Future Scenarios
We cannot predict the future – but we can imagine it. We crafted the Long View Scenarios with intelligence mined from interviews, information garnered from additional research, and a touch of creativity. These futurescapes are plausible, challenging, at times surreal, and relevant stories about how the future might unfold.
Future Scenarios
It can be hard to imagine the future. To get you started, here are some scenarios based on future trends gleaned from the Long View Interviews. Picture lifelong AI-powered tutors, the end of personal cars, societies unconstrained by energy and more. Are these dreams you hope to manifest? Are they nightmares you wish to avoid? We challenge you to use these scenarios to think about how we can push forward, protect against or even reframe our world, decades or even centuries from now. We hope they ignite your imagination, spark conversation and encourage collaborations so we can start preparing for the future now.
Let us know what you think! We’re still experimenting with scenario creation, and we’d love to hear how you used our scenarios or crafted your own. Send your feedback or questions to longviewproject@ncsu.edu.
Energy
The United States of Green: By 2050, we will cooperate and share equitable, reliable green energy from coast to coast
By the year 2050, the United States has reached net zero carbon emissions through widespread adoption of alternative energy sources like wind and solar, which are now cheaper than ever, and some geothermal. We’ve developed technologies to store years’ worth of energy and have built infrastructure across the United States to transfer it from coast to coast. Communities along power line paths in the middle of the country worked with local and federal governments to draft plans to accommodate power lines that do not disproportionately harm communities. The grid is smart, connected, redundant, reliable and balanced. Every home is furnished with energy-efficient, smart appliances that communicate with the grid to cycle or pull power depending on availability. Regional and independent energy companies across the US share data about power status to deliver reliable energy on demand. ‘By the year 2050, the United States has reached net zero carbon emissions through widespread adoption of alternative energy sources like wind and solar, which are now cheaper than ever, and some geothermal. We’ve developed technologies to store years worth of energy and have built infrastructure across the United States to transfer it from coast to coast. Communities along power line paths in the middle of the country worked with local and federal governments to draft plans to accommodate power lines that do not disproportionately harm communities. The grid is smart, connected, redundant, reliable and balanced. Every home is furnished with energy-efficient, smart appliances that communicate with the grid to cycle or pull power depending on availability. Regional and independent energy companies across the US share data about power status to deliver reliable energy on demand.
What if a smart grid transported energy from coast to coast?
Bright Unite: What if green energy were a right?
“Our grandkids are probably going to live technologically in a very different world, from an energy perspective.”
– Harrison Fell and Jordan Kern, Can We Reach Green Goals by 2050? Yes, But It’s Complicated
Transportation
The End of the Personal Car as We Know It
By the year 2040, human-centered city design and reliable, affordable and accessible micromobility options and shared car subscriptions will make owning a private car obsolete. This will be true in urban and rural environments. As a result, society will be more equitable, more time and space will be available for improved wellbeing, streets will be safe enough for a child to traverse alone and repurposed parking lots will foster biodiversity and combat extreme weather conditions brought on by climate change.
What will life be like when no one needs a car?
“When we create convenient, affordable mobility options, then the car becomes a choice instead of a requirement.”
– Adam Terando, Evan Arnold, and Kai Monast, Will We Build Cities for Humans or Machines?
Traffic in the Sky 2040
Within 20 years, humans are managing a vast number of low-flying aircraft populating our skies. Drones are delivering consumer goods and medical devices or services during emergencies. They’re employed to help with the increasing number of natural disasters, like floods and forest fires. Besides drones, there’s flying cars. Three-to-eight-seater aircrafts take off and land from infrastructure built atop tall buildings and rivers. They shuttle people between neighborhoods, cities or regions. These electric vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft are prohibitively expensive. Private or for-hire vehicles serve only some, and representatives see a public option as financially impossible. Meanwhile, humans are exploring ways to manage all this air traffic. Systems vary by jurisdiction. Some places create “highways in the sky” to shepherd aircraft along lanes – like cars on highways. Other places employ a lot of air traffic controllers. And with the file-and-fly system, filed routes lock up airspace for a certain amount of time. No matter what type of traffic management system an airspace employs, all flights yield to emergency vehicles.
A Vote for Air Traffic Management – What will you decide?
“We will have a vastly larger number of aircraft in the sky. They will be flying lower than what we’re typically used to in a greater quantity. And they will have to be managed by something.”
– Adam Terando, Evan Arnold, and Kai Monast, Will We Build Cities for Humans or Machines?
AI and Education
“My Buddy” – A Lifelong Learning Pal
Within 10 years, each person will have a lifelong AI “pal” by their side. This pal learns along with you, as you grow from birth to death. Throughout life, you train your pal to become better and better at providing learning experiences that are more effective and engaging for you. The pal grows to understand you like no one ever has or will. It keys into your emotions. It knows what motivates you. It identifies when you’re struggling – and jumps in at the perfect time with the best way to help. It optimizes learning, embodying all the characteristics and behaviors gleaned from pedagogy and indigenous tutoring practices that have long made the best one-on-one tutors exceptional at helping students learn. With its assistance you can grasp any new concept almost instantly. Your AI pal is your personalized personal assistant, your soulmate – a sixth sense. Importantly, it also connects you more with others, like social media did in its early days. It makes you less lonely, and because you’re less lonely you learn better. In this future, learning is fun, easy and pain-free.
“What if you could take a collection of capabilities of human tutors and somehow replicate them in a pedagogical agent, in an AI-driven agent that has human-like characteristics?”
– James Lester and Noboru Matsuda, Will Our Best Teachers Be Robots?