Society is heavily influenced by technology. Our modern lives are totally oriented around it. Therefore if you can predict technological developments you can predict the future.

Many people say we can't predict what technologies will be invented or how they will be used. This is false, because a lot of our current technology and technological habits were in fact predicted, and looking back we can see technology has followed a certain pattern of development.

Specifically, technology has developed according to whatever is convenient for its users, regardless of whether it is good for them in the long term or good for the rest of society. If we extrapolate this pattern into the future we can easily predict a lot of trends that will eventually become dominant in society through technology. We can do this by asking some basic questions about any hypothetical technology.

5 questions to predict the future

Questions to ask about any hypothetical technology, X:

1. Is it possible (with near infinite time and cleverness) for humans to invent X without violating any laws of nature (physics and chemistry)?
2. Is X going to make things more convenient for its users?
3. In a society where X is common, will people be able to use X without any major personal downsides (e.g., severe illness, high risk of physical harm)? Detriments to lifestyle, relationships or mental health should be ignored because they are somewhat subjective and many people will think they can avoid them. Ignore detriments to friends and family.
4. Can X potentially be mass produced or made cheaply available (relative to the benefit) to most people? If it needs to be custom-made or custom-performed for each user, consider how much the process could be automated or done en masse to make it cheap. Ignore the need for rare materials because new materials will be invented.
5. Is there some other hypothetical technology that would do the job almost as well as X and might become cheaply available first or shortly after?

If the answers to questions 1-4 are yes and the answer to 5 is no, then you can be almost certain that X is eventually going to become a very popular technology around which the whole of society becomes organized. (Assuming this level of technological development hasn't already killed most of humanity). This is because the technology will be desirable for its personal convenience with low personal risk and no better alternatives, so there will be financial incentive to make it cheaply available and then lots of people will use it. If 1 and 2 are yes and 5 is no, X will be invented but is unlikely to become popular unless 3 and 4 are also yes. The reason most predictions about the future of technology have been wrong is either because they underestimated the time needed or because they failed to consider all of these questions, especially question 5.

Verifying the questions work

These 5 questions could have correctly predicted a lot about the world today. After the popularity of the train but continued use of the horse-drawn carriage, one could have used these questions to predict the invention and mass adoption of the horseless carriage (cars). After the invention of the radio, if you had asked these questions about worldwide near-instant person-to-person visual information transmission, you could have predicted not only television but something like the internet becoming popular.

You also could have predicted the invention and mass adoption of easy-to-use non-invasive contraceptives, IVF, genetic sequencing and GMOs, video games, pocket computers (smartphones), 3D printing, unmanned aircraft (drones) and lots more. At the same time, you would have avoided false predictions like mass adoption of jet packs (which would be very unsafe and uncomfortable without something to sit inside and keep warm, which is basically a small plane or flying car, yet to be made cheap), hoverboards, translucent holograms, lightsabers, or that cars and virtual reality were fads and that computers would only ever be for big companies.

Applying the questions to the future

Given the reliability of these questions, let's use them to evaluate some hypothetical future trends. For example consider AI as relationship companions. Questions 1-4 are all yes, given how AIs are already used as relationship companions and are cheaply available. The answer to question 5 is no, because all relationship companions must either be real humans or acting as artificial humans, i.e., artificial intelligence. Therefore relationship companion AIs will almost certainly become popular. (Unless we put a stop to technology or it kills/enslaves us first).

As another example consider sex robots. 1-4 are clearly all yes, but the answer to 5 is also yes because simulated sex (through virtual reality or fake sensory input wired into the brain) will be cheaper and more adaptable to people's fantasies, and there is no law of nature that prevents the perfect simulation of all types of physical touch. Therefore sex robots are almost certain to become popular only if they become cheaply available before good (functionally, not morally) alternatives like simulated sex. If we run through the questions for simulated sex we get yes for 1-4 and no for 5 because non-simulated sex will never be able to compete with perfectly simulated sex which is adaptable to all types of unrealistic fantasies. Therefore simulated sex will eventually become popular, even replacing the sex robots which may become popular first. Obviously the popularity and convenience of simulated sex will also sharply reduce the amount of real sex taking place. Artifical wombs will also become popular according to these questions, so real sex wouldn't even be needed for procreation.

If we consider easy-to-make weapons of mass destruction, 1 is yes and 2 is also yes because they offer a convenient means of killing large numbers of people. The answer to 5 is no because the only thing better at easily killing large numbers of people is a better easy-to-make weapon of mass destruction. Therefore these weapons will be invented. The question of mass adoption is irrelevant, as mere knowledge of these weapons becoming somewhat widely available (as they will if scientific AI is widely available) would trigger human extinction or near-extinction. This is the final result of technology.

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