Admin work, office jobs, warehouse and inventory.
Replaced by a combination of software systems, AI, machines and part-time contractors to do the only bits that require any form of human intervention, occasional oversite and maintenance.
Typing. I think typing won’t exist.
Work. Either by design or by accident. Almost everything is going to be automated, probably much faster than we think. If by design we (or rather our kids) can look forward to a life of leisure and/or voluntary activity, if by accident a life of grinding poverty and financial insecurity awaits. I think we can probably guess which one is more likely.
Not having to find a parking space either at your destination or near home. Not having to organise servicing and repairs, not having to pay for the repairs. Having the correct vehicle for your needs every time. ie a small runabout if its just you and a big van when you need one to move furniture
There are already a variety of car share schemes all over the UK including in rural areas and we are late adopters to this. Its not just for cities and it will increase mobility for the poor the old and the disabled
You've never rented a car, have you.
"There's a minor scuff on the wing mirror housing which we've already charged 47 previous customers for yet never actually fixed, are you using both of those kidneys?"
I rent cars all the time and that has never happened to me. I have used car clubs and that has never happened to me - indeed it cannot with car clubs.
Admin work, office jobs, warehouse and inventory.
Replaced by a combination of software systems, AI, machines and part-time contractors to do the only bits that require any form of human intervention, occasional oversite and maintenance.
With warehouses were already there. I was doing some design work for one of the big interweb shopping places and they asked if I fancied a tour of their state of the art warehousing operation, which they’d just spent an absolute fortune on.
It was gobsmacking! An enormous warehouse, automated to the point where they don’t bother putting the lights on in the place, apart from the area where they’re doing any maintenance, because there’s nobody in there, just robots. As stock goes out, the inventory is checked and updated and low stock is ordered automatically on their systems.
Instead of people on forklifts and pallet trucks, with pickers lugging boxes around, there were about ten staff, monitoring the equipment on screens and a maintenance crew to keep the machines running.
It’s a very, very long way from my warehouse summer jobs I had when I was a student. If any of those jobs still exist, they won’t do for long
(Apologies to MrSparkle)
Exist. Once the AI driven killer robots realise they don’t need us anymore we’ll be toast.
Contribute to and utilise the internet anonymously.
You will have a single identity, facilitated by a central identity provider - like Microsoft Entra, Octa or Meta. Everything you do will be linked to that: your banking, email, social media, forum participation, media subscription, travel tickets, passport application, tax returns, NHS login, even VPN login. All centrally provisioned, logged, audited, cross referenced, sold, mined and exploited.
We’re seeing trends towards centralisation in the industry, the way society is heading, I don’t think it’ll be long before governments cotton onto its advantages for general control.
Scary $hit.
There's no car club, how could that even work with insurance, tax, MOT, servicing etc etc
Well there are already plenty of car clubs around that prove the concept works for those who only occasionally need a car for short periods. The thread isn’t asking what will change overnight it’s asking what will future generations look back on and find quaint. I don’t expect that car clubs will actually be the long term solution - Uber style services where you tap in your requirements and a car appears will be much more likely to succeed.
Will we get there? Perhaps if a political party manages to find a way to tax people for storing their cars on the road.
My list, so far:
- Over the counter fireworks. Yep, lets sell actual rockets to the public
- Vaping
- Splitting up older couples when one of them goes into residential care
- Phones / Social media for kids
- Religion, all forms
- Driven grouse moors
What else have you got?
That feels like a list of things you disapprove of rather than things that will be necessarily become extinct and then seem bizarre to future generations.
The idea that we force people to keep living regardless of their prognosis will almost certainly seem bizzare in 100 years. The idea that it took so long to change because of religious influence even more so. I don’t think Religion will disappear like you suggest but its involvement in anyway with the state, schools etc will become something unthinkable… eventually.
your care home point is interesting - given the costs involved it may actually be that care homes themselves no longer exist in the way that we know today.
I’m not convinced about phones / social media for kids going away. If Social Media is going to die out - why just for kids - it probably does more harm in the world amongst adults! Phones bring too many advantages to children, they and those who look after them need to learn who to manage them not remove them.
so just to throw an alternative thought into your future “utopia” — the riding of bicycles on the public highway! And I wouldn’t rule out the possibility that individuals can simply walk up a mountain free of charge.
Oh - and in the spirit of the things you listed like women’s suffrage…
a hereditary head of state
Eating anything that isn't Soylent Green.
Contribute to and utilise the internet anonymously.
You will have a single identity, facilitated by a central identity provider - like Microsoft Entra, Octa or Meta. Everything you do will be linked to that: your banking, email, social media, forum participation, media subscription, travel tickets, passport application, tax returns, NHS login, even VPN login. All centrally provisioned, logged, audited, cross referenced, sold, mined and exploited.
We’re seeing trends towards centralisation in the industry, the way society is heading, I don’t think it’ll be long before governments cotton onto its advantages for general control.
We’re already there.
On the rest is politics the other week they commented on integrated facial recognition cameras tied to Palantir software pulling in data from a whole range of sources; twitter / social media / phone location data / tax returns etc in real time being used by ICE etc in the USA right now.
On the rest is politics the other week they commented on integrated facial recognition cameras tied to Palantir software pulling in data from a whole range of sources; twitter / social media / phone location data / tax returns etc in real time being used by ICE etc in the USA right now.
I missed that and would like a listen, do you know which episode it was on?
Pass I’m afraid - it was two of three weeks ago when I was driving. It was a topic they made in a quite offhand way and I thought deserved farmore in-depth discussion.
here’s a guardian article from last week on it
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2025/sep/22/ice-palantir-data
Quite interesting that the most controversial prediction is that we won't need (or want) to own cars.
I like cars, I like driving, but not all the time. A quiet weekend drive to the trails down some nice country roads, lovely. The school run (not that I do it often) or commuting by car into the city (again rare) both crap.
I don't actually think most people have any interest in driving, they are just addicted to the convenience of having a car instantly available. Talk to someone about "steering feel" or "shift quality" and watch their eyes glaze over, you might as well be talking about quantum physics or mountain bike suspension geometry.
If i had to guess, i'd say fewer than 5% of people actually care about "driving". If you solve the convenience issue with autonomous vehicles that can show up outside your front door at a moments notice then a lot of people would happily do without the hassle of owning a vehicle.
There is probably a larger cohort of people who like cars as a symbol of status, but a lot of this is probably driven by social pressures and norms, just offer them a subscription service where a fancier autonomous vehicle turns up.
I think some people will definitely still own cars, I just don't think it will be the norm as it is now.
Use the internet.
I heard we're all using about 5 sites each now (off the entire net) and most of them are controlled by the same organisations. The internet is becoming awash with AI content and AI bots, AI bot farms are communicating with each other in comments, generating their own content and human content is becoming obsolete. It's becoming less possible to trust what we see online thanks to AI. No idea what's next tho.
What else have you got?
Train drivers - why are they still a thing?!!
Surely they should have been the first thing to be automated out of existence - I mean trains only go forwards or backwards and are on rails. 🤷♂️
AFAIA the whole rail network is computerised and yet we still have train drivers [to go on strike]. 🤯
(apologies to any train drivers out there .... but I just don't get it)
Use the internet.
I heard we're all using about 5 sites each now (off the entire net) and most of them are controlled by the same organisations. The internet is becoming awash with AI content and AI bots, AI bot farms are communicating with each other in comments, generating their own content and human content is becoming obsolete. It's becoming less possible to trust what we see online thanks to AI. No idea what's next tho.
That's exactly what a bot might say 🤔
Train drivers is a very good shout. DLR has been driverless for ever, aircraft can fly themselves over the Atlantic and land in fog, driverless taxi's are moving around San Francisco right now. Trains don't even have a steering wheel so should be the easiest thing to drive themselves.
One big advantage of cycling over driving is that commuting always takes the same amount of time. I don't have to make allowances for traffic jams or finding a parking space.
this around town driving is a pain, I’d much rather cycle.
aircraft can fly themselves over the Atlantic and land in fog
Without a pilot? Auto everything is great. But the step up from that to being safe without an expert to hand is big.
Without a pilot? Auto everything is great. But the step up from that to being safe without an expert to hand is big.
Surely of all of the modes of mass transport, railways must be one of the simple ones to automate?
a life of grinding poverty and financial insecurity awaits. I think we can probably guess which one is more likely.
I think this is more likely than everyone having a subscription to driverless cars
Train drivers - why are they still a thing?!!
Surely they should have been the first thing to be automated out of existence - I mean trains only go forwards or backwards and are on rails.
I've argued this for years, I don't get it either. WE AREN'T PAID ENOUGH what, to sit at the front of a glorified bus on ****ing rails? Never hear about the roofers' strikes, do we. Mass walkout from Tesco. Can't get a fish & chip fryer for love nor money.
It might be a taxing job, I've no idea. But if we're going to **** on about self-driving cars then maybe we should look at trains first.
I think this is more likely than everyone having a subscription to driverless cars
They won't be mututally exclusive. All the twentysomethings I know use Uber to summon cars, because they're too skint to pay for lessons, insurance, petrol and a car. In 30 years time, when Uber is half the current prices because there's no driver wages, it'll be even more common
On the other hand,
I wouldn't want to be in a pilotless plane. I've been in a few landings where the pilot was clearly fighting. Not stuffing a hundred people into the ground newsworthy-hard is why they get the big bucks and a spangly jacket. I wouldn't trust a 737 to a Raspberry Pi.
Not stuffing a hundred people into the ground newsworthy-hard is why they get the big bucks and a spangly jacket.
Clearly you've never flown Rayair then. 😉
All the twentysomethings I know use Uber to summon cars, because they're too skint to pay for lessons, insurance, petrol and a car.
Well, they're idle cretins because that's a really expensive way of getting a ride.
Ordering a local taxi firm - on their app - is a third of the price of an Uber and they're at my door before I've got my shoes on. A taxi into town is seven quid, an Uber is twenty. Remember the Oasis "dynamic pricing" fiasco? Uber make it up on a whim.
The only reason to get an Uber is "well there's **** all else about at this time of night so we might as well go to KFC and then wait for 45 minutes."
Clearly you've never flown Rayair then
Not by choice. I'd rather shit in my hands and clap than give that Oh Really bloke money. The contempt he has for their customers is terrifying.
If things keep going in the current direction I'm guessing going for a swim in the sea will not be something people do anymore.
Ordering a local taxi firm - on their app - is a third of the price of an Uber and they're at my door before I've got my shoes on. A taxi into town is seven quid, an Uber is twenty. Remember the Oasis "dynamic pricing" fiasco? Uber make it up on a whim.
Yes, but on the last page you did go to great pains to tell us how you live two days by horse from the nearest paved road or whatever it was.
All my nephews and nieces live in cities, where Uber is generally comparable with a local taxi company. I try to avoid Uber if possible, because I hate giving money to silicon valley tech bro's, but I have used it on occasion when local companies come up short and - i hate to say this - it is actually quite good. But -
Haha no, the saving will be passed to investors as profits.
yeah, fair - but it will be trimmed, once the service becomes commoditised. Which it is gradually starting to become now
I think the concept of how we treat livestock will, in 100 years, be seen as absolutely abhorrent.
Mostly choosing not to practice cannibalism.
Ordering a local taxi firm - on their app - is a third of the price of an Uber and they're at my door before I've got my shoes on.
That isn't my experience. A 1.7 mile taxi ride from my local train station to home is normally £9. Last week I got an Uber from a restaurant back to home (4.9 miles) – it was £10 (and they both take around the same time to get to me, with Uber usually being the quicker).
And recently I tried to use a taxi company's automated telephone booking system to take me to the airport – it had no problem recognising my address, but it couldn't understand 'Leeds Bradford Airport'. I got an Uber.
Depending on how Ai goes - exist. Just finished listening to If anyone builds it, everyone will die. Their prediction is somewhat compelling but unfortunately their solution is shite.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Anyone-Builds-Everyone-Dies-Superintelligent/dp/1847928927
All my nephews and nieces live in cities, where Uber is generally comparable with a local taxi company.
At 1am?
If things keep going in the current direction I'm guessing going for a swim in the sea will not be something people do anymore.
There are some exceptions but the long term trend is that bathing water quality is generally improving. It could be better overall and much better in some places. People think it’s getting worse because of the vastly improved recording of storm spills leading to real time information being fed to the public.
At 1am?
No, they live there all the time! Honk honk!
maybe we should look at trains first.
Regardless of how much you paid them, I'd bet that human drivers - and the same is probably true of pilots as well, would be cheaper and better then automation in every emergency and unpredictable situation, and better at dealing with the sorts of human shaped issues that these folks face daily. Automation would never have tried to land a plane on the Hudson, or kept the train going to the points at Great Heck that meant two trains didn't collided after he hit a Land Rover on the tracks
Some folks here have very different definitions of "the future".
@Weeksy and @cougar seem to be apply ing it at the "tomorrow" end of the scale, whereas I suspect @tjagain is more at the +20 years end of the scale.
TJs vision gets my vote for El Presidente! 😃
You'll have to defeat the properly rich and the powerful before there's any chance of getting rid of Religion or Grouse shooting
Grouse shooting, certainly, but I don’t know what religion has to do with wealth. Except in America, where the division between church and state is already being eroded, by the ultra-wealthy trying to create a Christian Nationalist theocracy.
I don’t foresee a similar situation in Britain, though, as the country wasn’t founded by people trying to establish a country where they could carry on their lack of tolerance towards other faiths.
talking to people unless it is direct family.
people seem to be nearly there already. the ability to converse.
Maybe, in larger cities, but not in smaller communities and towns. I talk to complete strangers all the time, and I see plenty of others doing the same.
Using privately owned two tonne metal boxes on wheels to move one person around - and having that box sat idle for most of the time occupying public land
Presumably you’ll be expecting the whole population to be living in huge arcologies, with their only connection with the world outside being via organised trips to special park reservations.
By your way of thinking, there won’t be people living in small towns and communities out in rural areas; how else are they supposed to travel to work, to shop, to visit relatives, family and friends, because there’s absolutely bugger-all by way of regular public transportation available to people outside of cities and larger towns. I can’t catch a bus that would take me from where I live in Chippenham to Bristol in one run, I have to go via Bath, which turns a 25 mile journey into a protracted two-hour slog. I could catch a train, but it’s a mile walk to the station, and almost the same at the other end into the city centre, and don’t get me started on trying to get anywhere for entertainment, like live music, because all the trains leave at least 35-45 minutes before any event finishes!
You may not have a life, but people as a whole need, deserve to have a life outside of work.
Some folks here have very different definitions of "the future".
@Weeksy and @cougar seem to be apply ing it at the "tomorrow" end of the scale, whereas I suspect @tjagain is more at the +20 years end of the scale.
TJs vision gets my vote for El Presidente! 😃
I have explained over and over again
1) this is something that will take decades to complete
2) Cities and towns will have self driving electric runabouts similar to the San fransico setup with also electric scooters, bikes and mopeds along with car club cars
3) Self driving cars will probably not be viable outside the cities and towns - rural areas will require car club type setups, INCREASED buses and trains and probably some driven hire cars
Many rural ( and city) dwellers do not have access to cars. This sort of thing will improve mobility for them
Its not about the crap setup we have now in the UK - its about the future. all this tech is available now but will take time to implement all these solutions are available now
So you simply call up the appropriate vehicle on your app - its either a few minutes walk from your house or it comes to you. You use that vehicle to get to where you want to go, dismiss it and it goes to the next person to need it rural or urban thats how it will work No huge capital investment for individuals, much cheaper as you are not paying for a vehicle to be sat outside your house doing nothing, more convenient as you have the correct vehicle for your needs and no need to search for parking and no traffic jams
Its not about taking folks private cars away - its about eliminating the need for them by providing cheaper and more convenient alternatives
Pretty much every one of my neighbours uses a car/truck/lorry/ambulance/helicopter to do their job. This could be awkward.
and where did I say work vehicles? Again its not about compulsion - its about removing the need by creating cheaper and more convenient alternatives
Uber style services where you tap in your requirements and a car appears will be much more likely to succeed.This is one of the significant end games for most of the autonomous driving programs in the industry. Also solves a lot of other problems as you can stick the cars/vehicles/pods on a carpark full of chargers a few km out of the city and move them in _autonomously_ when demand rises, no need for spaces in the city. The car park also doesn't need any facilities to keep the drivers happy. Just a workshop (maybe). And a few rapid chargers. The "i live in the middle of nowhere" crowd also have less of an issue as it's not hard to get a car somewhere if there's no driver involved, all the routing, prioritisation and such will be handled by something along the lines of the routing programs that are already used to great effect by a lot of the parcel delivery services (not EVRI obviously). So rather than a driver whining about having to drive to Wobbly Bottom Cottage, you'll just get a text telling you that your car is stuck behind a sheep.
With warehouses were already there. I was doing some design work for one of the big interweb shopping places and they asked if I fancied a tour of their state of the art warehousing operation, which they’d just spent an absolute fortune on.
I know I've seen it myself. It's only the tip of the iceberg and old news for a lot of people.
We are talking entire departments of people gone. Accountancy, Marketing/Advertising, Customer Support. Things aspirational working classes have enjoyed a reasonable living off. Even small businesses will be able to use AI to design their whole look, internet presence and write copy as and when needed. Software systems to handle the mechanics of business admin.
I'll bet there's a fair few on the front lines of earning a good living off the back of putting billions out of work, who love to talk about Luddites, progress, dynamism, thick flat earthers and what the public want according to CEO's and stakeholders!
It'll all be contracted overseers who look after massive portfolios.
Extrapolating from public transport, your autonomous vehicle will arrive full of rubbish and vomit. I say that as someone who has been carless for three years. That'll be a career to aspire to: Uber car cleaner, one of an army of proles hurriedly scraping used condoms out of driverless vehicles whizzing in and out of vast marshalling yards, your performance monitored courtesy of your personal tracking device to ensure you're meeting efficiency targets. Brave new world.
Believe that we can actually prevent climate crisis.
that boat sailed decades ago. But there is still the opportunity to reduce the speed of worsening and reduce the eventual scale of disaster. If only the world could unite on this as an existential challenge.
I read recently that ‘the last three years – the hottest in history – would likely be among the coldest years in the rest of these people’s lives…’.
Maybe in the future we will look back and wonder how people resisted action for so long?
I don't think STW will exist
Buy specialty coffee beans for <£50/kg.
Well, until the tropics move enough to support the Pennine coffee fazendas. 😆 ☹️
Baiting big hitters to make inane responses to obvious troll post responses.
Re the car ownership thing. This ain't going to change in the near future despite the rantings of some on here. The car is a status symbol, the bigger and more expensive then the more you are lauded. A small, cheap runaround is not to be aspired to. Cars are parked on pedestrian walkways as a norm now, often meaning vulnerable people navigating round the car by going in the road. This could be easily solved by fining, but nothing is done. Why?
A big part of our society is built around the worship of cars and if you think that's going away anytime soon, you are sadly deluded.
Don't pavement parking is a pet peve of mine. On our estate it seems to be a challenge to see who can park most of their car on the pavement.
In the ubiquitous Facebook group people have complained about it and there's always an excuse as to why it's okay to park on the pavement, the normal one being that it lets people opposite get the car out of their drive. Brar in mind that every house has room for at least two cars on the driveway.
The self entitlement of some people really pisses me off. Anyway wrong thread, sorry.
(Im interpreting this to mean things we have done now or in our past, as I am 61 now)
Run 32 minutes for 10k. I am really going through a late mid life crisis and its dawning on me (ridiculous I know) that even modest athletic performances (sub 20 mins for 5k for example) are almost certainly beyond me. Its a very personal thing and probably some form of "first world problem" considering so many people have so many more serious things to ponder however it is something I am dealing with and has a very real impact on my mental well being. Some things are so much part of who you are. Oh well.
This could be easily solved by fining, but nothing is done. Why?
"Resources."
I might apply to be a traffic warden. I could sit at home all day and raise more money than I'm paying in council tax.
2) Cities and towns will have self driving electric runabouts similar to the San fransico setup
Nope they won't. Don't confuse VC funded prototyping with a viable business model.
Economically viable level 5 self driving is never going to be viable using current techniques despite the Waymo pilots and the surrounding hype.
Ride them whilst you can, when the funding runs out, so will they.