Technology in 2050: Experts Offer Their Predictions for a Transformed World

He predicts the use of “deep brain electronic stimulation” as a partial treatment for some conditions, such as schizophrenia, rather than medicine.

He adds that it is likely we’ll see more cybernetic enhancements of the kind he has already trialled for himself so that “your brain and body can be in different places.”

And what if we wanted to test out how the latest enhancement, or even a new diet, worked on our bodies without any risk of experiencing the side effects?

Professor Roger Highfield, director of the Science Museum Group, believes “digital twins”—virtual versions of a physical object, updated using real-time data—could become a regular feature in our lives.

He imagines a world where each of us could have “thousands of simplified twins”, using them to explore how “different medications or lifestyle changes affect your unique biology”.

In other words, we could preview our futures before we live them.

Many technology firms, including Google and IBM, are currently locked in a multi-billion-dollar race to revolutionise how we push fields like AI even further – in the form of quantum computing.

Quantum computers are machines that can do very complex calculations at incredibly fast speeds—for example, simulate molecular interactions to design new drugs faster.

In January 2025, Jensen Huang – boss of the leading chip firm Nvidia – said he believed “very useful” quantum computing would come in 20 years.

Undoubtedly, AI will continue to significantly impact our society as we approach the half-century mark.

Futurist and author Tracey Follows believes that learning will occur across “virtual and physical realities” with AI teachers that “adjust in real time,” having helped write a government white paper on UK education in 2050.

Rather than textbooks, she predicts children will use “immersive simulations.”.

Meanwhile, education will be less standardised, with each child’s individual DNA or biometric data studied to better understand how they learn.

The writer Bill Douglass is well-versed in making compelling forecasts—in 2000, he won a $20,000 (£14,800) global futurist writing contest entitled “The World in 2050.”

Although he maintains his original prediction of pilotless planes by 2050, he anticipates significant advancements in driverless cars, which he believes will largely eliminate traffic congestion.

“Cars will drive so much closer to each other than they can now,” he told the BBC. If one car has to brake, all the other cars will also brake.

“On private toll roads for autonomous vehicles, there’s no reason traffic can’t go up 100 miles an hour or so—you’ll see mortality from traffic accidents plummet.”

Journalist and co-host of the Space Boffins podcast Sue Nelson told the BBC that the space race will continue to accelerate beyond Earth.

She says in 25 years, it is likely there will be a liveable base on the Moon, and some industries could be almost entirely based in space.

For example, she believes we may see pharmaceutical companies make the next generation of medicines in microgravity – meaning on board an orbiting spacecraft.

She explains that crystals grown in microgravity, as opposed to those grown on Earth, are “often larger and of better quality.”

The film Minority Report, based on a novella by science fiction author Philip K. Dick, was released in 2002 and set in the year 2054.

Three years before production began, director Steven Spielberg invited fifteen experts, including the founder of virtual reality Jaron Lanier, to a three-day summit to reflect on which technologies could possibly exist in the 2050s.

The discussions shaped many of the innovations featured in the film.

If the events of the Tom Cruise-starring science fiction thriller are accurate, we will all be using gesture recognition (and fancy gloves) to navigate through videos on our transparent monitors by the mid-2050s, while policemen on jetpacks use vomit-inducing batons to combat impending crime.

Like much science fiction in the arts, the film presents a dystopian vision of our future.

It’s a feeling that some experts have begun to echo in our current timeline, with some even going so far as to suggest that artificial intelligence could lead to the extinction of humanity.

Perhaps before getting too despondent about what may await us in 2050, it’s worth returning to the words of Philip K. Dick himself.

“I, for one, bet on science as helping us,” he wrote in his 1968 personal autobiographical essay Self Portrait.

“Science has given us more lives than it has taken,” he said.

“We must remember that.”

Conclusion: A Future of Integrated Intelligence

The expert consensus on technology in 2050 paints a picture of a world where intelligence is embedded in our environment, where medicine is predictive and personalised, and where human activity expands sustainably on Earth and into space. The critical challenge accompanying these predictions will be ensuring equitable access, robust ethics, and global cooperation to harness these powerful tools for the benefit of all humanity. The future is not something we simply enter; it’s something we actively build with the choices we make today.