SOCIAL

The world’s population will reach more than 8.8 billion people in 2036. Population growth will be uneven. It will stagnate in many advanced economies. EU’s population is projected to decrease. Relatively poor countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia will account for almost all global population growth during the next two decades and will be rapidly urbanizing. Infrastructure and health systems will need to cope with massive changes.

The largest generation ever – even larger than the baby boomers – will be the generation Alpha with more than 2 billion individuals. Diverse identities are a defining part of their lives as well as AI and extended realities. However, there will be a significant gap between privileged and less advantaged Alphas. The same will be true for other generations and regions worldwide. Inequalities will increase due to global power shifts induced by technology readiness, reduction of labor rights caused by the gig economy, and market concentration promoted by platform economies (e.g. Google, Apple, Amazon). The social disparity will translate into systemic disadvantages in health, education, and higher vulnerability to disasters. Additionally, the usage of AI and filter bubbles will reproduce bias and harm societies‘ stability in general.

TECHNOLOGICAL

Human development in recent decades has been accompanied by rapid changes in technology and an increasing spread of digitized devices and services. As a result of „frontier technologies“ such as artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, gene editing, or nanotechnology, the pace and impact of technological developments are likely to increase, even more, transforming and improving human experiences and capabilities.

Technology will offer the potential to tackle challenges such as aging, climate change, and low productivity growth. On the other hand, it will also create new tensions and disruptions within and between societies, industries, and states as well as create new challenges such as job displacement.

Technology is rarely a solution on its own. Problems such as poverty, hunger, climate change, or inequalities in health or education are inevitably complex and multidimensional. Technology, frontier or otherwise, may support initiatives of all kinds, social, political, or environmental, but a vital question will be how equitably the gains of technological progress will be shared. Many digital technologies create winner-takes-all dynamics, which, in the absence of countervailing interventions will tend to increase both market concentration and inequality.

ECONOMIC

The following two decades are characterized by increasing economic instability, fragmentation, and inequality of competing economies. Rising national debt (also driven by global events such as the pandemic) and the threat of defaulting countries and economies create uncertainty. Reducing national debt rations becomes increasingly challenging due to rising costs – e.g. health care and pensions for all economies. The fragmentation of the trading environment is based on no progress in terms of new trade agreements as well as existing agreements are inadequate for new types of economic flows (e.g. e-commerce). New rules, often based on technology, are emerging and make global trade more difficult. Regarding employment, shifts are due to rising technologies in automation, making many jobs obsolete and creating potentially jobless economies that drive unemployment. However, new jobs are created and shifted towards technological fields, partially compensating for lost jobs. Additionally, an aging population demands higher levels of automation to compensate for a shrinking workforce by increasing the cost of pensions. Influential firms are expanding their reach and sphere of influence, challenging governments and authorities in terms of power and shaping conditions within and between states, and creating a call for more planning and regulation of platform businesses.

ENVIRONMENTAL

The current trajectory of global warming indicates that by 2036 we will likely have surpassed the 1.5°C that we agreed not to exceed in the Paris Agreement. Thus, in the coming years, the Earth will witness the exacerbated effects of rising temperatures, the resulting sea level rise, and extreme weather conditions. These changes and their environmental degradation effects pose enormous challenges to ensuring health, food and water availability, human safety, and development.

New energy technologies and carbon dioxide removal techniques will be promoted to mitigate emissions. However, despite possibly dire consequences, the worsening of climate change may -as a last resort- give green light to research and application of geoengineering to cool the planet.

How and how fast the world should reach net zero will be a topic of intense debate, as countries face difficult decisions on how to implement drastic emission reductions and cost-effective adaptation measures.

POLITICAL

Despite considerable progress in recent decades, universal health care for all people is not available worldwide. On the one hand, billions of people still have no access to basic health services, while on the other hand, millions are driven into poverty simply because they have to pay for health services out of their own pockets.

It’s a multi-faceted problem that feeds on the diminishing capabilities of states and the seemingly endless resources of the major tech companies.:

It seems clear that primary health care should continue to be a core responsibility of states in the future. However, it is already becoming apparent that the major tech companies are preparing to revolutionize the healthcare sector.

Supporting these efforts are the social, environmental, and economic dislocations that lie ahead, leading to an even more polarized world and more radical politics. The growing social divide and continued diminishing financial capabilities of states further support this process. Dissatisfaction with political and economic elites is already (too) great. As a result, politicians are adopting increasingly reactionary positions and society is becoming increasingly open to radical alternatives. However, the business models of the technology giants also do not allow for transparency, and the logic of decisions based on algorithms remains opaque.

People would need technologically advanced interactions with governments and thus increasing trust and the possibility to benefit from the accumulation of the power of the global digital giants and at the same time not only serve as a supplier of data.