Watch out! In the next term of the Slovenian government, exactly this will change: while our good MPs will argue about whose grandfather was in the wrong forest in 1945, the world will experience a "great acceleration". It will drive global economic growth to 7 % per year. This is not science fiction and it is no longer just distant scenes from the legendary cartoon about the Jetson family; this is inexorable mathematics, driven by artificial intelligence, robotics and energy. Here is a timeline of how your everyday life will fall apart and be put back together before you even manage to say the word "interpellation". It is coming - a great development acceleration.
Most people live under the comfortable illusion that history is something that has already happened and the future is something we will dictate little by little, at the pace of a Sunday driver looking for a parking space in front of a shopping mall. You are wrong. You are very wrong. We are not sitting in a traffic jam right now; we are sitting in car cockpit, where someone just taped the gas pedal to the floor. What we're witnessing isn't just "progress." It's an exponential function gone wild. And if you think you're going to get through this period with the same habits, the same phone, and the same mindset, then you probably still believe that it will Golf 2 Eternal. Look at the counter, the revs are going up. This is what your ride will look like over the next five years. A big development acceleration awaits us. The so-called “popcorn” moment.
2026: The year your phone becomes your boss
The year begins with the realization that paying $20 (approx. EUR 18.50) per month for artificial intelligence is the best investment in history, as it pays for itself in half a day. Your smartphone stops being just a phone and becomes your “agent”. You will no longer be looking for airline tickets or insurance; your AI agent will fix it in seconds.
You'll get your own personal, invisible Rosie (the Jetsons' robotic housekeeper), except she won't sweep the floor, she'll sweep your errands. Forecasts suggest that as much as 25% of all online shopping will be powered by artificial intelligence. Advertising as you know it will die; 65% of the market will be taken over by generative artificial intelligence (AI)You'll be drinking coffee, and algorithms will be spending your money - but smarter than you. iPhones will be able to connect to the Starlink network in September 2026, heralding the end of traditional carriers on Earth.
2027: The final farewell to diesel fumes
This year you will be Facebook Marketplace selling their diesel pride for the last time. Why? Because a fleet of robo-taxis (4 million existing Tesla cars with the right equipment) will hit the roads, reducing the cost of transportation to a level where car ownership is financial suicide. This will usher in the era of mobility that George and Jane took for granted – otherwise our cars won't (yet) fit into a briefcase, but they will drive themselves.
Tesla will reduce transportation costs drastically below the cost of owning a personal car. Analyses show that just 24 million autonomous vehicles could cover all urban miles in the US. The cost per kilometer is expected to be a mere 15 cents (approx. EUR 0.14). If you are in the trucking business, you will cry, as autonomous trucks will reduce delivery costs by 60%. Traffic jams will be a thing of the past, as there will be fewer cars on the roads, but they will be constantly on the move.
2028: Healthcare experiences its “iPhone moment”
Healthcare will undergo a revolution. Instead of waiting in waiting rooms and reading magazines from 2019, we will be detecting cancer at the earliest stages with blood tests, as the cost of genome sequencing will plummet. Remember those scenes when cartoon characters walked in front of the screen and were diagnosed in a second - this will no longer be a cartoon in 2028.
The cost of developing new drugs will fall from a staggering $2.4 billion to a manageable $1.2 billion. 700 million dollars. A cure for a rare genetic disease will cost a hundred times less than it does today. Dying will become economically inefficient, so we will simply postpone it. Technology CRISPR will also change the aging process and enable late-life vitality. In 2028, robots will begin to take over most of the work of surgeons. Good news: robots' hands don't shake after a long night.
2029: Moving to the Clouds (Literally)
As Earth runs out of electricity for all those smart machines, we'll move data centers to space. Reusable rockets, with the leading company having a decade-plus head start on them, will allow your Netflix to stream via a server in zero gravity. Orbit City – a city in the clouds – will not start with apartments, but with our data.
Drone delivery of a package will cost less than a dollar (0.92 EUR). If you're still waiting for the postman to bring you a payment slip in 2029, you're living in a museum. Or in Slovenia.
2030: Welcome to the age of George Jetson
By 2030, the convergence of all these technologies – from blockchain, which will tokenize an incredible $11 trillion in assets, to robotics – will create productivity unimaginable today. Global GDP it will no longer grow at a snail's pace (3 %), but will jump to 7 % and above.
This will be a time when the concept of the “nine to five job” will function like feudalism. We are approaching the ideal of the George Jetson workday: one hour of work, two days a week, and complaining about pressing buttons too hard. This is the real – great development acceleration.
A major development acceleration! Who should take the wheel?
Who should lead this transition? Who would we want at the helm of this new society? Certainly not someone who takes six months to set up a task force to study the environmental impact of facade paint. We need someone who understands that the “safety” of static is an illusion.
We would like a leader who is a mix of Formula 1 engineer and gamblera – someone who understands that when you go with 300 km/h (186 mph) through a bend, you don't press the brake, but you step on the gas so that centrifugal force doesn't throw you off the road. Because in the next decade there won't be any brakes. We'll just have a steering wheel and a gas pedal. And God help us if there's someone behind the wheel who still looking for a handbrakeOtherwise we will end up like George Jetson in that famous closing credits scene – trapped on a mad conveyor belt, screaming for help while the world spins too fast for them to safely get off.
