The Future Cloud

The Singularity Hub featured an interview with Dutch futurist Marcel Bullinga today discussing a variety of topics.  Bullinga gives a rousing description of the technologies and cultural norms that he believes will shape humanity fifteen years in the future. The crux of civilization seems to rest on the “Cloud”. More than just the current buzzword signifying computation as service rather than product, Bullinga’s Cloud is an all-encompassing technology, a name for the collection of networked services that will permeate every part of life.


Bullinga describes the Future Cloud:

It is the toy of the Game Generation, to whom working and learning is a game. In the Future Cloud, houses, offices and factories have turned into gaming zones. A child in 2025 would laugh about the old fashioned library of books of 2012. In his eyes, a book is a broken iPad. The Game Generation grows up with 3D printers, social robots and lots and lots of screens.
Screens in your contact lenses and screens in your Armani suit. Even the walls of your living room is a group-hug family screen. With chips in the cupboard, chips in your car, chips in your body. Your mobile acts as the remote control of your life and is an instrument for checking claims. 

The Cloud not only contains information, but also money, education and even energy. Every single moment you make your pick from the cloud, no matter where you are. Like you pick apples from a tree. You grab a video chat, you make a payment, you check the vegetables in the supermarket for sustainability, you check if your doctor is blacklisted, you harvest the energy you generate by walking or driving around. And your own body is the biometric key to the Cloud. 

So, the Cloud powers and empowers you. You are in charge of your life; more than now. On the other hand, the Cloud will drive some people nuts, who cannot handle the amount of “incoming messages” and multitasking hundred stimuli at the same time. 

We will see a rise in Game addicts who are no longer in touch with real life and real people. Another minority cuts itself off and chooses a 100% offline live. We will see the development of social screens, slow screens and silence buildings. They do not distract, they offer quietness and focus. Monotasking instead of multitasking.