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Predictions for 2030 - how will it affect Traveller?

I would expect most vehicles would be automated long term. People own personal vehicles simply because the vehicle will get them from Point A to B on their schedule (i.e. now). If I can press a button on my handheld and have a car opening its door in front of me in 2 minutes, I'd jump in in a heartbeat.

Skyscraper farming is a proposal to make vertical farming systems.

http://www.verticalfarm.com/

As for robotic sex slaves, I don't recall seeing a table for that in Book 8.
 
whartung said:
I would expect most vehicles would be automated long term. People own personal vehicles simply because the vehicle will get them from Point A to B on their schedule (i.e. now). If I can press a button on my handheld and have a car opening its door in front of me in 2 minutes, I'd jump in in a heartbeat.

Skyscraper farming is a proposal to make vertical farming systems.

http://www.verticalfarm.com/

As for robotic sex slaves, I don't recall seeing a table for that in Book 8.
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You can get a car opening it's door for you in 2 minutes now (depending where you live) it's called a taxi.
The reason people go to all the trouble of owning a car today is because it's so much cheaper than a taxi. If robotic taxis become cheaper than ownership, that's when you'll see the change.

Robotic sex slaves... Hmm, would you? How realistic would they need to be? Would it ever be acceptable, or would there always be a stigma? Would you have it (her/him?) serve drinks to your guests or would it/she/he be kept hidden in a closet and only brought out in times of need?
 
Icosahedron said:
Robotic sex slaves... Hmm, would you? How realistic would they need to be? Would it ever be acceptable, or would there always be a stigma? Would you have it (her/him?) serve drinks to your guests or would it/she/he be kept hidden in a closet and only brought out in times of need?
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What guests?

The way modern society is going, where people prefer to text the person sitting next to them rather than turn and speak to them, and with every activity being subject to "health&safety" meddling, soon every adult will be living in an isolated suite of rooms, working via computer (including operating "waldo" equipment no matter what their job).

Sex will be via VR suits (or the afore-mentioned "manufactured surrogates") and reproduction via mailed genetic samples, artificial womb-tanks, and child-rearing in robotic creches with only VR interaction between parents, their offspring, and their relatives.

"House-guests" will be another VR-only (or just 3-d vid-screen) activity.



As you can see, Traveller diverges greatly from how real society is trending... I always considered it (even in the mid-1980s) to be an alternate branching of reality... or at the closest, a future where such impersonalizing tech has long since become anathema, with the requirement for real-live personal interaction being ingrained in both culture and law.


This is also why Traveller (at least in the earlier, purer forms) has no cyborgs, nor extensive bionics, nano-tech, or other cyber-punk-style tech... all that has become verbotten throughout human space... no matter whether Solomani, Vilani, or Zhodani.
 
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You could be right, BlackBat - Isaac Asimov's The Naked Sun pretty much sums up modern trends, but as you say, there's time for a backlash yet.
 
Then we'll have VR suit computer viruses and hackers. "Sorry, you're not using your suit tonite - you got hacked" or you end up with an electric shock in the wrong place.
 
Not to mention that big Asteroid scheduled to hit in 2032 might put a kilter on developments. Robots that look like people? Possibly look but still act like puppets. Rather, we are likely to see a future in which people are turned into robots.

3. By 2030, only 2% of the world's population will live in extreme poverty. The eradication of extreme poverty will happen in our lifetime. In 1990, 42% of the world’s population lived on less than $1.25 (constant 2000 dollars, PPP). In 2005, that number had fallen to 25%. The UN estimates that by 2020, only 10% of world citizens will live in absolute poverty. My bold estimate is that by 2030, only one in 50 will.
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That had me rolling on the ground. If anything there has been a significant increase in inequality and the BRICs and other leading nations are hellbent on keeping that gap. Only way to avoid that would be a massive redistribution of wealth and power in the world. Maybe, the definition of extreme needs to change but right now to use Mike Davis' term - we are becoming a Planet of Slums.

By 2030, most film actors will be out of work due to competition from cheap computer animated actors. Computer Generated Imagery (CGI) technology will enable us to create movies with animated characters so lifelike that they become indistinguishable from humans, rendering actors (in film anyway) obsolete.
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This is one that I might actually believe...as my five year son cannot distinguish between a film like up and Escape from Witch mountain. All the pyrotechnics are starting to determine film rather than the film determine the pyrotechnics - we saw this most evident in Tron : The Legacy** in which the animation was a substitute for any sort of plot.

**Which despite not having a plot was an enjoyable film.
 
Traveller is a good future. Where people do meet face to face, where they solve their own problems and do not rely on robots, where humans explore the universe and take their problems with them, not delegating to AIs, cybershells or bioroid replicants. Like I said, its the future that skips the XBOX/Tweeting/permanently wired generation.

I like my Traveller like this! I like my life like this!

BlackBat242 said:
What guests? ... snip .... I always considered [Traveller] (even in the mid-1980s) to be an alternate branching of reality... or at the closest, a future where such impersonalizing tech has long since become anathema, with the requirement for real-live personal interaction being ingrained in both culture and law.
Click to expand...
 
kafka47 said:
Robots that look like people? Possibly look but still act like puppets.
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Now, I really don't want a SkyNet or similar computer, but a computer just won on Jeopardy the other day.

:)

All a computer would really need nowadays is an accurate and intuitive verbal interaction routine with limited emotional simulation/understanding to pass the Turing Test. A modern computer can get access to most of human knowledge. I'm waiting for the announcement that a school has made a computer a teacher.
 
Spinward Scout said:
Now, I really don't want a SkyNet or similar computer, but a computer just won on Jeopardy the other day.

:)

All a computer would really need nowadays is an accurate and intuitive verbal interaction routine with limited emotional simulation/understanding to pass the Turing Test. A modern computer can get access to most of human knowledge. I'm waiting for the announcement that a school has made a computer a teacher.
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Korea's using Robotic Telepresence already.
 
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