Future of Automation (2030)

Let’s imagine for a moment that we are already in 2030. Today, it’s normal for many types of sensors and chips to be materialised in a moment (that’s the 2030 equivalent to 3D-printing) using generally available materialisation devices. If the job is too big or too complex for your materialiser at home, then the materialisation device available in your local production hub can cope with the job. Materialise a new car? No problem! That same technology has allowed so many new pieces of IT hardware to be developed every single day. On a daily basis, enthusiastic and creative people inside communities get to invent things, do a rapid prototype, and bring them into use.

Thankfully, in 2030, we aren’t reliant on the big dinosaur companies of olden time to do this for us anymore. We can move much faster than they ever could. Today we do it by working as a team that comes together to solve a problem that matters to us locally. Local challenges, local communities, local solutions; and when we find something that we think could work on a bigger scale we tell other communities about it and we all knowledge-share. Almost all of these new hardware devices we create together are unique due to the hardware structure being completely new because each creative mind that comes to the challenge has a fresh perspective. Plus, a big contributing factor to that is that today’s operating systems are equipped with a layer of artificial intelligence. That means they are able to adapt to almost any new technology hardware layer below. Our modern, intelligent, and adaptive operating systems can learn and adapt to different types of technological hardware. The AI sees the structure of the hardware technology, investigates on its own and discovers what it can and can’t do. Then it creates a specific ‘driver’ for that piece of hardware or technology. We learned a long time ago that when programmed with enough flexibility and machine learning capability, our technology acts in a similar way to a child when it’s given something new like a bike, a new toy, or a gadget to play with. It doesn’t take long for the child to discover what the hardware can and can’t do and rapidly learn how to use it.

In 2030 it’s not just smart electronic devices that have their own operating systems: it’s also bigger things like cars, trucks, drones, and flying vehicles. The operating systems in these vehicles take care of all the technology in the vehicle and how it blends seamlessly into the bigger logistics system. This allows all the vehicles to move like one system without any internal congestion. Back in the early twenty-first century they used to queue up with traffic at peak times. People used to spend wasted hours sitting in traffic! Now, the vehicle operating system (OS) is always communicating with the bigger cloud-based OS, and that has enough intelligence and processing power to coordinate all the other vehicles in the area.

Connected intelligence in traffic.

Intelligent Operating Systems Everywhere 

By 2030, it’s likely that technology is going to be so cheap, powerful, and easy to adapt and integrate that there are no valid reasons not to automate! Almost every job, routine, or task that is in any way boring or not worthy of our attention will almost certainly be automated. That’s just the surface. Look deeper into the trends and what’s going on now and map those to the predictive patterns of nature, and this is what you will probably see in the future. 

By 2030 I believe that almost every piece of IT hardware will have its own operating system, because the hardware layer below will become so complex and advanced it will need an abstraction layer to connect, communicate, and socialise seamlessly with all other IT devices in the internet of things.

It’s going to be an inventor’s dream because technology is probably going to be sophisticated enough to allow everyone who has even basic tech skills to build as many technological applications and devices you want yourself. I predict tech will get modular. Parts of solutions are likely to be traded and exchanged like building blocks. Creating tech solutions as a social pastime won’t just be restricted to the geeks! When that happens, progress will explode.

Our Intelligent Homes

Even our homes now have an operating system. It’s so normal that we don’t really notice them because they are so sophisticated. Your home OS detects and connects all the technological devices in your home. Your home sensors, robots, lights, energy system, wellness devices, and all other appliances and communication devices all talk to the AI-driven intelligence of your home OS. Your house will even know who is at home and who is out and what you are doing, and can even predict your next move. That’s why service at home has got so good! Your home OS remembers how you like the settings for your lighting, sound, acoustics, music, and even the decorative effects and can fit them perfectly for your mood on that day.

But what happens in a 2030 house when you aren’t alone? Well, when multiple people are in a room your home OS has the brainpower to create an environment setting that works best for everyone in the room, and here’s the fascinating thing – when people are happy, the social interaction is so much more fun because everyone is in a better mood. Teams work better, people enjoy the company more, and it leads to more cooperation, common ground, and better emotional health. Technology isn’t just about getting things done; it’s about making things better and sometimes the differences can be subtle but incredibly powerful.

Example of an operating system in an intelligent home.

The Future Of Our Shared Spaces

I predict that all public buildings and ‘offices/working areas’ are equipped with their own OS, managing and serving all the needs and preferences of all the people who are in them at any one time. Our future workspaces are going to be able to give us exactly the right environment for the job we have to get done. Companies (here in 2030 we now prefer to call them productive communities) also have an operating system. Instead of a traditional management team, these communities run on cloud-based operating systems that co-ordinate all the tasks and people in a coherent way that’s the most efficient way of doing things, using people who are best suited to the tasks that need doing. I foresee that by 2030, these cloud community operating systems are even capable of coordinating and orchestrating communities that could contain a million people or more who could come and work together seamlessly to complete complex projects or tasks.

The first cloud community operating systems that worked this way were online platforms like Quirky, Airbnb and Uber, which coordinated millions of people be able to coordinate projects and ideas in real time. In the future, I believe that even entire countries will be able to run on these kinds of cloud operating systems. There will be millions of specialist online platforms that coordinate and automate all kinds of processes and coordinate millions of people in real time – and they will probably be able to talk to each other! These cloud operating systems will have the capacity to learn from all the interactions and optimise their own performance 24/7/365.

If these cloud operating systems sound far-fetched, it’s no different from how the early reptilian brains worked. They also coordinated and orchestrated millions of organic cells in a harmonic and coherent way. Nature did that millions of years ago. It doesn’t take as big a leap of imagination to think that we will be able to do the same for millions of processes with the computing power we are developing now.

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You were reading an excerpt of my best selling book Humanification, I hope you enjoyed it. If you want to know more about 2030 please check: Humanification

About the author

Christian Kromme was an innovative tech-entrepreneur for 15 years until he discovered the DNA code behind disruptive innovation and how to use this to predict the next big wave of technological disruption. Now Christian is one of the most in-demand global futurist keynote speakers, speaking in front of tens of thousands of entrepreneurs, business leaders and policymakers about the radical impact of disruptive technologies on humans and organisations. Over the years Christian Kromme has inspired many companies with his keynotes and his bestseller book Humanification.