My Life On February 23, 2030

I just woke up at my optimal REM sleep time calculated by bedroom sensors. My bed reads my brain waves all night and sensors in the room monitor the amount of oxygen that my lungs converted into carbon dioxyde. I go to the bathroom and anything leaving my body is instantly analyzed and uploaded to my personal medical data cloud.

My breakfast food has just been 3D printed from ingredients genetically modified to decrease my cholesterol and glucose to optimal levels. My ham and cheese omelette tastes delicious and no animals were killed; it has become forbidden in most countries to kill any live animal. No need to be vegan to avoid killing anymore.

I have an appointment with Elon Musk to offer him an investment in my electric plane startup and even though business meetings are mostly done via hologram representations, I still really enjoy in-person meetings. My self-driving Telsa takes me to the nearest hyperloop station where I can get to L.A. in twenty minutes, so it’s not a big deal to travel anymore. It has become really expensive to have your own private car as governments only want self driving cars everywhere — these have reduced deaths from auto accidents by 95%. Private cars might soon be entirely forbidden as they cause too many problems. They’re a very expensive luxury for the time being.

There is no traffic anywhere as there are very few cars. There is very little parking space in cities as most cars are self driving. Uber has replaced all drivers with self driving cars, which are pretty much always moving. I remember when we used to have those idle parked cars everywhere. Tens of millions of jobs in the car industry have disappeared, car and truck drivers, car insurance companies, car dealers and repair stations, all gone. You can cross any street without even looking as the self driving cars’ sensors became so good cars just stop automatically as they “see” you about to cross the street. A lot of the data needed to create the machine learning algorithms behind self-driving cars was created by people in once-poor countries through an NGO called Samasource, which closed its doors when extreme poverty was eradicated in the last decade.

As I get to Elon’s office, I get my messages projected on the latest version of Google Glass that Tony Fadell has managed to fit in a contact lens. Voice recognition has become so good that nobody types anything anymore — you can just say what you want to answer. Since Tony and I are good friends, he let me test the latest beta version of his mind-reading software update for Glass. Now I just think my reply and it shows up instantly on my retina and I can just think “send it” to get it to anyone I want. Nobody has a smartphone anymore, though I remember what it was like to use my thumbs to send text messages.

I look around and remember how we used to see so many ads everywhere — they completely disappeared. Marketing is now only highly personalized and targeted to your specific needs. I touch a door handle and it senses my hands are a little dry; as I opted-in for personalized marketing, I get an offer to try a new hand cream by Laxmi. I accept and it is instantly delivered to me by an Amazon drone. Drones are so small and silent you barely see them anymore. Laxmi has become very successful by distributing most of the profits of their beauty products to people who would otherwise be poor. Most businesses that don’t have a social or environmental mission have died out, as nobody wants to buy their products.

There is no more hunger in the world as we can 3D print pretty much any food. Extreme poverty disappeared when governments around the world signed onto the Universal Floor movement, led by the Gates Foundation and funded by the Billionaire’s Pledge that became famous decades ago. I give 5% of my income automatically as a “voluntary tax” to the Universal Floor Foundation, which is one of the most popular charities on earth and posts their results in real time to my Glass feed. We also eradicated illiteracy — I remember when education became universal and free through technology. In large cities, people still send their kids to school but anywhere else free hologram teachers are always available.

I just arrived at Elon’s office and he invites me to space for the afternoon! We take the latest spaceship resulting from the joint venture Richard Branson and Elon Musk launched a few years ago, GalaktiX. I can see the Earth from above for the first time, a planet that thanks to advances in technology is verdant and blue, despite the old threat of global warming. Space travel is amazing and has become much more affordable — a few hours’ trip to space will cost only about one thousand dollars when they launch this new product.

I feel a little sick when we come back. I don’t even have to call my virtual doctor as she was already warned by the results of my live body analysis sensors. I am testing this new under-the-skin fitbit nanodevice — it communicates with Google Glass and sends data continuously to my doctor. The prescription is delivered on a drone and I feel better in a few hours. Time to head back home.

On my way back, I get a notification that someone is trying to deliver something at my home. The dropcams identify a trusted Fedex person and I only have to think about opening the garage door so they can put the huge delivery inside. It is a 1982 mechanic Haunted House pinball machine my father had gifted me at Christmas — these throwbacks to the analog past mean a lot to me.

With all the 3D printing and automation, handmade products have become the most in-demand objects. A huge number of jobs are constantly being created around anything made entirely by humans with raw materials. Artisanal producers are all the rage — there is even a quality label that has become the new status symbol: “Certified All-Human Made”. Art explodes as people have much more free time and can make a good living out of it. I have learned to play the guitar, and use my Glass interface to practice while I ride back up to San Francisco.

Back home the first thing I do is meditate for an hour entirely disconnected, a practice I started 15 years ago. Creating space, reconnecting with my body and my mind, slowing down when everything is fast and disconnecting when everything is more connected has become as important for me as taking a shower.

update: here is the video of my presentation

thanks Tom Katis, Mark Kinsey, Leila Janah, James Lindenbaum, Samantha Murillo, Kevin Wolf for contributing to this brainstorming and helping me write this.

I’m working on a talk based on this, if you like please send me your comments and ideas on our life in 2030 I will credit you in the presentation, thanks in advance.