Laura Kres, BBC Technology
The last 25 years have seen some amazing technological changes.
At the beginning of the century, most computers were connected to the internet via a noisy telephone line, Netflix was a DVD rental company, and smartphones were not yet popular.
Two and a half decades later, we are witnessing numerous innovations in the fields of artificial intelligence, robotics, and various other areas, coming at an incredible speed.
And that's why we decided to ask experts what the next 25 years could bring us.
These are their predictions for the technology we'll be using in 2050 - and how it could reshape our lives.
Connecting people and machines
Science fiction set around the year 2050 is full of examples of people using technological enhancements to feel better, be happier, and more productive.
In the hit video game from 2000 Deus Ex - set in the year 2052 - the player can inject themselves with microscopic robots that manipulate matter at the atomic level.
This enables superhuman abilities such as increased speed and vision in the dark.
It sounds like something from the distant future, but nanotechnology - on the scale of a millionth of a millimeter - is already a part of real life.
Moreover, it allows you to read these words right now.
Every smartphone or computer is controlled by a central chip made up of billions of tiny transistors - electrical components made at the nanoscale - to speed up data processing.
By 2050, we can expect the boundaries between bows, electronics and biology to be "significantly blurred," Professor Stephen Bramwell of the London Centre for Nanotechnology tells the BBC.
This means that by then we could see nanotechnology accessories, which can be used for "health monitoring or communication."
Medicine could also use nanometer-scale machines to “deliver drugs exactly where they need to go,” Bramwell believes.
Cybernetics professor Kevin Vorik goes a step further than others.
In 1998, he became the first human to have a microchip implanted in his nervous system, earning him the nickname "Captain Cyborg."
Professor Warrick believes that by 2050, advances in cybernetics - the science of studying the connections between natural and mechanical systems - could lead to revolutionary treatments for disease.
It envisions the use of "deep brain electrical stimulation" as a partial treatment for conditions like schizophrenia, instead of using medication.
We'll likely see more cybernetic augmentations so that "your brain and your body can be in different places," he believes.
And what if we wanted to test how the latest improvements, or even new diets, might work on our bodies, without the risk of experiencing side effects?
Professor Roger Highfield from the Science Museum believes that "digital twins" - virtual versions of physical objects, updated with real-time data - could become a regular feature of our lives.
He imagines a world in which each of us has “thousands of simplified twins,” which we would use to explore how “different drugs or lifestyle changes affect our unique biology.”
In other words, we could try out our future before we start living it.
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The next generation of artificial intelligence
Many technology companies, including Google and IBM, are locked in a multi-billion dollar race to develop artificial intelligence and quantum computers.
These are machines that can perform very complex calculations at incredible speed.
For example, to simulate molecular interactions to better design new drugs.
“Very useful” quantum computers could arrive in 20 years, Jensen Huang, head of leading chipmaker Nvidia, said in January 2025.
Meanwhile, as we approach the middle of the century, artificial intelligence will undoubtedly continue to occupy a prominent place in our society.
Futurist and author Tracy Fallows believes that learning will take place across “virtual and physical realities,” using artificial intelligence teachers who “adapt in real time.”
Instead of textbooks, she envisions children using "interactive stimulation."
Meanwhile, education will be less standardized.
Each child's DNA or biometric data will be studied to understand how they learn best, he adds.
Traffic-free roads and lunar bases
Writer Bill Douglas is involved in making predictions - in 2000 he won $25.000 in a writing competition of world futurists entitled "The World 2050".
While he agrees that one of his original predictions - pilotless planes - will come true by 2050, he still believes we'll see more progress in the driverless car industry first.
This, he believes, will make traffic jams "a thing of the past."
"Cars will be driving much closer together than they do today," he told the BBC.
"And if one has to freeze, they all freeze."
"On roads with private toll plazas for automated vehicles, there's no reason why traffic shouldn't move at speeds of up to 160 kilometers per hour - you'll see traffic fatalities drop dramatically."
Far from Earth, the space race will continue at the same speed, says Sue Nelson, journalist and one of the podcast authors Space Boffins, for the BBC.
In 25 years, it is very likely that there will be a habitable base on the Moon, and some industries could move almost entirely to space, he believes.
He believes that, for example, we could see pharmaceutical companies making the next generation of drugs in microgravity, which means on a spacecraft in orbit.
Crystals grown this way, rather than on Earth, are often larger and of better quality, he adds.
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The meeting of science fiction and science
The plot of the film Minority Report from 2002, based on the novella by science fiction writer Philip K. Dick, is set in the year 2054.
Three years before filming began, director Steven Spielberg invited fifteen experts, including virtual reality founder Jaron Lanier, to a three-day summit to brainstorm what technologies might exist in the 2050s.
Those conversations influenced many innovations in film.
If the events of the science fiction thriller starring Tom Cruise are to be believed, by the mid-2050s we'll be able to use motion technology - and fancy gloves - to scroll through videos on transparent monitors.
During that time, police officers will be fighting crimes that have not yet happened.
And with the help of batons that make you vomit.
Like most science fiction, the film paints a dystopian picture of our future years.
This sentiment has also been echoed by some current experts, who suggest that artificial intelligence could lead to the extinction of humanity.
But before we get too depressed about what might await us in 2050, it might be worth returning to the words of Philip K. Dick.
"I would be the first to bet that science will help us," he wrote in a 1968 autobiographical essay titled Self-portrait.
"Science has given us more lives than it has taken away," he said.
"We must not forget that."
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