Artificial intelligence in cars, self-driving cars, interplanetary travel missions, digital currencies, virtual reality at work… what will the future of global society look like in the face of new technologies?

How far or close are they from our daily lives in 2022? According to a study published in Future Business Tech, in 2050 the world will witness the emergence of smart and hyper-connected cities, robots with characteristics ever closer to humans, the introduction of interfaces and chips into the human body, virtual reality glasses replacing cell phones, in addition to the arrival of man on Mars, among other predictions.

For the experts, researchers and entrepreneurs heard by ND, the speed with which new technologies and applications appear in everyday life and at work makes it almost impossible to predict what will happen by 2050, although some trends are irreversible.

Interconnection, already real in many segments, tends to expand with the advent of 5G, and 6G is already beginning to be introduced – Photo: DIVULGAÇÃO/ISTOCK/ND

“Technology evolves to become smaller, smarter and cheaper,” defines Laercio Aniceto Silva, business superintendent of Fundação Certi, a technology institution established in 1984 at the UFSC (Federal University of Santa Catarina) and has already supported hundreds of research and innovation projects of the latter decades.

“Thanks to this, we will be able to put computers and sensors in almost everything. Batteries will evolve, facilitating the transition from electric vehicles to much smaller devices that can be charged wirelessly. Algorithms acting as virtual assistants will become smarter and make our lives easier at work, at home and at school,” he predicts.

The biggest advancement in the last 30 years has been the creation of the commercial Internet and the evolution of communication tools that have made network access universal through mobile devices, from cell phones to smart watches.

This evolution, which will continue in 5G and 6G networks, should continue to be a major technological revolution in the coming decades, creating new products and services.

“On its own, 5G will revolutionize and allow, for example, robots and humans to work together in real time. And in China, they are already talking about the introduction of 6G, the speed of which will be 100 times faster than that of 5G, in 2030. Imagine how data and image transmission will develop,” Silva reflects.

The concept of the Internet must also change

According to Felipe Mandavalli, entrepreneur and director of education for Acate (Technological Association of Santa Catarina), the very concept of the Internet will be different in the future.

“The agent thinks of the network as a computer, a website, an application, but starting with 5G, all services and systems tend to connect to the Internet, home, car, appliances. In just 20+ years, the Internet has led to the biggest productivity gains in human history, and there is still huge opportunity for technology advancement in the coming decades.”

According to Forbes, by 2050 IoT (Internet of Things) technology will cover 95% of the developed electronic products, that is, almost everything will be available via the Internet.

Education, for example, will have a big impact, Mandavalli said. “The learning process will be more and more technological, it is inevitable, subjects like programming start from kindergarten and elementary school. In addition, the main skill of the 21st century is the ability to learn quickly, because professions and the market as a whole are changing all the time,” he recalls.

One of the educational trends of the future is the emergence of new schools that, instead of a degree, give practical experience in projects and new languages.

“The student will experience an increasing need for a new learning experience. In the same way, the teacher of the future will not only be the one who has knowledge available in countless ways, but also the one who knows how to impart that knowledge.”

Related virtual worlds

Another example is the spread of technology that has brought meetings, social gatherings and events to the digital world, also driven by the restrictions imposed by the pandemic.

“Immersive connected virtual worlds will replace modern video conferencing and entertainment interfaces like video games,” says Alexandre Adoglio, technology entrepreneur, startup mentor and digital culture researcher.

He also sees advances in areas such as healthcare, especially wearables and neural implants that feed medical data into applications and systems.

“The evolution of nanotechnology and other applications can really change our entire existence, even after death. Brain implants connected to the Internet of Things will bring our collective consciousness to a level of organization unparalleled in nature.”