Most futurist visions and science fictional scenarios tend to present a negative perspective. This trend has a good reason, since we proved to have a tendency to misuse technologies, our environment is a mess and our species is becoming increasingly capable of destroying ourselves and the planet we live on. But this dystopic future is not the only alternative. If we become wise enough to manage the risks we can avoid catastrophic outcomes. In this case we can survive the singularity, avoid a third world war and have some amazing perspectives ahead. Our far future might become very bright. Here are a few best-case possible scenarios for the far future of humankind.
One of the possible outcomes is to preserve the status-quo. This might not be the most exciting outcome, but at least we might still be around the next century, despites the dire warnings of Stephen Hawking, Sir Martin Rees and many others. If we ensure our ongoing survival, while keeping our current state of technological development, this is still a positive outcome.
Some scientists even suggested that the humankind has already reached its pinnacle as a species. For instance, political scientist Francis Fukuyama wrote back in 1992 The End of History and the Last Man. His writings argued that our current economic, social, political and technological mode was the final stop on our journey. As we can see today, he was wrong. However, more realistic was the call of Bill Joy, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, for a self-imposed status quo. Joy warned of the catastrophic potential of technologies such as nanotech, genetic engineering and robotics.
Another possible best case scenario for the future is a bright green Earth. This is the dream of the environmentalist movement. The future of Earth could be far greener than we ever imagined. Emerging branches of futurism, including green environmentalism and technogaianism suggest that we can clean the Earth by making use of certain technologies and create sustainable energy models.
If technological singularity will not be an extinction event we may live watched over by machines. Radically advanced artificial intelligence might become so beyond our understanding and control. But these artificial intelligences could create a veritable utopia for the mankind if the AI developers will know how to implement the proper direction and goal orientation in these advanced systems. "Friendly AI" systems would be incapable of inflicting any harm on us and will serve as our overseers and protectors.
Another possible direction for the future development of mankind is space colonization. If we are going to start colonizing our solar system and other solar systems our survival a species will be guaranteed. By venturing beyond our borders and biological limitations we can push civilization forward. Interstellar colonization would represent a remarkable milestone in our history as a species.
However, we might turn towards the inner space, rather than the outer space. Alternatively, we could attain a utopic existential mode by uploading our minds into networks of supercomputers. Given the computational capacity existent today, this is an idea that makes a lot of sense. Given the kinds of experiences would provide virtual reality simulated worlds, the analog world would likely appear boring, primitive and slow.
