where does all this newly required electricity come from??    Imagine every car in the world electric, there would need to be an atomic power station outside every town in the world. This, if even possible would create far more problems in the future than cars pollution.  Would they prefer coal stations??   I don't see the answer but like others here, glad I have lived it and will not see the future.

[Eric DeVirgilis CLC# 8621]

I'd like to see an autonomous driving vehicle that can make it's way in a blizzard through snow a foot and a half deep.

It's pretty difficult to input a computer with the information learned by 40 years of driving experience & driving by the seat of your pants that only a human operator can.

[Big Apple Caddy]

“Space Cars In 50 Years Forseen By Automaker”
In 50 years, speculates Henry Ford II, the auto industry will be building family vehicles for space travel..........

Well, it's been more than 50 years â€" where is my Ford Moon Explorer or Ford Lunar Expedition?

[bcroe]

ANOTHER wild guess list of predictions. 
I will make just one prediction, fossil fuels are NEVER going away. 
Bruce Roe

[Scot Minesinger]

Steve,

The extra power - that is easy.  The power grid is built to handle worst case peak demand.  This is normally late in the afternoon during the summer when ac is cranking.  At night the grid loafs and the use of it lower, electricity rates are cheaper too at low peak demand to encourage anyone who can make ice at night and use it for ac during the day.  Most of the cars would charge at night.  I think we will be OK.  There will have to be some tweaks, but generally it will be fine.

I sure hope fossil fuels are never going away. 

[wrench]

Interesting premise and more and more common every day.

I am a professional mechanic. I prefer 'mechanic' even though my industry has insisted on 'technician' for a long time now. So that is one example of how much of a dinosaur I am.

I fix broken stuff every day. This article is typical pie in the sky technophile b.s. My job is to predict the future a hundred ways, mostly that the repairs I do wont fall apart and kill somebody in a cartwheeling fireball.

To use a Cadillac example, my '14 SRX has 'Rain Sense' and I call it 'No Sense' as it has a mind of its own and fails miserable at its designed function. It is a microcosm of failed design, software, hardware and real world interface that glaringly contrasts with 'man in the loop' control systems. I can tell you for a fact, that I am better at managing the intermittent wipers 500% than that crappy system. Sure, I would like it to function properly and reduce my workload during a challenging task  of driving in varying precipitation. But on the contrary, it actually increases my workload while driving in the rain because its failure to be consistent results in unpredictable amounts of visibility.

I use Rainex instead. So here in 2019, its me, my Rainex, my elbow grease and my brain working with a simple intermittent wiper system to provide safe and consistent visibility.

The future of electric cars is sound, but right now as someone pointed out, they are coal fired and have lousy storage and recharge capability...that will take a while to resolve. It will take fusion on the grid to make it work.

That wont happen as long as there are trillions of barrels of fossil fuels under ground.