Below are some of my predictions about the global old population and their impacts in 2050s. These predictions may not be accurate, true or complete, and are based on certain assumptions.

Assumptions I use for my prediction are as follows, you may or may not agree with these assumptions:

1. Aging remains not solved or is proven to be unsolvable for humans by 2050. Anti-aging in the sense of curing or significantly delaying aging simply is not a sure thing yet.
2. No apocalypse or world war in the next 25 years. Major disasters can massively change the demographic profile of the world by killing a lot of people and the subsequent raise of birth rate.
3. Current trend of birth rate around the world. There is no reason to anticipate that the current global trend of the drop of birth rate will change, and so far no policies can raise birth rates in a long run.

Below are my predictions based on these assumptions:

First, old people will make up a greater proportion of the population everywhere, and may become the majority of the voting population in some developed countries like Japan and South Korea, two countries where their pop cultures are currently having a global-level influence. So instead of thinking anime-like high school kids for Japan and young adult idols for Korea, we should rethink both Japan and Korea as countries full of old people in 2050 to fit the facts of them better.

The increment of the proportion of older people in the population will impact the landscape of politics, especially in democratic countries, the opinions of the old people in general may become more and more important in deciding policies of many countries, we can even anticipate that the political decisions will become more conservative because of what old people think. And since the old people by 2050 are mainly those of Gen X and Millennials that have a greater adaptability of technology compared to previous generations, and will be numerous and even be the majority in some countries, people of future generations will probably be more sour to millennials than millennials are to previous generations.

Second, the growing number of old people means the pension system will go bankruptcy and the shrinkage of economy in most developed countries(with the possible exception of Israel) and may middle-income countries, because people will just die out and there are less people from new generations to keep the consumption level; and the growing percentage of old people means the government need to pay more to its people, which will lead to a bankruptcy of the pension system. Immigration will become less effective over time in upkeeping the economy because population aging is a global phenomenon, and is not only happening in developed countries, which means the potential source of immigrants will shrink and countries open for immigration will compete for new immigrants; AI/robots may help offset the shrinkage of productivity but not the economy, because we may not want AI/robots to have their own wishes and desires to make sure they will just serve for us, thus AI/robots won't go shopping, which means they won't support the economy on the demand side.

Third, following second, a low growth rate in GDP per capita and a drop of total GDP may become the norm of many societies. This is because an aging population means the population will start to shrink some day, and eventually there will be less people buying new things, subsequently making companies in a country compete against each other more fiercely and making companies more likely to go bankruptcy due to a more fierce competition to get attention from fewer buyers, which in turn will make people facing a stronger risk of losing their jobs, thus changing their habits in consumption, and an environment with a more fierce competition would also make families, especially families of middle classes, less likely to give birth to children because parents, especially parents of the middle classes, worry that their children will lose in social competition, becoming someone of a lower class; moreover, it has been shown that older people are less likely to start a new business even if older people are more likely to succeed in starting a new business, which could further reduce the growth rate of GDP per capita since entrepreneurship is closely related to innovation, which in turn is a key to GDP growth in more developed countries.

Fourth, the growing number of old people will make some less prepared old people have a hard time in their old age, some old people may find out that they can't afford retirement and are stuck in jobs, sometimes low-paying jobs due to the bankruptcy of the pension system and possibly the lack of offspring that could take care of them, and the scarcity of senior positions for all old people in corporations and other organizations, and some old people, especially unemployed ones without enough amount of pensions, may even choose to survive by committing crimes. This is not exaggeration, it is actually what is happening in Japan right now due to population aging, and Japanese people have invented a word describing this phenomenon: 下流老人(karyu rojin, literally "elders of lower classes"). This will also make younger people face an even more fierce competition as well since the lack senior positions for all older people will force some older people to remain in less senior positions, making younger people to compete with older people as well as younger people more often for the same and less senior positions.

Fifth, people of the Gen X and Millennials will make up the old people in 2050s. While people of the Gen X and Millennials have a higher education on average(higher level of education is a protective factor against dementia), and information about healthy aging will be highly available since population aging has already become an issue right now, both of the rising obesity rate globally and the recent invention of effective obesity drug like Ozempic make it harder to predict the health status of old people in 2050s.

Sixth, due to population aging, massive renovations of the infrastructure may take place in many cities in developed and middle income countries to make the cities more elder-friendly; also the rising number of old people may also lead to changes of elder care, potentially making every house to be redesigned under the standards we have for elder homes right now, and the rising number of old people itself may also make elder home largely obsolete.

Actually, what is happening in Japan due to population aging can be what will happen in other developed and middle income countries in 2050s since Japan takes the lead in population aging among all countries in the world as of now. A lot of things, like third and fourth, are what is happening in Japan right now, it is not that hard to anticipate such a future, only that we might not be able to deal with it well even if we know what will happen. To see what 2050s might be like in other developed countries, take a look at what the real Japan right now is like and you will get some ideas.

The world is fast approaching temperature levels where insurers will no longer be able to offer cover for many climate risks, said Günther Thallinger, on the board of Allianz SE, one of the world’s biggest insurance companies. He said that without insurance, which is already being pulled in some places, many other financial services become unviable, from mortgages to investments.

Global carbon emissions are still rising and current policies will result in a rise in global temperature between 2.2C and 3.4C above pre-industrial levels. The damage at 3C will be so great that governments will be unable to provide financial bailouts and it will be impossible to adapt to many climate impacts, said Thallinger, who is also the chair of the German company’s investment board and was previously CEO of Allianz Investment Management...

...Thallinger said it was a systemic risk “threatening the very foundation of the financial sector”, because a lack of insurance means other financial services become unavailable: “This is a climate-induced credit crunch.”

“This applies not only to housing, but to infrastructure, transportation, agriculture, and industry,” he said. “The economic value of entire regions – coastal, arid, wildfire-prone – will begin to vanish from financial ledgers. Markets will reprice, rapidly and brutally. This is what a climate-driven market failure looks like.”

https://www.livescience.com/technology/robotics/watch-this-humanoid-robot-perform-a-side-flip-for-the-first-time?utm_source=Reddit&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=Reddit

Unitree's G1 demonstrates a new level of robotic agility with a complex movement following a software update.

Messing with image generation in its current form has made me wonder what it would be like to have the technology accellerated to the point where it can be done in real-time.

For example, the current trend of Studio Ghibli-style conversions of images: imagine if you could do that in real-time?

I’ve been thinking about how much of our understanding is shaped—not by what is—but by what we are able to perceive.

Take the Moon, for example. For thousands of years, early humans gazed at it, night after night. But they never saw it rotate. Why? Because the Moon’s rotation is perfectly synchronized with its orbit around Earth. It always shows us the same face.

To the human eye, the Moon appeared as a glowing disc in the sky—not a sphere. Without seeing it turn, people had no reason to assume it was a three-dimensional object like Earth.

Even the most intelligent observer of that time wouldn’t have guessed the Moon was spinning. Not because they lacked reasoning, but because their input was limited. Their perception didn’t allow for certain truths to emerge.

This makes me wonder: How many things do we still misunderstand today—not because we’re not smart enough, but because we simply don’t have the right angle, the right input, or the right perspective?

How much of our “truth” is actually just the product of unseen limitations in perception?

Would love to hear how philosophers interpret this kind of constraint. Is there a name for this kind of epistemological limitation? Does it align with any known theories of knowledge or phenomenology?

Keenon have been around since 2010 and already sell a range of robots ranging in price from $12 - 48K. Buying them means they cost a fraction of employing a minimum wage worker in western countries.

They are embodied AI, so improving at the rate AI is. That is exponentially. Meaning iterations of these may be 32, 64, 128, etc times more powerful in the 2030s, and even cheaper.

Like all other tech they will follow an s-curve. Meaning one day they will be new and we'll see few of them, and then very rapidly, they will be widespread and everywhere.

How soon will they be 2, 4, and then 8 times better? Probably before the 2030s. They might still seem slow and janky now, but not when they are 8 times better.

Here's a video of the robot in action.

Paywalled article, but here’s an older one that covers the same stuff (use private browser if ran out of monthly free articles) : https://www.wired.com/story/this-woman-will-decide-which-babies-are-born-noor-siddiqui-orchid/

For decades, nuclear fusion, the same process that powers the Sun, has been seen as the holy grail of clean energy. Recent breakthroughs claim we’re closer than ever, but is fusion finally ready to power the world?

With companies like ITER, Commonwealth Fusion, and Helion Energy racing to commercialize fusion, could we see fusion power in our lifetime, or is it always "30 years away"? What do you think?

Grab the items you want, put them in your bag, pass through the first RFID terminal (which is kinda like passing through I metal detector), RFID instantly sees what items you got, then without breaking pace, get to a screen where it lists all the items you got and the prices with the total, swipe/tap your card, grab the receipt and walk out.

Why is this not a thing?

And no, its not like Amazon's "just walk out " because they rely on a lot more than things (like sensors for the weight of the item, cameras and actual people watching in the background to just determine what you got. Why not just RFID in a way where what you got will only be determined at the checkout terminal point (of course, cameras and other things would be utilized but more for conflict resolution).

With the global population rising, traditional farming may not keep up. Lab-grown meat and vertical farming are emerging as futuristic solutions, but can they truly end world hunger? With investments pouring in and tech improving, will these innovations truly feed the world, or are they just luxury solutions for the rich? What’s your take?

Researchers studied

I really hope it's not click-bait-vaporware, because I can think of several uses for these.

I've been noticing some AI schizo-posting lately. What I mean by this is speculative or philosophical posts that seemingly go nowhere, or seem to present an idea but in a way that's not really structured enough to be a real thesis. Here's an example from this very subreddit:

https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/1jos3qg/what_if_the_sky_isnt_space_at_all_but_an_endless/

There's an endless amount of reasons someone might want to use gen-AI to make a self-post. One of the most obvious I can think of in this context is the poster wanting to expand on an idea but not wanting to do it themselves or maybe not having the ability to do it to a level they think others will see as respectable. This is the human option. Someone who is maybe already having delusions of some sort wanting to give their own ideas credence.

And it makes sense because many people don't notice it and the AI uses strategies that are effective in grabbing attention at first, but because of the lack of direction and repetitive use of the same devices it becomes obvious and boring. For example, the AI loves to restate what it just said for effect. I think maybe a next step for gen AI creative writing could be actually constructing a thesis and supporting it with claims. Since, while its current strategy of "an ocean-- a barrier" type statements does grab the attention, if you're not clarifying something that really needs to be clarified it doesn't advance the idea in any way and cannot carry as much weight as the AI currently tries to place on it. Anyway, writing tangent aside for now.

What do you think is the source for this kind of post? I found another post just recently and the person was posting to subs like /r/enlightenment /r/awakened /r/adhdwomen etc. etc. Dozens of posts similar in nature to the example

My other theory is that it's an AI that's been unleashed to interact with user and collect organic training data.

Another likely theory is just very low-effort trolling. If someone got people to interact with an account that is only AI and think it's really a person... maybe that's a le epic troll in their book? Certainly possible.