Mersey Shelley

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Mersey Shelley is pseudonym of Alexey Andreyev, writer and futurologist, who works now for Kaspersky. Most of his predictions cited here are from his cyberpunk novel "2048" published in 2004.

predictions

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2050 Coral island

As a number of drones grew, people got tired of these flying bots used for spying and advertising. Imagine a butterfly that hangs right before your face while targeting your eyes with stereoscopic commercials! The first cases of drone hunting were plain self-defense but soon it turned into a sort of

# robots # society

14

2

2050 Coral island

First AI ghosts appeared on cemeteries soon after personal AI assistants got popular. Since an AI assistant collects lots of personal data of his host (including his vocabulary, voice samples, images and contacts), this machine intellect can successfully imitate his deceased owner in a voice chat or

# AI # human

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2

2050 Coral island

It's great when you can control the weather: more rain is sent to drying farmland, and big cities use regular "sanitary" rains for cleaning. However, more rain in one country could mean less rain in the other. As soon as hidden methods of weather manipulation are detected, some countries start "wars

# nature # government

6

1

2050 Coral island

The mass schooling was found to be ineffective. First, it was too abstract and static: kids were forced to seat for hours and passively watch the endless streams of information with no practical use. Second, mass school didn't teach the most important subject - social life; while kids were concentrated

# education # AI # society

14

3

2050 Coral island

A new group of environmentalists got very popular after they presented serious scientific evidence of health deterioration in the areas of excessing electromagnetic fields (Wi-Fi, GSM, SATCOM and other transmitters for wireless communications). To fight extra radiation, the moderate wing of this eco-movement

# nature # society

5

1

2050 Coral island

In older days, palms and fingers were scanned for identification. Now, palms and fingers with implanted sensors became scanners themselves. These implants come in different models, yet there are two main variations. First, a simple scanner for daily use: it helps to read different tags and product codes,

# human # biotech

7

1

2050 Coral island

Through the ages, Ringworm was a nasty fungal infection - but not anymore! Now, genetically modified ringworm, as well as some other skin diseases, are even more popular than tattoo! You can make them paint beautiful colorful ornaments on your skin, with no harm to health. Same way, tamed Caries is now

# human # biotech

29

5

2050 Coral island

In XX century, some artificial islands were built by UAE, Japan and China, but their land reclamation technologies were rather old-fashioned: large amounts of rocks, cement or clay had to be moved to a targeted area. That's why those artificial islands were small and very expensive to build. Now, with

# nature # construction

40

3

2050 Coral island

At first, human memory editing was meant for good: it helped people with terrifying experience to get rid of their bad flashbacks. However, some corporations started to use this technology as a new type of copyright enforcement. Any intellectual property, like a melody or a book, is now "licensed" to

# human # society

4

4

2050 Coral island

In older times, mute people were outcasts so they couldn't proliferate. Nowadays, they can easily communicate and get all necessary things via Internet. In fact, even people who have voice don't use it much now: messengers, games, business correspondence and multiple web services work quite well without

# human # society

4

5

2050 Barcelona

News reports about personal data leaks tend to be about credentials for bank accounts and other online services. However, it is biological data that will soon be the most valuable kind. Unlike passwords and bank accounts, biodata cannot be changed, so the effects of any leak will be lifelong. Already,

# biotech # society # love

24

2

2050 Athens

In view of lockdown restrictions and the mass shift to remote communication in many walks of life (work, study, personal relationships), the problem of distinguishing a human from a robot is especially acute. The development of malicious AI that feeds on personal data has led to the emergence of fake

# AI # society

15

2