Imagining Our Future Through Tech

AI-powered toilets. Iron Man-esque exoskeletons. Robot furniture. VR-based offices. Actual dream-recording machines. If these all sound crazy and futuristic, well, that’s because they are! And yet, what if the technology behind many of these is more science than science fiction?
a16z Operating Partner Frank Chen takes us on a tour of what daily life could look like in 2030 and beyond - and what innovations in both technology and business model need to happen to get us there. He can’t promise flying cars (yet), but the future might be closer than we think.
Highlights
Kicking off the day, the Morning routine of 2030 [1:20]
What the future of work looks like in 2030 [04:44]
Practicing a sales pitch enabled by advances in VR technology [7:10]
New ways to invest and engage with fans enabled by blockchain [9:10]
Executing smart contracts using Blockchain [11:05]
What will we do after work for entertainment? [12:12]
What will public transportation look like? [13:22]
Building up our longitudinal health data [18:51]
Bioengineering more sustainable materials such as, Spider-silk [21:00]
How we get to the smart coach [27:34]
How we get to more efficient public transportation [31:10]
How we get to a dream recorder [34:19]
***
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[@JaneJWang]

Where is the soul, spontaneity and joy in Katie’s life? Speaking as a founder with a vision in this area, I agree that the tech advancements is on track for this future Mr. Chen is painting. However why am I not smiling as I listen to this? Well, because it doesn’t feel human to me. As architects of the future, we must understand people in a holistic way: including their ambitions, and motivations behind their patterns of utilizing tech tools. I’ll advocate for adding the layer of human to this vivid painting (at Optimity, we had looked at 2.2 trillion data points over 1M users in Canada and US. The data and insights we came to are consistent with findings in health rewards systems and behavioural science research... sustained usage and mass adoption is the most important factor, and to achieve such, one must understand motivation and find joy. Enhancing our humanity is key).

[@IvanelPerez]

Totally agree with you Jane. We are architects of the future and we need to add a layer of humanity in Mr Chen painting. Would love to ping pong this topic with you and get to know what you are doing, because for sure I want to do more in this matter :) my email is [e-mail]

[@flaviulus]

it's ok Frank isn't a good story teller :)

[@NaimaZakaria]

The fact is Katie is planning on ditching all these dystopia and return to the forest where she only tolerates a rocket stove for comfort. The future is nature.

[@RevanBaratheon]

Nature and 10,000 books. Then I'm all set!

[@ryanmelikian7452]

if history was an indicator, I assure you that none of these would happen. In 2030, Katie is probably entering an marathon competition on netflix binge-watching

[@Lululemon2023]

Very encouraging on most of the staff he said, just don’t touch my food, I like them naturally grown.

[@DavidAxelrodP]

I really enjoy listening to optimistic people. Makes it feel like we are only in the second or third inning of the internet

[@nbme-answers]

The future is not inevitable -- we need scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs like yourself to bring it into being!

[@DavidAxelrodP]

@@nbme-answers I'll do my best!

[@ManiDoraisamy-GDE]

Interesting narrative! I guess most of these predictions wont happen, while some of them will exceed our wildest imagination!

[@guardtank4877]

I agree, it'll take more like 40 years for all of this to happen

[@SuperKillaki]

I like how the term “BFF” will remain a part of our future. That’s the real #humanityforthewin

[@KirkBuchanan]

What a beautiful picture of the future 🙏🏾. This is my ideal life.

[@dennisw9574]

Our future is in the hands of our children. My 5 year old granddaughter was acting spoiled and selfish as most kids will do at times. My daughter took action and told the young one that she would not receive any personal gifts for her upcoming birthday. Instead, she could pick a worthwhile cause that friends and family members could contribute to instead, if they wished. She picked the recent plight of the koalas in Australia and with some help, set up a fund goal of $200. She is beyond excited to see her little fund grow to help her cause and I think it will creat a lasting impression on her, more than any toy could.

[@amitsmarty1123]

Thanks for the optimism, hope I’m not sleeping this time. Super excited 😷

[@psalmueladekunle]

I like the way futurist analyse future tech trends, but i believe the adoption of any tech trend is mostly and the only determined by Human-Centred Design Thinking, lots of test and failure to be done.

[@femkegrundmann7556]

Great talk I really enjoyed watching this!! Excited for the future😊

[@TerenceFinn]

Frank this is interesting and as possible as any other scenario. Obviously, software has been the winner in the last 15 years and you obviously weighed heavily on the current trends in social, data, and VR/AR. Of course, there is a lot of assumptions because Katy is quite wealthy. I hope current trends don't continue and we actually see people revolt against them and start to prize community, face to face interactions, healthy activities (versus the very sedentary life Katy likely lives). Thank you for your insights though. Thought-provoking!

[@adamfrisk956]

Consume product, and then get excited for the next product!

[@jamesduprey2719]

I stopped at 5 minutes and wrote this. I finished the video when I had more time. The information and technology is impressive. It will creep into our lives in very much a slow mo fashion based on the accomplishments of folks like this gentleman. But it won't overwhelm us. Simply because it doesn't have an application and there are no societal supports to make it happen. Unless every young 20-30 year old, living in their more wise parents basement, are given, somehow miraculously, an abode with this technology, free of charge, and have the folks standing by to make sure they have proper nutrition, free of charge, and are clothed in state of the art technology, free of charge, and are supported with a job completely out of their experience and education level, free of charge, are freed of any stress so they can culture their life objectives and goals, free of charge, and finally, that no one exists that has an interest in Katy or any other 30 year old to have a perfect life. No one, except the person in this video I suspect. The insult is that we don't focus on curing diseases and providing better lives for our loved ones. We spend our efforts on increasing technology so we can create the illusion that it helps people. It won't ever reach the people who need it. It will, however, in a stimulating fashion cause people to have hope. And this hope is what technology is wanting. It gives them the platform, with support from the people, to have funds to develop technology for the elite and privileged. In my opinion, that is the entire reason. God Bless Us.

[@TheErudite21]

This is really awesome! Going to ste- I mean be inspired by much of this for my own podcast 😅

[@fatpen9731]

You will only spread THEIR vision of the future. Why don't you create yours

[@__namespace4602]

"Influencer coin" actually makes sense. Getting high quality feedback is critical. I would add one thing to the feedback acquisition flow. A fan can write a bunch of text that may or may not be true. We want the truth here. So it should be mandatory that all feedback is recorded via video. This way we have access to the fan's body language and facial micro expressions which are critical in communicating their truth. AI will be analyzing all feedback (solutions for this already exist) and generate a report showing how honest the fan was, and their opinion. This will allow the influencer to not have to watch every single video review. They will just get a report read to them by their Google Assistant or Siri. Something like that.

[@oceanograf83]

11:20 How exactly are the smart contracts going to be enforced when it comes to fulfilling the obligations of the suppliers of the physical goods?

[@luavasconcelos1637]

exactly.

[@chubulu9842]

I’m guessing you can do this by tracking the location of the good (+ the tampering of delivery box seals) and once the receiver acknowledges delivery smart contracts executes the next phase of the contract.

[@rakishindia]

Sounds like a high school kid's presentation on the future.

[@RuilinLinRyan]

29:30 Uhh I don’t see any indication that general learning coming by 2030 😅

[@sarailove2237]

He talks like that blue bird from that movie Rio.

[@symbioniq]

Some interesting ideas there - however this is already showing it’s age.

[@igorb5774]

In 2030 we are going to live in Creative society. If you don’t know about this project, you should definitely check it.

[@SportsIncorporated]

Figure biotech will solve father-in-law's mobility problem.

[@guardtank4877]

Let's come back in 10 years and see if any of this is true, I highly doubt we'll have shirts with heart rate monitors and toilets that measure glucose levels. In the past 5 years we've ended up with higher megapixel cameras on smartphones, ar, deep learning, and more data created on the internet.

[@guardtank4877]

Yes deep learning has been around for a long time, but it's getting major traction within the past 5 years

[@guardtank4877]

otherwise, great video

[@duudleDreamz]

We already know what healthy meals look like (more vegetables, less sugar etc.) yet, how many people actually eat what they should? Sure a computer might do more diet analysis, but people will still want their pizza, the same goes for many of the other suggestions in this talk. People also know its bad for your health to get drunk and dangerous to climb Mount Everest, and yet they still do it. This won't change either. Having a toilet that analyses your urine every day would make you feel as if you are part of the futuristic dystopian movie The Island.

[@StiltFactory]

Interesting. However I'm not trying to troll here, but the companies that create all these wonderful devices aren't focused on our well being, they are focused on profitability. Until we can change that algorithm we will continue to be seen as beings to be commodified....

[@alste780]

i want what this dude is smoking

[@alchemist_one]

Why does this guy keep talking about protein needs for the marathon? Typical diets of marathoners in both Kenya and Ethiopia (the dominant marathon powerhouses post y2k) are famously low protein.

[@DavidRDavidRoss]

Tech fetishist predicts future utopia. Groundbreaking.

[@MrFelixwankel]

This guy might know a lot about tech, but he knows absolutely nothing about people.

[@qri-uu8pq]

I hope to come back here in 2030 to see how the world of the haves and have nots is doing. Prediction: This guy and his family will be in the advanced world of the haves who know no freedom and the ludites will be in the world of have nots with all the freedom. The only way out is in sneaking in between.

[@vanderHork]

terrible clipping! where's the audio engineer when you need one?! I can hear the red lamp at the amp screaming. What a downgrade to such a good keynote. Due to that it's an A - , thanks anyway!

[@tyc00n]

i buy like 1% of that, the health stuff yeah but the socal stuff no

[@1b0o0]

All are trends. Some of them pretty doable in a 10-year span. I don’t buy the social stuff either but not because of lack of technology, but of the complexity needed to take away an established economic model.

[@nbme-answers]

If you bought too large a percentage of what he said then venture capitalists would not be doing their jobs. If what they said were too plausible to us ("Oh, yeah, I could see that"), you could make the argument they're not thinking on a grand enough scale. In other words, this stuff *should* sound out there!

[@MarbleMcGee656]

If you can afford it.

[@classicCyber]

Man, what a cold world. Actually the only happy creature in this scenario is the cat despite being a gmo. This is not what Star Trek series promised how the future would look like. Honestly I’m not afraid of the AI, but I’m more afraid of nerds with social anxiety and sociopath business people designing my life based only on my data whiteout any freedom.

[@__namespace4602]

Glow in the dark kitten. Ok. I see the upside to this but all the time? No. The user should have the ability to toggle the glow on or off. So this would require some type of BCI installed in the kitten to be able to interface with it's skin/fur cells. Robotic tail? Not sure how that will work honestly. Maybe it makes sense if the user is standing but sitting down is going to be hell. The tail is fat and takes up a ton of space. The user would be able to recline or lie down. I can see biotech or just exercise solving this problem sooner than a robotic tail.

[@hsingkao2024]

Great, no more homeless people.

[@pcaso]

And Katie has become a Robot and has no emptional mind of her own and no feeling. Everything needs an outside help for poor soul.

[@Uriel.45AC]

I agree

[@yohannt305]

Glow in the dark cats. What a sad future

[@nunobartolo2908]

nahh fast fashion is going to die even for americans

[@hamelconsultancyllc]

Sounds like a god damn capitalist dystopia... I already hate my cell phone.

[@abhinavsharma-xb5bq]

What in fuck

[@tyc00n]

influencer coin? im out, somebody get this guy help before he harms himself

[@kuriousarts]

Do people still ask "why" and " then what"? Personalization is death of society and civic living.

[@pisanghangus2]

Glowing cat ? No please no

[@Katana_00]

A uninspiring and unequal vision of the future. Story lacks anything insightful nor exciting. AI + VR + Automation in everything. Done. On a superficial note, his outfit is incredibly generic and dated. Looking like Bill Gates in the 90’s introducing Microsoft Windows. Modernize your look.

[@__namespace4602]

Yeah but this is 2030 we're talking about. What would you have liked to see included here? What excites you?

[@AndreRay4]

Where are the good visions of the future? Do you have somewhere better I can turn to?

[@__namespace4602]

@@AndreRay4 Well first you have to define what "good visions of the future" are. What problems do you want to see solved? That is the question to ask and keep asking it over and over again.

[@AndreRay4]

@@__namespace4602 Yes agreed! I was just looking for links to other futuristic content. I'm doing some research for a project that needs visions of the future. Any ideas?

[@__namespace4602]

@@AndreRay4 There are lots of visions for the future. I would love to chat about it if you're down. Let me know.

[@sannedeheer2120]

i dunno seems boring to me

[@arekd9769]

poor guy. no vision whatsoever. just more of the same. Specifically designed breakfast? Check the data! best breakfast is no breakfast. training for marathon? check the data! worst activity ever- promotes inflammation and inferior to for example sprints. Like man is this housewife's vision? Don't you have Google? check the data!

[@qri-uu8pq]

HS, this is really bad. so cringe. Humans have failed in almost all predictions in technology.