eGoli, 1 January 2030 – Do you remember the worrisome days of 2020, the year that almost wasn’t? Governments around the world tanking economies in a panic, airliners and cruise ships being scrapped for their paltry raw material value and people working from home – replacing the water cooler with Zoom and a mid-morning glass of wine?
We thought that life had changed forever, and only dark and worrisome days were ahead.
But, here we are in 2030 – the brave new world – and things are great. We’re back.
One thing 2020 did was accelerate development in many ways: the world of virtual working, electric vehicles, artificial intelligence and autonomous vehicle control.
Nobody misses those early days of virtual working – grainy Zoom calls where the sound and picture quality were variable and all were looking for the buttons to share documents, screens, etc. Now, of course, smart (white) boards are commonplace in the home for our meetings, as are large displays so we can see all those participating as if we were together.
And for those working on physical products, 3D printing is both affordable and fast – we can not only produce prototypes for testing, but are even using them for purchasing some items that can be “delivered” in this way, rather than by drone.
Oh yes – drones … Fortunately, those early days of them whining when used for recreation have been replaced by near-silent drone delivery meaning same-day (and often, same-hour, delivery in all major centres), and more accurate delivery (no more cases of the courier getting the parcels mixed up).
Talking of deliveries – the logistics industry was turned on its head, too. Autonomous vehicles were in the early stages of testing back in 2020. Of course, the concerns over catching the virus hit the taxi industry hard and accelerated people’s acceptance of the concept of vehicles that didn’t require a driver. And this extended to the logistics industry – the concept of being able to have trucks going non-stop between major centres was hugely appealing: less time meant fewer vehicles required to cover a given route, less hijacking issues (it’s more difficult to hold up a vehicle that doesn’t have a driver), and far fewer “inside job” thefts.
And autonomous vehicles were not just land-based. We’d already seen early light aircraft having full auto-land capabilities for emergency use (one button push if the pilot is incapacitated and the aircraft would land safely at the nearest airport), while airliners had been largely automatic for years. Once air traffic picked up again in early 2022, airlines found a shortage of pilots as they’d laid off so many, and this accelerated the use of fully-autonomous aircraft. Now, of course, pilotless aircraft are the norm and flight volumes are close to those of 2019 again, although it’s mainly private travel with people taking up their ability to work from anywhere in the world, so combining work with leisure.
Of course, all this technology has also become standard practice in the armed forces – planes, ships and land vehicles no longer need people on board and almost everything is either autonomous or remotely controlled, keeping people safely away from “the action.”
We really can thank 2020 for our brave new world.