My Top 10 Predictions for 2026

It is the year 2016, my 65th birthday. I thought it would be fun to create a time capsule of sort. I am going to write down my commentary on some technologies in the horizon. It will be my predictions for the future say 10 years from now. Some may happen sooner than later and some may be wrong. We will check back in 10 years (2026) and see how I do.

- Sept. 2016

PS - I pledge to keep this hub as is without edit through 2026. That is to insure that I don't go back and modify my views after the fact.

I haved added some predictions made by another hubber doc_snow at the end. We disagree on climate change and have debated here on HubPages.

Final edit date: Dec. 13, 2016

Added link to my result hub here.

• Climate change
• Solar power/ wind power
• Electric vehicles
• Commercial drones
• AI robots
• World Wide Web
• Self Driving Cars
• Space travel
• SETI
• Fossil Fuels - oil, coal, gas

1. Climate Change or AGW theory will be disproved. The projections by climate scientists about the future of climate change has been wrong or off based or exaggerated. The dire warnings will not materialize. There is climate change and global warming but they are within the range of normal natural variations. We will have to mitigate the effects of long term climate change just as we have done through out our history. By 2026 or sooner, the people will realize that the science of climate change have been politicized by the environmental community and the UN. Reducing fossil fuel is not the most efficient way to deal with it.

2. Solar Power for homes and Wind power farms - both are renewable energy sources. Due to the decline of climate change as a driver, these energy sources will have a niche in certain regions of the geography. In the south and west, where the sun is readily available and wind and open spaces are available, these alternate forms of energy generation will be adopted though less of a factor due to the reduction of government incentives. The cost though reduced due to advances in technology is still prohibitive and less competitive than fossil fuels.

3. Electric vehicles - will grow in popularity in large cities. The cost will come down and people will choose to buy electric cars to avoid exhaust pollution. Long distances and suburbs will not adopt this so readily. The lack of charging stations makes it less attractive.

4. Commercial use of drones will be strictly curtailed or controlled. It will only be used for specific remote areas. The fear is for either accidents or terrorist uses. We don't need drones flying around public spaces to violate our privacy and security. I predict the laws will be enacted to restrict drone use as a result of some major accident or terrorist acts by drones.

5. AI robots will not replace our jobs anytime soon. Automation will increase and robotics will be a helper to humans. However, many jobs require more complex human interactions and intuitions. The point of singularity will not be reached In 10 years or 100 years. Humans are superior to machines in so many ways. A machine may breakdown and cannot repair itself. It takes a human to design and create and repair a machine. We are not even close to understand our own brain let along to design a superior replacement.

6. The world wide web will still be around in 10 years but will be much bigger. The number of IP addresses are increasing astronomically. As more devices become smart and integrated, the IP address keep growing bigger. The IoT, internet of things, will attempt to tie everything onto the net. It will open huge security issues as everything is prone to hack.

7. Self driving vehicles will not be widespread. There may be niche markets such as airport shuttles and city tour buses but for the majority of us, we still will be driving our cars. On highways, some trucks may be equipped with auto pilot on long distance hauls. The driver is still there ready to take over as needed. The increased efficiency and cost savings and safety makes this a competitive advantage.

8. Space travel will not be common. There may be some tours for affluent people to ride into space and back as an adventure. It will still be too costly for the average person.

9. SETI will still be searching with no contacts. For whatever reason, either there are no aliens (Fermi paradox) or they choose to stay in the shadows.

10. Fossil fuel such as oil, coal and natural gas will be around and still the primary source of energy. They are cheap and portable and dense. The perfect energy source especially due to the waning of climate change worries. We will find better ways to deal with global warming by mitigation of the long term effects.

• Paper
• Bicycle
• Cash
• Radio

All the above items are going to be around till the end of time. All previous predictions such as the paperless office... have failed miserably.

• Climate Change Hubbook
• Artificial Intelligence Hubbook
• Self Driving Vehicles Hubbook

You may call us 'alarmists.' But we have reason for our alarm, good reason. And, since you've been making predictions for the next ten years, let me make a few.

--There will be very serious political instability during the Trump administration. Far from uniting the country, as he promised, Mr. Trump will exacerbate American divisions.

--America will be more isolated and less respected on the world stage. China will increasingly be seen as the global leader. (This may not apply to the whole ten year period.)

--The next ten years will be comfortably--and I use that term with double meaning and deliberate irony--warmer than the previous ten.

--In three years, we'll be able to say definitively that the 10s were 'comfortably warmer' than the 00s, despite solar cycles or putative 'slowdowns' in warming.

--The next ten years will also see at least one new low record minimum for Arctic sea ice, quite likely before 2020.

--Extreme precipitation events and flash flooding will continue the observed increase.

--Climate refugee numbers will continue to increase, though often the proximate cause will be, as in the Syrian case, war or political instability.

--Global costs of climate-related disaster will continue to climb.

My comments and view are based on my years of experience dealing in the technology arena. I don't always follow conventional wisdom. In my past, I have seem how some conventional wisdom were wrong. Making predictions is a tough business. If you are wrong, you are disgraced. If you are right, people may say it was a lucky guess. The proof of the pudding is the percentage. If you are right 50% of the time, it may be luck. If you are right 100% of the time, you are a prophet as the Bible say. Between the two, you are just "intelligent" and perhaps have some common sense. There are many smart people in this world, but that does not automatically makes them intelligent or have common sense.