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The future of globalisation

Adapted from The Atlas of the Future

August 2000

Transportation developments and advanced telecommunications technologies have made the world much more accessible. It is indeed a small world. We can now work, play and socialise with people from anywhere, go and visit them or their countries and do business with them – all without being out of the ordinary. Our cultures and political systems are forced into contact and when this go badly wrong we can fight each other without every leaving the comfort of our own country.

Tourism is one of the world’s fastest growing industries. Most of us like to see places that are different from where we live, and as the cost of travel becomes less of a barrier, more people are able to travel, and more often, to places further away. Travelling to the destinations is changing only gradually, but by 2010 we will have planes that hold 1000 people, with gymnasiums and jogging tracks on board. By 2015 or so, we may even holiday in space, with near Earth space tours. It will cost tens of thousands of dollars for a few hours, but potential buyers are already showing interest. Soon after there will be hotels in orbit, with the new generation of space planes ferrying the guests to and fro. While there they will be able to take part in space walks and zero gravity sports, as well as admiring the view. Holidays such as this may cost upwards of $100000 for a weekend, but again, queues are expected. No one is prepared to give dates yet for holidays on the Moon, but it is surely only a matter of time.

When we go on holiday, we put pressure on the destination environment and to avoid congestion or environmental damage, some places will have restricted access. But even when we can’t get to the real place, we will be able to visit it virtually over the internet. Already, a few cities in the US have been emulated in cyberspace, and it is possible to wander round and visit at least some of the attractions, tour round the art galleries and so on, all via the computer screen. In the not-too-distant future, most of the world’s top attractions will be available this way, and we will have immersive virtual reality in the shape of, say, a dining room panelled with screens. We could host a dinner party in any setting we choose from the Grand Canyon to a medieval castle. Virtual tourism is unlimited by geography or time period. It is clear though, that as we meet more people and find exciting new places, we will want to travel for real even more often, not less.

As the world becomes more accessible across the network for tourism, so it is with work. Increasingly, companies will spread around the world, using people suited to the job in hand, wherever they are. Such ‘virtual companies’ will retain a small core of key workers, with everyone else hired on a project by project basis. More work will be done by fewer people as new technologies increase productivity. By 2012, we expect to have robots that can do just about any physical job. A few years later, computers will be able to do just about any mental job. What people do for a living then is a matter of current debate, but we will be forced to examine what we really want out of life. Beyond the information economy we may find the care economy, where people are employed for jobs that require them essentially to be people – human interaction jobs. Robots and computers may get on with the rest, bringing a more prosperous future for us all. However, while we may be concerned about information rich and poor in the short term, I believe that the reducing cost of access to the world superhighway and the simpler communication to the machine world will level the playing field much faster than most people imagine.

Information technology reverses the need for people to go to work in a factory or office, and has led many futurists to predict that everyone will work from home and go to live in the countryside. However, in reality, although a few will do this, just as many will move into cities or towns. People are simply gregarious and cities have more people so are more exciting to be in, even if the functions they offer are available in cyberspace. Perhaps surprisingly, for information work, it is sometimes advantageous to have computers close to each other. As computer processing speed increases, so the delays in sending data down a cable become relatively larger, and the need to reduce physical distance increases. As a result, for some parts of the information industry, we may see concentration in specialist cities rather than having the expertise spread across the globe.

Cities will become more pleasant to live in. Traffic can be managed much better by integrating road traffic information services, satellite navigation and so on. As they move towards less polluting engines, and as industry becomes less polluting too, the air will get cleaner.

Political systems are changing too, arguably as a result of telecommunications. As people in oppressed regimes can see more easily how people live in democratised areas, so they have tended to push for the same freedom themselves. Democratisation is spreading, but it will not reach everywhere just yet. It remains to be seen how much impact artificial intelligence will have in this area. The potential exists to have an almost automated democracy, taking into account everyone’s preferences directly, instead of the poor compromise of representational democracy that we have today, which often seems just to further the interests of the supposed representatives. Another effect we have yet to see significantly is the ability to vote in other countries. As actions taken in one country directly affect many others, it would seem to make sense to allow these other countries more say. And finally, as the internet and ultimately the global superhighway make geography less significant in every other area of life, so we may see a move of power away from geographic domains towards groups based on similar values or interests. These cyber-communities may be as large as nations, but have instantaneous communication with their entire population and have easy means of policing and disciplining their population. Whether cybercommunities with conflicting interests can peacefully coexist remains to be seen.

History has shown us that our advances have not yet reached the point where we can live peacefully together, and one of the main drivers for new technologies is still the pursuit of military advantage. Information technology and robotics are both being milked in this pursuit. The warriors of the far future may be as small as insects, but with enough intelligence to do great harm. Many wars will be fought electronically without any need for travel by the opponents outside their own borders. Unfortunately, electronic warfare does not necessitate enormous expense or armies, so terrorism may become much more of a problem than today. As the developed world becomes increasingly dependent on computers, so we are increasingly vulnerable to assault across networks. Future warfare may have very different characteristics from today’s. When cybercommunities slug it out in cyberspace, there may be many others caught in the crossfire.

Alliances between countries become much more important as everything else becomes more global. Increasing globalisation is increasing the need for some form of world government, and it is inevitable in due course. However, it is some way off and in the meantime there is much conflict. It is expected that the UN may achieve its original task of establishing a permanent global peacekeeping and security system – by about 2050!