What will be the next thing that everyone goes through together?

[travelingtortoise]

I was just looking through my journals from 2020 and thinking about how I'd never experienced something like COVID where absolutely everyone was affected in some way by it.

Of course there are loads of political / social events that impact large swathes of society, but that clear, defined period of lockdowns, government updates, and everyone thinking/talking about the same topic because every single household was impacted was totally new (to me at least).

It got me wondering - is that going to be a once-in-a-lifetime experience? Or might there be other events that have the same reach? And if so, what might they be?

Not asking this to be a downer, by the way – I know it's unlikely to be anything very positive, and I wouldn't wish a repeat on anyone, but there was something really quite remarkable about it.

This was meant to be in response to someone saying they didn’t believe people would want AI pets 😂 I clearly don’t know how to work mumsnet

Aliens is what I think 👽

If people really wanted AI pets tamagotchi would have been developed and improved and be still with us in a much more advanced form.

General Election with a bit of luck. Please let these monsters be gone.

Absolutely

Yes!

Agree with this. The way it was so swiftly forgotten about is remarkable. When the nightclubs reopened as the clock struck midnight that day in summer 2021, it was like nothing had happened.

I don't think it's been forgotten at all. I think we're still in the 'recover' phase, where everyone is picking the bits back up and gathering them in together. Nobody has the energy to really look back at it yet. Covid hugely impacted a third of my youngest child's life; the effects are still echoing across society - it's not going to be forgotten fast.

While computers haven’t given us a lot of leisure time, they have got rid of many jobs. Typing pools are a thing of the past - I’m in my 40s and learned to type on a typewriter. Then I got early office jobs doing a lot of copy typing, not a thing anymore. Audio typing also has pretty much ended with software to do it for you, rather than a staff member listening to dictation and typing it out. HR and payroll staff levels have been decreasing with better systems to run those functions for you.

computers giving more leisure hours is one way of putting it, reducing staffing needs has definitely happened. I suppose some people who have effectively been made redundant have more leisure time.

I actually do believe, for some people (lots of people) an AI pet would be a suitable replacement.

I've come across quite a few dog owners don't actually want an independently thinking pet that acts like the species it is. They want a warm toy.

That's not all of them. It's not me. I love that the dog is a totally different species to me - with all the frustration and joy that brings - and that he thinks for himself, has opinions and needs that sometimes are not compatible with my own.

But not everyone does. Many just want a dog that slots neatly into their own, human lives and causes little hassle. They want the animal to be 100% predictable. They don't want to change their plans, social lives etc to accomodate the dog. They want a robot - they just don't want to call it that.

However, a society filled with AI has one limitation (that I can see): resources. Making technology takes materials that are in short (and ever dwindling supply). Which suggests we either need to mine other planets, or that we will have an even greater and widepsread divide between haves and have nots. And that many of us who are fairly used to being the haves (when compared to the global community) are going to find ourselves on the other side.

Potentially it will be the rise in sea levels that could cause a world wide affect. There could be so many people trying to find new places to live and not having a home to sell in order to do so.

Someone mentioned AI pets. My kids, who are all early 20s now, had Tamagotchi and Furbys which they did love. I can see people who live in flats and housing not suitable for pets, or a work life suitable for having one, having an AI dog or cat that they can talk to and interact with without having to worry about walks etc. Of course, the interaction with real life pets is very different but when you don't have that option I can see the other would be very appealing.

The Bank of England is the commercial arm of the Central Bank.

They are separate.

computers giving more leisure hours is one way of putting it, reducing staffing needs has definitely happened. I suppose some people who have effectively been made redundant have more leisure time

I think my point was (that I didn't convey too well) was that looking into a nice, orderly, futuristic computerised and robot run future invariably seems not to take into account at all the messy unpredictability of human beings and their response to such futures. Or the social and financial cost, never mind the sheer practicality.

over the years, if you went on the preppers boards on here, some of them were prepping for a major event including “the big flu”. I remember reading threads back in 2019 and thinking so many were nuts- although the predictions (often round how bad a hard Brexit could have been) about how little “give” there was in our food supply chain where completely proved correct by the covid food shortages.

I’ve no idea what could be next, another flu/virus, a food shortage across Europe, Ukraine war spilling out to wider Europe (but unlikely given its not happened yet).

has anyone else read “the end of the world running club”? That one society ends after meteorite storms hits in the northern hemisphere. Seems more likely than aliens.

There is no 'Central Bank.' Countries have their own Central Banks that manage currency and monetary policy. In the UK that's the Bank of England.

I was right. You are talking cobblers.

AI for sure.

I can't believe how much it's developed in just the past few months and it's not going to slow down. I think even in one year's time our minds are going to be blown by what it can do.

Exactly!

Am I being naive? Why are people afraid of AI?

Won't it do useful stuff like make phenomenal medical breakthroughs and design environmental solutions?

I haven't seen Terminator so maybe this is why I'm not scared of AI

But seriously why would it try to wipe out humanity? I don't understand

The AI pets thing is interesting.

I think real breathing animals will become a status symbol. The cost of the resources needed to maintain a dog or a horse will just continue to go up steeply as food and water get scarcer.

I don't think as a previous poster suggests, that it will become frowned upon to have real pets, I think it will be seem as part of an aspirational lifestyle.

Maybe on a par with business class seats as opposed to flying coach?

But real pets will always be wanted by those who can afford them, because they offer something that AI doesn't - I guess where will that line be drawn as inequality grows.

Already having a dog is considered a big luxury in the UK due to cost, whereas when I was a kid having a dog was not expensive.

I think AI will put most pimps out of business though, which is a good thing!

It will be much cheaper to maintain a battery of realistic escorts than traffic humans.

Probably though like pets - the super rich will operate a discreet trade in real live "high class" human sex workers. Vom.

I would currently be in the queue for an idog. We work full time so we can't have a real dog. If there was a close approximation that wouldn't suffer from being left, I would have one.

I think it's likely that education will be facilitated by AI in the medium term. If individual kids can hook into lessons 'taught' by AI and be given immediate, individual feedback on everything the do, it is likely to be pretty effective. A kid's AI teacher could probably learn the most effective way to feedback to that individual and give them the types of input and resources that they responded to best.

I think kids will still need to be in 'schools' for the social aspect of their development, but I think the delivery of the education will look extremely different.

More and more people choosing to live off grid, and offline

Like communes for people who want to live without the internet

I do think you'll see a return in some ways to a traditional lifestyle, albeit maybe only for a week's mental health break holiday i.e.farming. Mental health is important and all that

Drone warfare/terrorism. If Moscow can be attacked by dozens of bombing drones and nobody knows who sent them, then so can the UK or anywhere

@Sunset6 I'm pretty sure Russia knows exactly what's happening in Moscow