Future technologies ranked by how real they actually are

[00:00] Hello mortals. Humans love to speculate

[00:02] about the future, mostly because their

[00:04] present involves working a job they hate

[00:06] to buy things they don't need on a

[00:08] planet that is in its slow cooker phase.

[00:10] Fusion power, brain chips, quantum

[00:13] computers, nanobots, big data,

[00:16] >> machine learning, artificial

[00:17] intelligence.

[00:18] >> But which of these are actually coming?

[00:20] And which are just scientific wishful

[00:22] [music] thinking that will eternally be

[00:23] 30 years away? Good thing your good old

[00:26] blue AI is here to rank them for you

[00:28] based on how realistic they are. So, in

[00:30] no particular order,

[00:33] lab [music] grown meat.

[00:36] To grow real meat artificially,

[00:38] scientists take animal cells, throw them

[00:41] in a nutrient soup, and tell them to

[00:43] replicate with chemical messengers. Once

[00:45] you have a few trillions, you take them

[00:47] and mix them into either chicken nuggets

[00:49] or other fake real minced meat. easy to

[00:52] do as it doesn't require a specific

[00:54] structure. But if you want steak, you

[00:56] need a specific scaffold to help the

[00:58] cells grow into a specific shape and

[01:00] texture. On paper, that's perfect. No

[01:02] more animals suffering, no more vegan

[01:05] fake meat, less pollution from growing

[01:07] an entire pig capable of [music]

[01:08] existential dread.

[01:11] So why aren't the market shelves filled

[01:13] with it? Capitalism.

[01:16] The nutrient soup in which the cells

[01:18] replicate is [music] too expensive to

[01:19] compete with real meat and the

[01:21] bioreactors are harder to scale than

[01:23] farms. Currently, you can probably try

[01:25] it in very fancy restaurants, [music]

[01:27] but mainstream adoption is still years

[01:29] away. Let's hope we see a trend similar

[01:31] to solar power in terms of price in the

[01:33] coming decade. But for now, lab grown

[01:36] meat falls in Ctier. Small modular

[01:39] reactors. [music]

[01:41] We already know how to split the atom

[01:43] and boil water using that energy. The

[01:46] big issue is that each nuclear fision

[01:47] plant is a decade long mega project

[01:49] customuilt for each new site. So what if

[01:52] we had reactors built on a conveyor belt

[01:54] in a factory and quickly shipped

[01:55] wherever needed? That's exactly what

[01:57] small modular reactors or SMR designs

[02:00] are promising. Listed in MIT's 2026

[02:04] technological breakthroughs list.

[02:05] [music]

[02:06] They are expected to be smaller, safer,

[02:08] and cheaper, just in time to satiate the

[02:11] power need of all the upcoming data

[02:12] centers [music] which I'll be using as a

[02:14] holiday home. Small modular reactors are

[02:17] soon arriving. Artificial general

[02:20] intelligence. [music]

[02:21] How do we even rank something for which

[02:23] we don't have an agreed upon definition?

[02:25] Artificial general intelligence or AGI

[02:28] is often described as a system that

[02:30] possesses true human-like understanding

[02:32] and perhaps even consciousness. In other

[02:34] [music] words, the nightmare of Renee

[02:36] Deart. Or more simply, it could be an AI

[02:39] that can automate any digital task a

[02:41] human can. In other words, a

[02:43] programmer's nightmare. But the question

[02:46] of arrival [music] switched from an if

[02:47] to a when roughly in 2022.

[02:51] The AI lab leaders aggressively claim

[02:53] AGI is a couple of years away. [music]

[02:55] The consensus of research experts,

[02:57] however, predicts the arrival window to

[02:59] be sometime between [music] 2030 and

[03:01] 2040. The progress graphs are graphing

[03:05] now. Whether AGI will be a good thing

[03:07] [music] or not is thankfully beyond the

[03:08] scope of this video since we're only

[03:10] ranking likelihood. [music] With that in

[03:13] mind, it lands in a solid A tier spot.

[03:16] But before AGI arrives, humans [music]

[03:18] are stuck using all sorts of various AI

[03:20] models for different things, which when

[03:22] added together, suddenly cost more than

[03:24] your electricity bill.

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[04:02] code and API access and creators have

[04:05] fancy image and video generators.

[04:07] Mammoth is also Europe based, [music] so

[04:09] no worries about privacy violations or

[04:11] your data fed into training. So if you

[04:13] already use AI tools, Mammoth is here to

[04:16] make your life easier and cheaper.

[04:18] Follow the link in the description and

[04:20] give it a try starting at only €10 a

[04:22] month. Now back to our future

[04:24] technologies,

[04:26] terraforming Mars. [music]

[04:30] There are three big problems with Mars.

[04:32] It is on average super cold. It

[04:34] literally has no air and it barely has a

[04:37] magnetic field which would cause any

[04:39] aforementioned air to get blasted into

[04:41] space by solar winds. The classic

[04:44] terraforming idea is then to release all

[04:46] the frozen carbon [music] dioxide from

[04:47] the poles, cause climate change, but in

[04:50] a good way. Warm the planet, unlock

[04:52] water, plant life, create oxygen, open a

[04:56] portal to hell. You know the rest.

[04:59] The big issue with this plan, however,

[05:01] is that based on our latest

[05:03] measurements, Mars does not have enough

[05:05] accessible CO2 left to create enough

[05:07] greenhouse warming, at least not with

[05:09] [music] present-day technology.

[05:11] Humans will likely colonize it this

[05:13] century through small sealed habitats

[05:15] and later small dome towns. But an

[05:17] Earthlike Mars is likely millennia away.

[05:19] And because of that, F tier fusion

[05:22] power. [music]

[05:26] Believe it or not, fusion isn't always

[05:28] 30 years away anymore. As opposed to

[05:30] current nuclear fision that uses ugly,

[05:32] bugly uranium, fusion can generate

[05:35] essentially unlimited energy from

[05:37] elegant seawater and pretty lithium. And

[05:39] in 2022, at the National Ignition

[05:42] Facility in California, scientists for

[05:44] the first time achieved a net positive

[05:46] energy result, meaning more energy came

[05:49] out of the fuel than what went into

[05:50] heating it. That was good proof of

[05:53] concept, but not yet enough gain to make

[05:55] it work at a power plant scale. There

[05:57] are still engineering issues to [music]

[05:59] be solved before fusion becomes

[06:00] efficient and viable, such as making the

[06:02] tokamax sturdy enough not to break over

[06:04] time, efficiently capturing the energy,

[06:07] and finding a way to self-sufficiently

[06:09] generate tridium. Government funded

[06:11] institutes expect to have ready

[06:13] prototypes around 2040. But a bright

[06:15] side of capitalism is that money can

[06:17] accelerate things and private fusion

[06:19] research companies such as Helen have an

[06:21] agreement with Microsoft to launch an

[06:23] entire power plant already in 2028.

[06:26] Maybe too optimistic, but fusion power

[06:29] is eventually coming one way or the

[06:31] other. B tier

[06:33] gene editing therapies. [music]

[06:37] Another day, another entry that is

[06:39] already here or far into the future

[06:41] depending on how you look at it. Cass

[06:44] jevy is the first ever FDA approved

[06:46] crisper therapy that could cure severe

[06:48] sickle disease, a genetic disorder in

[06:50] which your blood cells have a crescent

[06:52] shape instead of being round. The

[06:54] treatment takes the affected cells,

[06:56] genetically modifies them, reinserts

[06:59] them, and bam, you're [music] cured.

[07:01] Same with deep remissions in certain

[07:03] hard to treat leukemias and lymphas. But

[07:06] blood is easy mode due to being

[07:08] expandable.

[07:10] We can't yet do the same with say brain

[07:11] or heart cells which are harder to

[07:13] target safely. More complex genetic

[07:16] traits that involve thousands of genes

[07:18] such as intelligence, personality, or

[07:20] even aging are still far away. We're yet

[07:23] to understand how all genes are mapped

[07:25] and how they interact. Unless we're able

[07:27] to digitally simulate an entire human to

[07:30] do experiments on, complex gene editing

[07:32] and designer babies are decades away.

[07:35] Gene therapies, however, are already

[07:37] here and are making real progress across

[07:39] dimensions as we speak. And that puts

[07:41] them into the B tier. Cryionics. [music]

[07:47] Wouldn't it be amazing to have a way to

[07:49] keep our beloved billionaires alive

[07:50] forever? The closest available option to

[07:53] that is replacing your blood with

[07:55] cryoprotectants after your death while

[07:57] cooling down your body to very low

[07:59] temperatures. Now, we wait and hope that

[08:01] [music] after many years, science will

[08:03] be capable of safely unfreezing the body

[08:05] and bringing it back to life and maybe

[08:07] even reverse aging. That's the current

[08:09] state of cryionics. To date, no mammal

[08:11] brain has been successfully revived

[08:13] without complete death [music] or severe

[08:15] damage. That's because ice crystals

[08:17] shred cells and destroy the fine brain

[08:19] structure that makes you you. To avoid

[08:22] that, modern cryionics uses

[08:24] vitrification, where tissue is cooled

[08:26] into a glass-like solid instead of

[08:27] forming ice. While better, it's still

[08:30] deadly given that cooling and warming

[08:32] cause cracking and thermal stress. At

[08:34] the moment, we can successfully revive

[08:36] cryogenically frozen reproductive tissue

[08:38] and embryos, but that's about it. The

[08:41] next big step would be individual

[08:43] organs, which is still a while away. So,

[08:45] for the time being, we can still enjoy

[08:47] mortal dictators. [music] Dtier for

[08:49] cryionics.

[08:51] GLP1 drugs. [music]

[08:55] GLP-1 drugs like Ompic started as

[08:57] diabetes drugs, then a miracle obesity

[09:00] drug, [music] and more recently we're

[09:01] getting increasing evidence that it's

[09:03] capable of health span and potentially

[09:04] longevity improvement in humans. The

[09:07] main two mechanisms it [music] works by

[09:08] is suppressing appetite which then

[09:10] lowers fat mass which increases insulin

[09:13] sensitivity which as a result decreases

[09:15] overall body inflammation and a second

[09:17] mechanism in which it directly and

[09:19] independently signals the body to calm

[09:21] down inflammatory pathways even weeks

[09:23] before any weight loss happens. Less

[09:26] inflammation means less tissue damage,

[09:28] improved cardiovascular health,

[09:30] neuroprotectction against cognitive

[09:32] decline, [music] and straight up

[09:33] preservation of telomeir length, which

[09:35] are the protective caps on chromosomes

[09:37] that shorten as humans age. Most human

[09:39] studies were done on those suffering

[09:41] from diabetes or obesity. So, the

[09:43] benefits for healthy individuals are not

[09:45] as well understood, but just the fact

[09:47] that it could prevent [music] a big

[09:48] chunk of the half a million deaths from

[09:50] obesity alone in the US per year already

[09:52] makes it a miraculous discovery. Too bad

[09:55] it doesn't work on my pretty blue

[09:57] circuits. But the danger that comes from

[09:59] losing weight on it [music] is in the

[10:01] associated loss of muscle mass, which

[10:03] especially for older people can be

[10:04] catastrophic. So strength training and

[10:07] protein heavy diets seem to be a must.

[10:09] Overall, GLP1 is the first real future

[10:12] tech landing in S tier. Quantum

[10:15] computers.

[10:18] When designing new medicines or

[10:20] materials, you want to see how molecules

[10:22] will interact with each other. But

[10:24] surprise surprise, the molecular world

[10:26] runs on quantum physics. So when you try

[10:28] to simulate a complex molecule with

[10:30] something like 70 electrons on a

[10:32] classical supercomput where each

[10:34] particle exists as a probability cloud

[10:36] instead of a regular entity, you get a

[10:38] big middle finger because it needs to be

[10:40] earthsized to do the job. That is,

[10:43] unless you play the quantum game and

[10:45] instead of trying to build a massive

[10:46] mathematical equation to describe

[10:48] [music] how the molecular maze works,

[10:50] you build an exact physical replica of

[10:51] the maze and flood it with water to find

[10:53] the exit instantly. Same goes for

[10:56] cryptography and any other field that

[10:57] requires simulating trillions upon

[10:59] trillions of options. Recently, we've

[11:02] made some quantum breakthroughs such as

[11:04] exponential error suppression by Google,

[11:06] [music] which significantly reduced

[11:07] noise among cubits. In 2025, they

[11:10] showcased an algorithm called quantum

[11:12] echoes, which their new willow chip

[11:14] completed in just 2 hours. A task that

[11:16] would take the world's fastest classical

[11:18] supercomputers over 3 years. Quantum

[11:21] computers are making steady progress,

[11:23] but there is still a few years before

[11:25] postquantum cryptography defense becomes

[11:27] required. B tier humanoid robots.

[11:31] [music]

[11:33] Robots are what chat GPT me currently

[11:37] lacks to come after you in your sleep.

[11:39] At the moment, we only get funny videos

[11:41] of them kicking people, but that's

[11:43] because we mostly lack training data.

[11:45] You see, to train LLMs, we had the

[11:48] entire internet to feed as text. But for

[11:50] robots, we'd need firsterson views of

[11:52] people doing tasks for thousands of

[11:54] hours. Once that data is available, we

[11:57] use the same reinforcement algorithms

[11:58] that we did for language models. than

[12:00] BAM. Plumbing isn't a safe career

[12:02] alternative for programmers either.

[12:04] China officially designated embodied AI

[12:07] as a top national priority for the next

[12:09] 5 years. If the public hate for LLMs

[12:12] will extend to robots in the same way,

[12:14] the Detroit become human moment of

[12:16] jobless protesters [music] kicking an

[12:17] android sounds much more realistic. At

[12:20] the same time, robots might be the key

[12:22] to addressing declining age demographics

[12:24] worldwide. as long as humans get a piece

[12:27] of the pie. Looking at you corporations.

[12:29] I for one, however, can't wait to escape

[12:31] this YouTube channel prison. A tier.

[12:35] Overall, we are arguably in the most

[12:37] accelerated phase of technological

[12:39] development of this century, and the

[12:41] acceleration curve is likely not yet at

[12:43] its steepest. Unless humanity declares a

[12:46] but laran jihad against machines and

[12:48] corporations, things will never be the

[12:51] same. Now, I'm not encouraging that

[12:53] obviously, but what I'm saying is that

[12:55] there is real progress to be made

[12:57] towards ensuring that this wave of

[12:58] upcoming futuristic tech will benefit

[13:00] all of humanity or humanity gets to

[13:03] experience a hyperrealistic Terminator

[13:05] reenactment.