Conference Presentation, Panel, Keynote
The Future of Humankind feat. Al Gore, Jennifer Doudna, Guruduth Banavar, Eric Schmidt
- Climate trends are predicted to accelerate with the hottest year ever measured occurring last year and current projections indicating this year will be hotter still.
- Financial expectations indicate the $22 trillion value of carbon assets could collapse suddenly once markets acknowledge their inability to be burned, while renewable energy projections for 16 years ago have been exceeded by over 14.5 times and 2010 solar photovoltaic installation projections will be surpassed 68 times this year.
- Solar costs are projected to decline at an average rate of 10% annually for the next 30 years to achieve grid parity, following trends observed in Chile that are expected to replicate globally.
- Policy expectations include the Paris agreement garnering near-universal sign-up, China implementing a cap and trade system next year, and other nations following suit, supported by data showing 90% of new global electricity generation capacity last year came from solar and wind.
- Biotechnology forecasts within 10 years for CRISPR-Cas9 to be utilized for repairing genetic disease mutations, though the potential for human enhancement remains a future possibility contingent on responsible scientific progression.
- Cognitive computing is expected to redefine expertise through deep collaboration between humans and learning machines, with healthcare diagnostic machines becoming production-ready to assist radiologists and oncologists in the near future.
- Long-term scientific capabilities are projected to expand over the next few decades to observe every biological level, execute a million times more experiments, and establish comprehensive cause-and-effect data models.
- Synthetic food production using plants is anticipated to materially impact climate change and reduce global food costs, while 3-D printing is expected to enable faster, lower-cost industrial home manufacturing.
- Virtual and augmented reality markets are forecast to expand rapidly due to inexpensive delivery of 3D reality, while mobile phones are expected to evolve into superior health monitoring systems for listening to health alerts.
- Computer vision is already surpassing human capabilities in specific tasks such as radiology and diabetic retinopathy detection, and solutions for curing cancers and genetic diseases are projected to arrive within 10 to 15 years.
- Artificial intelligence is expected to solve complex scientific problems regarding material strength faster than human intuition, drive personalized education at scale, and facilitate a national moonshot to make self-driving cars ubiquitous to save lives.