How old will you be?

That’s a simple question, isn’t it? Well, maybe. But as we stand at the starting gate of 2025, the answer may depend entirely upon your perspective. My perspective was pushed a little more to the positive over Christmas. My far-flung family gathers just once a year from different parts of the country, and this Christmas I had the delight of sharing the holidays not only with the usual crowd, but also with my great nieces and great nephews who range from 6 years old to 13. I can’t remember how many facial muscles they say it takes to smile, but my smiling muscles got a serious workout after being around this little group of techies and pre-techies during Christmas. I know a lot of the young parents and grandparents out there are used to this, but for me, it was eye-opening to listen to these whiz kids expound on the state of the world today. Believe me, their world is a whole lot different from the way things used to be just a short 20 years ago. When I told them that I had to write an article for the newspaper, they quickly advised me to “just tell AI to do it. It’s better, and it’s real quick”. This was a nine-year old telling me this. I was a little startled by that at first, but then admitted to myself that at the pace this world is spinning, that comment shouldn’t really surprise anyone, and as a matter of fact, it provides a tiny glimpse of what life will look like sooner rather than later. The advances that are coming in the near future will write new rules for our society, and the developments that we might consider beyond our imagination today, will be nothing more than mundane features of life two or three decades from now. Just to provide a little perspective, stop and think; just 30 years ago, the Internet’s world-wide web had yet to be understood or widely used by the public, cell phones were not yet widely accepted, there was no such thing as a laptop computer, there were no E-mail messages, no MRI medical technology, no Google search engine, no GPS and satellite directed travel, no on-line banking or shopping, no breakthroughs to rival the advances in cancer research and molecular properties, no smart phones, no smart TVs and none of the other hundreds of creations we contentedly take for granted today. Never in the history of this country or any other industrialized country has the rate of research, exploration or invention even come close to the current level. Predictions for 2025 and beyond focus on accelerating AI to bring more personalized technology to everyday life. According to experts, this will dramatically benefit the goals of living smarter, thriftier, safer and healthier lives. Everything from cheaper energy to more user-friendly conversational computing, to simpler ways to live your life will be part of a new society. Sounds pretty good doesn’t it? Almost too good ? Well, like I said, I’m trying to push my perspective toward the positive. The experts pretty much agree that the future will be a fast and furious step up from anything we have seen so far. They also remind us that the major advancements that have taken place in the past, and the ones which will take place in the future will continue to be driven by the business world and not by governments or politicians. That sounds a little more believable, so I think we would all be smart to buckle up, put on your Flash Gordon sunglasses and get ready for a wild ride into 2025. Thanks to the upcoming class of whiz kids, the world up ahead will be packed with far more incredible leaps into the future than ever before. So how old will you be? With so much happening in a shorter period of time, you might want to just start counting every other year when it comes to candles on the birthday cake. That might sort of slow things down. If you have any questions, let me know. I can give you the email of a 9-year-old who can help you out. Either way, Happy New Year, here comes the future!

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