What will the world be like in 2038? Here are five guesses – 07/16/2023 – Sidereal Messenger

Who has never seen a video of Manual do Mundo? The channel created by the dear Iberê Thenório and Mari Fulfaro in 2008 is completing 15 years as the largest on YouTube to deal with Science and Technology in Latin America. To celebrate the milestone, the two are promoting a very cool initiative: the creation of a time capsule, filled with objects and messages from personalities, to be opened only 15 years from now, in 2038.

The artifact will be sealed and exposed in the centenary library of the Butantan Institute, in São Paulo. Thenório and Fulfaro invited figures such as the journalist Pedro Bial, the Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, Luciana Santos, and the Minister of Indigenous Peoples, Sônia Guajajara, to leave written messages for the society of 2038. Besides them, several others contributed with videos full of predictions, like Antonio Tabet, Verônica Oliveira, Phelipe Siani, Marcos Piangers and others – among them this one that writes for you.

It’s always fun to think about the future, and the greater the need for synthesis, the harder it is to make accurate guesses. Even so, I decided to take the risk. Here are five things that I personally think will be different 15 years from now.

For starters, climate change. The situation on the planet will be even more dramatic than it is today – that is already certain, it is not even a prediction. What I think will be new is that in 2038 we will already be seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, with strong electrification of vehicles on a global scale and effective actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (let’s combine, so far, the largest part of the countries’ initiatives and promises were for the English to see, but I think we will have a much better picture in 15 years).

In 2038, the use of artificial intelligence will be a concrete reality in many areas, transforming intellectual work and raising productivity – which will translate into increased unemployment. Citizen income programs, such as our Bolsa Familia, will be more necessary and more common around the world.

Manned trips to the Moon, conducted by various countries and companies, will be common in 2038. We will even have tourist visits to our natural satellite. To Mars, it’s quite possible that we haven’t gone there yet – but an inaugural mission will already be in the planning stages.

To ET enthusiasts, a warning: we still will not have discovered incontestable evidence of life beyond Earth, although by 2038 we will have already obtained provocative results from the study of exoplanets and the icy moons of the Solar System.

And perhaps the least likely of my predictions: social networks, more regulated and less seductive, will have less power and control over society in 2038 than they do today, in 2023. Will it be? I admit that this is more cheering than trust – it’s not possible that we haven’t gotten tired of all this idiocy by then. Or is it?

This column is published on Mondays in the printed version, in Folha Corrida.

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