A sci-fi vision of life in 2041 | Chen Qiufan

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4.1 • 11.9K Ratings

🗓️ 8 September 2021

⏱️ 8 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Sci-fi writer Chen Qiufan doesn’t fear a dystopian future. Instead, he believes developments in artificial intelligence will make all of our lives better, healthier and safer. He takes us on a tour of the next 20 years of AI and shares some astonishing predictions for the advancements in science and technology that could await us. “For every future we wish to create, we must first learn to imagine it,” he says.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	It's TED Talks Daily. I'm Elise Hu. We've already been through a lot with the pandemic of 2020,
0:09.7	but what if it were still with us in 2041 and kept us indoors and avoidant of other humans for years?
0:19.5	That's the question that speculative fiction writer Chen Chofan asks us to consider in today's talk
0:25.4	recorded for Ted Monterey in 2021.
0:28.6	This imagination of the future really got me thinking about how we're living and what we're doing
0:34.2	in the present.
0:37.0	It's 2041.
0:39.3	The world is even stranger than fiction,
0:43.7	full of astonishing technologies and scientific advances.
0:49.2	But there's still one thing that is very familiar.
0:56.0	COVID is still with us.
1:01.0	We've just figured out how to live with it. You haven't been outside of your apartment for three years.
1:06.0	The pandemic of 2021 traumatized you.
1:17.0	You still have the nightmares about losing your grandparents, and despite advances.
1:23.3	Fear of infection has kept you inside and isolated.
1:34.3	You've just found out that the lover you met in an immersive online game has phoned halfway around the world to meet you. But now he's quarantined in the hospital, stricken with a new extremely virulent variant of the virus.
1:45.2	It looks like he might die even before you meet him.
1:49.7	You've decided you've got to venture out
1:52.6	into the dangerous world beyond your four wars.
1:59.1	Luckily, there are robots to help you.
2:03.3	Your housekeeping robot takes you to a special elevator reserved for robots only,
2:09.6	allowing you to completely avoid people.
	...

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