What will amaze us in the future?

My sister and I have found ourselves in hospital again, as carers this time rather than patients. Both of us were using our phones and tablets to keep in touch with relatives and friends. I confess I was also keeping an eye on the football scores. Everywhere you go now, everyone is staring at a screen, visitors, patients, nurses and doctors alike. We talked about how life has changed since we were both young and how the mobile phone, in particular, has completely changed the way that we live.

We got talking and wondered what it would be that would amaze the children and young people in the future, who have grown up with such technology. Predicting the future is very difficult, if not impossible. I have lived through so many technical innovations that were going to turn the world on its head only to be used in some unimagined way or to stutter along, never living up to their hype. I feel that AI is just the latest though there will definitely be some value that comes out of its development. I would stay shy of the dystopian or utopian promises however.

This is a long way of saying that neither of us could imagine what it would be that would come along next. All technologies that we could think of other than chip implants were already with us. I even know people who have chipped themselves but that is another story.

Perhaps, I mused, the future lies in rediscovering all the trades and artisan crafts that have disappeared over the years. Perhaps the future will be filled with prized and cherished hand crafted items while everything that we ‘need’ to function will be mass produced. Perhaps the young of today will take all the technologies presented to them in their stride and gasp at the marvels of the hand made and quaint individuality, the things that take time and skill to complete. 

With technology doing all the things we need much faster and more accurately than we ever can, it could be that we end up with a lot of free time. What better way to use it than to recall age old skills that may well amaze the kids of the future.

Who knows?