Most traditional industries will be disrupted by software in the next 5-10 years.
The competitors of car makers are no longer other car companies but Tesla (obviously), Google, Apple, Amazon and other such technology companies.
Taxi Service:
Uber is just a software tool, they don’t own any cars, and are now the biggest taxi company in the world
Hotel Business:
Airbnb is now the biggest hotel company in the world, although they don’t own any properties.
Artificial Intelligence:
Computers become exponentially better in understanding the world. This year, a computer beat the best Go player in the world, 10 years earlier than expected.
Legal Practice:
In the US, young lawyers already have a hard time finding jobs. That is because of IBM Watson, you can get legal advice (so far for more or less basic stuff) within seconds, and with 90% accuracy, compared with 70% accuracy when done by humans.
So if you plan to study law, you might want to reconsider. There will be 90% less lawyers in the future, only specialists will remain.
Cancer Research:
Watson already helps nurses in diagnosing cancer, with four times more accuracy than human nurses.
Biometrics:
Facebook now has a pattern recognition software that can recognize faces better than humans. In 2030, computers will become more intelligent than humans.
Autonomous cars:
In 2018 the first self driving cars will appear for the public. Around 2020, the complete industry will start to be disrupted. You don’t need to own a car anymore. You will call a car with your phone, it will show up at your location and drive you to your destination. You will not need to park it, you only pay for the driven distance and can be productive while driving. Our kids will not need a driver’s license and might never own a car.
It will change the cities, because we will need 90-95% less cars for that. We can transform former parking spaces into parks. 1.2 million people die each year in car accidents worldwide. We now have one accident every 60,000 miles (100,000 km), with autonomous driving that will drop to one accident in 6 million miles (10 million km). That will save a million lives each year.
Most car companies will probably become bankrupt. Traditional car companies try the evolutionary approach and just build a better car, while tech companies (Tesla, Apple, Google) will adopt the revolutionary approach and simply build a computer on wheels.
Car Insurance:
Insurance companies will face serious trouble because without accidents, the insurance will become 100x cheaper. Their car insurance business model will most probably cease to exist completely.
Real Estate:
The Real estate business will change. Because if you can work while you commute, people will move further away to live in a more beautiful neighborhood.
Electric cars
Electric cars will become mainstream about 2020. Cities will be less noisy because all new cars will run on electricity. Electricity will become incredibly cheap and clean.
Solar Energy:
Solar production has been on an exponential curve for 30 years, and we can now begin to see the burgeoning impact.
Last year, more solar energy was installed worldwide than fossil. Energy companies are now facing serious competition from home solar installations.
Clean Water Supply:
With cheap electricity comes cheap and abundant water. Desalination of salt water now only needs 2kWh per cubic meter (@ 0.25 cents). We don’t have scarce water in most places, we only have scarce drinking water. Imagine what will be possible if everyone could have as much clean water as he/she wants, at nearly no cost.
Health Care:
The Tricorder X price will be announced this year. There are companies which will build a medical device (called the “Tricorder” from Star Trek) that works with your phone. It takes your retina scan, your blood sample, etc. When you breath into it, it analyses 54 biomarkers that will identify nearly any disease.
It will be cheap, so in a few years everyone on this planet will have access to world class medical analysis, nearly for free.
3D Printing:
The price of the cheapest 3D printer came down from $18,000 to $400 within 10 years. In the same time frame, it became 100 times faster. All major shoe companies have already started 3D printing of shoes.
Some airplane spare parts are already 3D printed in remote airports. The space station now has a printer that eliminates the need for the large amounts of spare parts they used to have in the past.
At the end of this year, new smart phones will have 3D scanning possibilities. You can then 3D scan your feet and print your perfect shoe at home.
In China, they already 3D printed and built a complete 6-storey office building. By 2027, 10% of everything that’s being produced will be 3D printed.
Business Opportunities:
If you are thinking of a niche business area you want to go in, ask yourself: “in the future, do you think we will have that?” And if the answer is yes, how can you make that happen sooner?
If it doesn’t work with your phone, forget the idea. And any idea designed for success in the 20th century is doomed to failure in the 21st century.
Work:
70-80% of current jobs will disappear in the next 20 years. There will be a lot of new jobs, but it is not clear if there will be enough new jobs in such a short time.
Agriculture:
There will be a $100 agricultural robots in the future. Farmers in 3rd world countries can then become managers of their field instead of working all day on their fields.
Aeroponics will need much less water. The first Petri dish produced veal, is now available and will be cheaper than cow produced veal in 2018. Right now, 30% of all agricultural surfaces is used for cows. Imagine if we don’t need that much space anymore. There are several startups which will bring insect protein to the market shortly. It contains more protein than meat. It will be labeled as “alternative protein source” (because most people still reject the idea of eating insects).
Apps:
There is already an app called “Moodies” which can already tread your mood. By 2020 there will be apps that can tell by your facial expressions, if you are lying. Imagine a political debate where there is a real-time display, showing when the debaters are telling the truth and when they’re not.
Cryptocurrency:
Bitcoin may even become the default reserve currency … of the world!
Life Expectancy:
Right now, the average life span increases by 3 months per year. Four years ago, the life span used to be 79 years, now it’s 80 years. The increase itself is increasing and by 2036, there will be more than one year increase per year. So we all might live for a long long time, probably way more than 100.
Education:
The cheapest smart phones are already available at $10 in Africa and Asia. By 2020, 70% of all humans will own a smart phone. That means everyone will have the same access to world-class education.
Every child can use Khan academy for everything they need to learn at school in First World countries. There have already been releases of software in Indonesia and soon there will be releases in Arabic, Suaheli and Chinese this summer. There is enormous potential if we give the English app for free, so that children in Africa and everywhere else can become fluent in English, and that could happen within a year.
