This is my second FourCast style prediction. It is the "long term" prediction.
In the year 2110, 80%> of the earth's workers will work remotely. Even physical tasks like surgery, construction, or mechanical repair: you can do by logging into a robot remotely and controlling in via a VR-type interface. Moreover, many of the reasons for needing to get out of the house have been eliminated, among them:
- groceries - groceries will be delivered to your fridge. You will order them online - usually on a display on your fridge, or just by talking to it and the groceries will be delivered within a couple of hours.
- social activities - 80% > of social activities will be done via virtual worlds like Second-Life. So you can connect with all of your friends no matter where they are or where you are.
The implications of this are:
- Because people are not tied to the location where they work, they can be traveling on a day-to-day basis and still not miss a day of work: tourism flourishes.
- By the same logic, people can live where they want to live, not where they have to live, therefore, they move their residence from place to place in a much higher frequency. People who love traveling live in RVs permanently.
- The real estate market will sky rocket, because there will be a large influx of potential buyers from all over the world.
- Most jobs will be short-term contracts because for whom you work is no longer tied to where you live, and so there's less of a need for stability and also you have a much larger pool of openings to choose from.
- There will be one global currency to facilitate workers and employers in different countries to do business with one another.
- There will only be 2 or 3 languages in common use throughout the world, and the majority of the people know at least 2 of them.
- 90% of dating will happen virtually. Meeting IRL will be considered a major step in a relationship.