November 4, 2025 • 19 mins
WHAT WILL BE ARCHAIC IN 2040 And our favorite futurist Thomas Frey joins me to discuss what we might be surprised to find out we don't need anymore. He's got a list of 250 things that will be archaic by then. He joins me at 1 to discuss. Find out more about Thomas here.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Thomas Frye looking into his crystal ball every day just
to see what might be coming down the pipeline, or
in this case, Thomas, what might be leaving the pipeline.
Wait a minute, what might be well expiring in the pipeline.
I can't make a good analogy here. First of all,
welcome back, my friend.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Good to see you.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
Yeah, great to see you as well.
Speaker 4 (00:20):
So yeah, I think we're going to see lots of
changes coming up here in the next ten to fifteen years. Yep.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
And Thomas has a column on the Future Speaker website
the Vanishing Present, two hundred and fifty things that will
disappear from our lives by twenty forty. And I went
into this all with my skeptical hat on, and I
was going to prove you wrong. But some of these
absolutely are going to be completely useless. But some of
(00:46):
them are a little bit unnerving. So how did you
come up with this list?
Speaker 4 (00:49):
First of all, Yeah, I just started making notes about
everything that's going to go away, and I thought, ah,
let's just push us to the limit here. And as
you start going through all this here, I actually think
a lot of the things going away are going to
be driven by what I'm referring to now as the
(01:12):
Revenge of gen z U. Gen Z has gotten left
out of so many things that this is just not
not cool. They can't afford to buy houses, educations way
too expensive, throws them into debt. They can't get rid
of that debt. They're they're they're getting jammed up everywhere
they're turning. And so when changes start happening, they're they're
(01:37):
pushing these changes as fast as they can. And I
think we're going to be seeing this.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
This is they're they want to take it out on
the boomers.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
So oh wow, okay, so you're going to stick it
to the boomers.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Okay, give me some.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Examples of that specifically that are that are that gen
Z specific, because not all these things are gen Z specific.
Some of them are suggests that our technology is advancing
in such a way so you won't necessarily need a
driver's license, right, So, so things like that you can understand,
is that gen Z driven. But what are some of
the specific gen Z driven examples that you have.
Speaker 4 (02:15):
Yeah, well, they're gonna, yeah, not going to own a car,
so they're going to be able to afford the robots.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
That's that's a big deal.
Speaker 4 (02:28):
The robots are going to give them lots of freedom
and they can just summon a car whenever they need it.
They're they'll be able to afford afford houses because the
housing is going to be different and changing along the way.
This this whole idea of you know, when you start
(02:49):
looking at all the systems that are wrong. The education
system's wrong, the prison systems all wrong, the income tact
systems all wrong. Income tax it's got to go away
because it's just entirely too complicated. So we need a
new system for that. So when you start seeing all
(03:09):
of these things start unfolding, then the fact that these
things go away, like movie theaters go away, that keyble
TV subscriptions that all goes away, video game consoles, all
that goes away. Nobody's going to be collecting autographs from
celebrities because the fakes are out there and nobody can
(03:33):
prove if it's authentic anymore. Right, Yeah, just this list
goes on and on and on and on, and so
tell me one that you think might.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Be what a couple of like a couple of them
jumped out right away and they have to do the
one that that I'm stuck on is number four traffic
lights at most intersections. So is that because autonomous cars
are going to be able to work in conjunction with
each other in terms of I'm in this space, you're
in that space, and we're going to make this work,
(04:06):
you know, you know, seamlessly.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
We don't need.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
But but then this this leads me to the big
question because so many of the things that you have
on here we're going to eliminate because of technology, and
because we're everything's on the cloud or or everything is
sort of autonomous, autonomous taxis and no traffic lights. That
makes us far more at risk from a thing like
an e MP attack because if you take out all
(04:32):
of our systems and we've lost.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
The ability to even stop at a traffic light.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
I'm concerned about that because if I'm the enemy Thomas,
and I see all of this happening, that's the way
I attack.
Speaker 4 (04:43):
Yeah, a good point. But what are they taking over?
Speaker 3 (04:49):
Oh? Yes, so yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4 (04:52):
The idea of traditional wars tend to fade in the
into the woodwork when there's other options.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
Rather than a military.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Seal attack, some of these oh go ahead.
Speaker 4 (05:07):
Yeah, So rather than having cavities, you go to the dentists.
The dentists are going to help you regrow your teeth.
Reading glasses are going to go away, so we won't
have anything like that anymore. Just being able to solve
medicines solve our health care problems. I can't wait for
(05:30):
that to happen because I've got enough of my own hands.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
Well, there's one that I have a question about, and
that is cubicles and assigned desks hot desking with AI
optimized space allocation. Explain to me what that is and
then I'm going to tell you why that's not going
to work.
Speaker 4 (05:49):
Yeah, so most people are going to be working from home.
When they get together, they will get into a group
setting where they have assigned desk then, and that that's
a possibility.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
That's one way of doing it. They may just do
off sites.
Speaker 4 (06:08):
That are grouped together in a foreign country because that'll
be easy to do as well.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
So, yeah, the cubicle world is going to be over.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
Well, I'm not going to miss the cubical world at
all when it's over. But here here's the thing that
I'm realizing, and coming out of COVID where we all
went home and we were all working on our computers
all day long in our offices by ourselves. I don't
necessarily think that was good for our mental health or
good for society. So so many of the things that
I see here are in some ways, like I cannot
(06:44):
wait to not have a car and just have a
Robotox taxi subscription, Like I am ready now for that.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
I don't like to drive.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
I'd rather spend my car and to spend my time
in the car doing something productive to and from work.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
But I've ultimately come to realize.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
That I prefer being in my in the office with
my co workers than I do working from home. I
like the camaraderie. I never thought I would say that,
but I like being here, and I think that the
more we come back to office. So how does all
this jive with our natural inclinations as pack animals? That's
really what I'm getting at.
Speaker 4 (07:21):
Yeah, it's a really good point.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
We this list here is not perfect for it by
any means.
Speaker 4 (07:29):
So we may find that a lot of a lot
of the assumptions behind all this are flawed and we're
going to have to rethink it all together. But the
nature of work is going to continually shift and morph
and change, like as an example, right now, if you
go see a doctor, you have to get a referral
(07:50):
to a specialist, and then we have to get on
a waiting list to get in to see that person
for the first time. Usually it's four or six months
or something like that. I actually think we're going to
have private doctors that establish a practice and they'll have
eight robo doctors that are working for them, and then
they will each of the robo doctors will take patients
(08:13):
and work with them individually, and they'll spend a lot
more time with them than a regular doctor would. And
then so one practice like that only has one actual
doctor and that doctor is responsible for doing the prescriptions
and everything that a doctor has to do, but everything
else can be handled by the bots.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
And you thought your doctors has were called wow, come.
Speaker 4 (08:41):
On, and then the whole thing is only cost fifty
dollars a visit. There's no insurance, there's no nothing that's
dealing with and none of the overhead expenses. And the
insurance companies will get caught off guard with.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
Some like this.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
Well, it's already happening in direct primary care. We already
have doctors that are creating membership based systems. But they're
still staffed by real doctors. But to your point, Thomas,
I've been following along with the medical AI that they
are building, and they're building AI that you can sit down,
you as a patient, you would sit down at a
computer and you would literally type or you know, check
(09:19):
every single box that applies to you. You could check
things like my right shoulder hurts, my left elbow hurts,
I've got dry skin on the bottom of my feet,
my nostrils flare at a certain time. I mean, you
write down everything. An AI is so much better at
diagnosing what could possibly be wrong with you, and then
they would use that piece, they would get the diagnostic
(09:40):
suggestions from AI, and then a real doctor, a human doctor,
would step in to kind of hone the diagnosis and
come up with a treatment protocol. We're a couple of
years away from that being in every doctor's office.
Speaker 4 (09:55):
Yeah, And I think that we're going to see the
constant reinventing of the whole business.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
Model around them.
Speaker 4 (10:02):
Having I mean, there's a good argument right now that
we have one of the worst healthcare systems in the
world because everything is so stretched out and so delayed,
and for anybody to come up with a diagnosis. I've
had two kids that have gone through this recently, and
it's just been prolonged out. So to actually get to
(10:25):
what's wrong with somebody at six to nine months, to
actually get that diagnosis, which I think is just insane.
Being able to drive that down to less than a week,
I think is entirely possible, and possibly even less than
a day. I think that's what we need to achieve here, sooner.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
Than later, and so I think all of this gives
us that kind of opportunity.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
I think so some of the Steffan here is really
interesting and one of the one of the ones that
caught my eyes shopping malls converted to mixed use housing
and experiences.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
That's already happening across the country. So do you think
retail is just dead as we know it?
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Like the traditional retail experience where you go into a
store and someone comes up and helps you and then
you go check out.
Speaker 4 (11:18):
Yeah, the traditional retail experience is not going to survive.
It'll have to be an actual experience, whether there's a
product demonstration where there's live people involved, where there's something
going on other than just looking at products on a
store shelf. That is not going to survive at all
(11:41):
because you can just order that. It becomes a commodity.
You can two seconds, you can have it delivered to
your house. But finding out why something is better than
this product is better than that product you did, product demonstrations,
that sort of thing. I think we're going to be
seeing a lot more of that. Yeah, product comparisons, I
(12:08):
think that.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
Would be super interesting.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
I mean, I if I were in the market for
a new vacuum cleaner and I knew that my local
purveyor of vacuum cleaners was going to be having a
compare and contrast demonstration of their models, I just may
show up for that. I'm just nerdy enough that that
would appeal to me. So a couple of the other
things that I saw that I wanted to bring up
very very quickly, hang on communication in this socially, you've
(12:33):
broken it down into different sections. Phone numbers would be replaced.
Now I am ready for that, because I can't remember
a new phone number to save my life. I remember
my childhood phone number, but I do not remember my
daughter's phone number, which is terrible, absolutely terrible.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
What does that get replaced with?
Speaker 3 (12:53):
It just gets you just say their name, and that's
all you need.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
So.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
Essentially just replace the functionality of I mean, but then,
what if your name is Bob Smith?
Speaker 2 (13:06):
How does that work?
Speaker 3 (13:10):
You have to identify which Bob Smith?
Speaker 1 (13:12):
Yeah, exactly, Bob Smith. You know the guy with blond hair,
blue eyes works down the street from Tony You know
that guy? Is that how I'm gonna make my phone calls?
Because I probably would. I got a couple of things.
I got a couple of people asking stuff from the
text line. Somebody asks asks Thomas if he knows anything
about the flying car that Elon Musk is supposed to
be unveiling soon. Are you paying attention to the flying car?
(13:35):
Talk over there, Thomas, because you know, I'm ready for
a flying car, but now it has to be autonomous.
I've moved on in an autonomous flying car.
Speaker 4 (13:43):
Yeah, well it has to be better than anything that
James Bond has demonstrated.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
Yeah, with a little propeller on the top. Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
Oh so it has to be able to dive underwater.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
Too, I mean, of course, yeah.
Speaker 4 (13:57):
So, And he doesn't even know if this thing is
actually a car anymore.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
It looks like a car.
Speaker 4 (14:05):
I think it's rather interesting how he described it, but
he's pretty sketchy on the information.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
So I'd like to notice to take off vertically, do
you have to have a runway? Do you have to
be able to get it up to fifty five miles
per hour before you hit the lightning rod to make
it go into time travel?
Speaker 2 (14:20):
Is that what's happening after that?
Speaker 3 (14:23):
Yeah? Yeah, gets real interesting because.
Speaker 4 (14:30):
I mean, air traffic control people right now, they don't
want people taking off of their cars in any neighborhood
around a city exactly.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
That makes it real dangerous.
Speaker 4 (14:40):
But if these if these are devices that would actually
manage your own air traffic control system so they all
talk to each other so that there's no chance of
running into each other, that becomes a different ballgame then.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
And we've seen that in futuristic movies, right. Futuristic movies,
I feel like, always have that that one scene of
the traffic where there's multiple levels. There's like thirty cars
on top of thirty cars, and they're all moving along
perfectly at the same speed, same height. They never nobody's
weaving in and out until Sylvester Saloon shows up. And
(15:14):
I feel is that where we're headed, where it's going
to be, just like basically working on In my mind,
it would look like this Thomas, like it would almost
look if another car got too close to the top
of my car.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
It would be almost like if.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
You try and put the wrong sides of a magnet
together right, and it would forcibly keep them apart, but
keep them also in some kind of stasis so they
could fly at the same time on the you know,
on different levels.
Speaker 4 (15:41):
Yeah, if you're if your condo is on the thirty
fourth floor, do you have a parking space on the
thirty fourth floor next like the Jetsons, Yeah, so you
park like on a balcony or something to get out
and walk right into your apartment. That I think is
going to be entirely possible, but not probably in the
(16:02):
next ten years.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
I think.
Speaker 4 (16:05):
I think we're going to see lots of creative designs here. Now,
keep in mind that as we reduce the amount of
manpower and labor that goes into creating these things, that
we're going to set our sites higher, that our need
for greater and greater accomplishments takes a center stage here.
(16:27):
So the amount that we can accomplish in our lifetime
will be probably one hundred times greater than what somebody
could accomplish fifty years ago.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Is this I feel like in my lifetime? Okay, so
I'm fifty six. I was born in nineteen sixty nine.
In my lifetime, I have lived through the switchover from.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
Analog to digital.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
Right.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
I grew up in an analog world and now I
live in a digital world. So I've seen that massive
amount of change. There are so many things from my
childhood that are completely archaic now not even I mean,
what was the last time you saw a rotary phone?
Speaker 4 (17:02):
Right?
Speaker 1 (17:02):
So there's all these things that we had. So it
stands to reason that in the next fifteen years, because
of AI and the revolution that's happening now, I feel
like we're having two revolutions a little too close together, Thomas.
Speaker 4 (17:17):
Yeah, and then the one after that is coming even sooner.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
Well, that's when the robots take over and become our overlords.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (17:27):
I wrote a column recently on AGI and how to
define it and what to be worried about that.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
It's wait, what does ag I stand for?
Speaker 4 (17:42):
A GI autonomous? Well, it's artificial intelligence that's stands on
its own.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
So, oh great, those are the robots that will take over.
So there you go. That's why I always say please
and thank you to chat Thomas.
Speaker 4 (18:00):
Yeah, but they have no incentive to do that, right,
they don't. They don't have any personal needs. I mean
the reason that humans stay in the center of all
of this is because because we're flawed creatures and we
have our own personal needs and the fact that we
can have other people help with our needs and we
(18:20):
can help with their needs, that's what creates the economy
that we have. If you have robots that are perfect
from day one, they don't have any personal needs. They
can just work relentlessly and help each other, and so
there's there's no motivation, there's no incentive. So if you
(18:41):
think about it from that standpoint that we have our
own our own flaws and that's what creates our economy, Yeah,
then you try to figure out what what is the
motivation that actually drives drives these robots to do something else.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Because they don't have self interest.
Speaker 3 (19:00):
Right, they have no self interests. Yeah?
Speaker 2 (19:03):
Yeah, I mean, go ahead, I was gonna say.
Speaker 4 (19:05):
Grandiose planned to take over California or something like that.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
Knock yourself out, robots take California all you want. Thomas
Fry can be found at futurist speaker dot com. I
put a link to the article and his website there. Thomas,
good to see you. We'll see again next month.
Thomas Frye looking into his crystal ball every day just
to see what might be coming down the pipeline, or
in this case, Thomas, what might be leaving the pipeline.
Wait a minute, what might be well expiring in the pipeline.
I can't make a good analogy here. First of all,
welcome back, my friend.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Good to see you.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
Yeah, great to see you as well.
Speaker 4 (00:20):
So yeah, I think we're going to see lots of
changes coming up here in the next ten to fifteen years. Yep.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
And Thomas has a column on the Future Speaker website
the Vanishing Present, two hundred and fifty things that will
disappear from our lives by twenty forty. And I went
into this all with my skeptical hat on, and I
was going to prove you wrong. But some of these
absolutely are going to be completely useless. But some of
(00:46):
them are a little bit unnerving. So how did you
come up with this list?
Speaker 4 (00:49):
First of all, Yeah, I just started making notes about
everything that's going to go away, and I thought, ah,
let's just push us to the limit here. And as
you start going through all this here, I actually think
a lot of the things going away are going to
be driven by what I'm referring to now as the
(01:12):
Revenge of gen z U. Gen Z has gotten left
out of so many things that this is just not
not cool. They can't afford to buy houses, educations way
too expensive, throws them into debt. They can't get rid
of that debt. They're they're they're getting jammed up everywhere
they're turning. And so when changes start happening, they're they're
(01:37):
pushing these changes as fast as they can. And I
think we're going to be seeing this.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
This is they're they want to take it out on
the boomers.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
So oh wow, okay, so you're going to stick it
to the boomers.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Okay, give me some.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Examples of that specifically that are that are that gen
Z specific, because not all these things are gen Z specific.
Some of them are suggests that our technology is advancing
in such a way so you won't necessarily need a
driver's license, right, So, so things like that you can understand,
is that gen Z driven. But what are some of
the specific gen Z driven examples that you have.
Speaker 4 (02:15):
Yeah, well, they're gonna, yeah, not going to own a car,
so they're going to be able to afford the robots.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
That's that's a big deal.
Speaker 4 (02:28):
The robots are going to give them lots of freedom
and they can just summon a car whenever they need it.
They're they'll be able to afford afford houses because the
housing is going to be different and changing along the way.
This this whole idea of you know, when you start
(02:49):
looking at all the systems that are wrong. The education
system's wrong, the prison systems all wrong, the income tact
systems all wrong. Income tax it's got to go away
because it's just entirely too complicated. So we need a
new system for that. So when you start seeing all
(03:09):
of these things start unfolding, then the fact that these
things go away, like movie theaters go away, that keyble
TV subscriptions that all goes away, video game consoles, all
that goes away. Nobody's going to be collecting autographs from
celebrities because the fakes are out there and nobody can
(03:33):
prove if it's authentic anymore. Right, Yeah, just this list
goes on and on and on and on, and so
tell me one that you think might.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Be what a couple of like a couple of them
jumped out right away and they have to do the
one that that I'm stuck on is number four traffic
lights at most intersections. So is that because autonomous cars
are going to be able to work in conjunction with
each other in terms of I'm in this space, you're
in that space, and we're going to make this work,
(04:06):
you know, you know, seamlessly.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
We don't need.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
But but then this this leads me to the big
question because so many of the things that you have
on here we're going to eliminate because of technology, and
because we're everything's on the cloud or or everything is
sort of autonomous, autonomous taxis and no traffic lights. That
makes us far more at risk from a thing like
an e MP attack because if you take out all
(04:32):
of our systems and we've lost.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
The ability to even stop at a traffic light.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
I'm concerned about that because if I'm the enemy Thomas,
and I see all of this happening, that's the way
I attack.
Speaker 4 (04:43):
Yeah, a good point. But what are they taking over?
Speaker 3 (04:49):
Oh? Yes, so yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4 (04:52):
The idea of traditional wars tend to fade in the
into the woodwork when there's other options.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
Rather than a military.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Seal attack, some of these oh go ahead.
Speaker 4 (05:07):
Yeah, So rather than having cavities, you go to the dentists.
The dentists are going to help you regrow your teeth.
Reading glasses are going to go away, so we won't
have anything like that anymore. Just being able to solve
medicines solve our health care problems. I can't wait for
(05:30):
that to happen because I've got enough of my own hands.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
Well, there's one that I have a question about, and
that is cubicles and assigned desks hot desking with AI
optimized space allocation. Explain to me what that is and
then I'm going to tell you why that's not going
to work.
Speaker 4 (05:49):
Yeah, so most people are going to be working from home.
When they get together, they will get into a group
setting where they have assigned desk then, and that that's
a possibility.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
That's one way of doing it. They may just do
off sites.
Speaker 4 (06:08):
That are grouped together in a foreign country because that'll
be easy to do as well.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
So, yeah, the cubicle world is going to be over.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
Well, I'm not going to miss the cubical world at
all when it's over. But here here's the thing that
I'm realizing, and coming out of COVID where we all
went home and we were all working on our computers
all day long in our offices by ourselves. I don't
necessarily think that was good for our mental health or
good for society. So so many of the things that
I see here are in some ways, like I cannot
(06:44):
wait to not have a car and just have a
Robotox taxi subscription, Like I am ready now for that.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
I don't like to drive.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
I'd rather spend my car and to spend my time
in the car doing something productive to and from work.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
But I've ultimately come to realize.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
That I prefer being in my in the office with
my co workers than I do working from home. I
like the camaraderie. I never thought I would say that,
but I like being here, and I think that the
more we come back to office. So how does all
this jive with our natural inclinations as pack animals? That's
really what I'm getting at.
Speaker 4 (07:21):
Yeah, it's a really good point.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
We this list here is not perfect for it by
any means.
Speaker 4 (07:29):
So we may find that a lot of a lot
of the assumptions behind all this are flawed and we're
going to have to rethink it all together. But the
nature of work is going to continually shift and morph
and change, like as an example, right now, if you
go see a doctor, you have to get a referral
(07:50):
to a specialist, and then we have to get on
a waiting list to get in to see that person
for the first time. Usually it's four or six months
or something like that. I actually think we're going to
have private doctors that establish a practice and they'll have
eight robo doctors that are working for them, and then
they will each of the robo doctors will take patients
(08:13):
and work with them individually, and they'll spend a lot
more time with them than a regular doctor would. And
then so one practice like that only has one actual
doctor and that doctor is responsible for doing the prescriptions
and everything that a doctor has to do, but everything
else can be handled by the bots.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
And you thought your doctors has were called wow, come.
Speaker 4 (08:41):
On, and then the whole thing is only cost fifty
dollars a visit. There's no insurance, there's no nothing that's
dealing with and none of the overhead expenses. And the
insurance companies will get caught off guard with.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
Some like this.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
Well, it's already happening in direct primary care. We already
have doctors that are creating membership based systems. But they're
still staffed by real doctors. But to your point, Thomas,
I've been following along with the medical AI that they
are building, and they're building AI that you can sit down,
you as a patient, you would sit down at a
computer and you would literally type or you know, check
(09:19):
every single box that applies to you. You could check
things like my right shoulder hurts, my left elbow hurts,
I've got dry skin on the bottom of my feet,
my nostrils flare at a certain time. I mean, you
write down everything. An AI is so much better at
diagnosing what could possibly be wrong with you, and then
they would use that piece, they would get the diagnostic
(09:40):
suggestions from AI, and then a real doctor, a human doctor,
would step in to kind of hone the diagnosis and
come up with a treatment protocol. We're a couple of
years away from that being in every doctor's office.
Speaker 4 (09:55):
Yeah, And I think that we're going to see the
constant reinventing of the whole business.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
Model around them.
Speaker 4 (10:02):
Having I mean, there's a good argument right now that
we have one of the worst healthcare systems in the
world because everything is so stretched out and so delayed,
and for anybody to come up with a diagnosis. I've
had two kids that have gone through this recently, and
it's just been prolonged out. So to actually get to
(10:25):
what's wrong with somebody at six to nine months, to
actually get that diagnosis, which I think is just insane.
Being able to drive that down to less than a week,
I think is entirely possible, and possibly even less than
a day. I think that's what we need to achieve here, sooner.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
Than later, and so I think all of this gives
us that kind of opportunity.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
I think so some of the Steffan here is really
interesting and one of the one of the ones that
caught my eyes shopping malls converted to mixed use housing
and experiences.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
That's already happening across the country. So do you think
retail is just dead as we know it?
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Like the traditional retail experience where you go into a
store and someone comes up and helps you and then
you go check out.
Speaker 4 (11:18):
Yeah, the traditional retail experience is not going to survive.
It'll have to be an actual experience, whether there's a
product demonstration where there's live people involved, where there's something
going on other than just looking at products on a
store shelf. That is not going to survive at all
(11:41):
because you can just order that. It becomes a commodity.
You can two seconds, you can have it delivered to
your house. But finding out why something is better than
this product is better than that product you did, product demonstrations,
that sort of thing. I think we're going to be
seeing a lot more of that. Yeah, product comparisons, I
(12:08):
think that.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
Would be super interesting.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
I mean, I if I were in the market for
a new vacuum cleaner and I knew that my local
purveyor of vacuum cleaners was going to be having a
compare and contrast demonstration of their models, I just may
show up for that. I'm just nerdy enough that that
would appeal to me. So a couple of the other
things that I saw that I wanted to bring up
very very quickly, hang on communication in this socially, you've
(12:33):
broken it down into different sections. Phone numbers would be replaced.
Now I am ready for that, because I can't remember
a new phone number to save my life. I remember
my childhood phone number, but I do not remember my
daughter's phone number, which is terrible, absolutely terrible.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
What does that get replaced with?
Speaker 3 (12:53):
It just gets you just say their name, and that's
all you need.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
So.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
Essentially just replace the functionality of I mean, but then,
what if your name is Bob Smith?
Speaker 2 (13:06):
How does that work?
Speaker 3 (13:10):
You have to identify which Bob Smith?
Speaker 1 (13:12):
Yeah, exactly, Bob Smith. You know the guy with blond hair,
blue eyes works down the street from Tony You know
that guy? Is that how I'm gonna make my phone calls?
Because I probably would. I got a couple of things.
I got a couple of people asking stuff from the
text line. Somebody asks asks Thomas if he knows anything
about the flying car that Elon Musk is supposed to
be unveiling soon. Are you paying attention to the flying car?
(13:35):
Talk over there, Thomas, because you know, I'm ready for
a flying car, but now it has to be autonomous.
I've moved on in an autonomous flying car.
Speaker 4 (13:43):
Yeah, well it has to be better than anything that
James Bond has demonstrated.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
Yeah, with a little propeller on the top. Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
Oh so it has to be able to dive underwater.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
Too, I mean, of course, yeah.
Speaker 4 (13:57):
So, And he doesn't even know if this thing is
actually a car anymore.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
It looks like a car.
Speaker 4 (14:05):
I think it's rather interesting how he described it, but
he's pretty sketchy on the information.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
So I'd like to notice to take off vertically, do
you have to have a runway? Do you have to
be able to get it up to fifty five miles
per hour before you hit the lightning rod to make
it go into time travel?
Speaker 2 (14:20):
Is that what's happening after that?
Speaker 3 (14:23):
Yeah? Yeah, gets real interesting because.
Speaker 4 (14:30):
I mean, air traffic control people right now, they don't
want people taking off of their cars in any neighborhood
around a city exactly.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
That makes it real dangerous.
Speaker 4 (14:40):
But if these if these are devices that would actually
manage your own air traffic control system so they all
talk to each other so that there's no chance of
running into each other, that becomes a different ballgame then.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
And we've seen that in futuristic movies, right. Futuristic movies,
I feel like, always have that that one scene of
the traffic where there's multiple levels. There's like thirty cars
on top of thirty cars, and they're all moving along
perfectly at the same speed, same height. They never nobody's
weaving in and out until Sylvester Saloon shows up. And
(15:14):
I feel is that where we're headed, where it's going
to be, just like basically working on In my mind,
it would look like this Thomas, like it would almost
look if another car got too close to the top
of my car.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
It would be almost like if.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
You try and put the wrong sides of a magnet
together right, and it would forcibly keep them apart, but
keep them also in some kind of stasis so they
could fly at the same time on the you know,
on different levels.
Speaker 4 (15:41):
Yeah, if you're if your condo is on the thirty
fourth floor, do you have a parking space on the
thirty fourth floor next like the Jetsons, Yeah, so you
park like on a balcony or something to get out
and walk right into your apartment. That I think is
going to be entirely possible, but not probably in the
(16:02):
next ten years.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
I think.
Speaker 4 (16:05):
I think we're going to see lots of creative designs here. Now,
keep in mind that as we reduce the amount of
manpower and labor that goes into creating these things, that
we're going to set our sites higher, that our need
for greater and greater accomplishments takes a center stage here.
(16:27):
So the amount that we can accomplish in our lifetime
will be probably one hundred times greater than what somebody
could accomplish fifty years ago.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Is this I feel like in my lifetime? Okay, so
I'm fifty six. I was born in nineteen sixty nine.
In my lifetime, I have lived through the switchover from.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
Analog to digital.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
Right.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
I grew up in an analog world and now I
live in a digital world. So I've seen that massive
amount of change. There are so many things from my
childhood that are completely archaic now not even I mean,
what was the last time you saw a rotary phone?
Speaker 4 (17:02):
Right?
Speaker 1 (17:02):
So there's all these things that we had. So it
stands to reason that in the next fifteen years, because
of AI and the revolution that's happening now, I feel
like we're having two revolutions a little too close together, Thomas.
Speaker 4 (17:17):
Yeah, and then the one after that is coming even sooner.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
Well, that's when the robots take over and become our overlords.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (17:27):
I wrote a column recently on AGI and how to
define it and what to be worried about that.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
It's wait, what does ag I stand for?
Speaker 4 (17:42):
A GI autonomous? Well, it's artificial intelligence that's stands on
its own.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
So, oh great, those are the robots that will take over.
So there you go. That's why I always say please
and thank you to chat Thomas.
Speaker 4 (18:00):
Yeah, but they have no incentive to do that, right,
they don't. They don't have any personal needs. I mean
the reason that humans stay in the center of all
of this is because because we're flawed creatures and we
have our own personal needs and the fact that we
can have other people help with our needs and we
(18:20):
can help with their needs, that's what creates the economy
that we have. If you have robots that are perfect
from day one, they don't have any personal needs. They
can just work relentlessly and help each other, and so
there's there's no motivation, there's no incentive. So if you
(18:41):
think about it from that standpoint that we have our
own our own flaws and that's what creates our economy, Yeah,
then you try to figure out what what is the
motivation that actually drives drives these robots to do something else.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Because they don't have self interest.
Speaker 3 (19:00):
Right, they have no self interests. Yeah?
Speaker 2 (19:03):
Yeah, I mean, go ahead, I was gonna say.
Speaker 4 (19:05):
Grandiose planned to take over California or something like that.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
Knock yourself out, robots take California all you want. Thomas
Fry can be found at futurist speaker dot com. I
put a link to the article and his website there. Thomas,
good to see you. We'll see again next month.
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