Something very very profound is going to happen, something like 50 years from now, which will change EVERYTHING.
2070 is the point by which a large group of leading scientists and nobel laureates believe humans will no longer be the most intelligence "species" on the planet, and intelligent computers will have surpassed us.
That is truly an incredible inflexion point. Because such "beings" will not be bounded by our DNA-based biology which has taken millions of years to get us to where we are. Instead, their development will accelerate from that point, such that in maybe another year or so, they are 2x more intelligent than us, and in another couple of years, 10x more. It won't be long before we are mere ants to them. Humans will be viewed as lifeforms of such simplistic and trivial make-up as to be rather unimportant, apart from the minor novelty of considering where we came from.
I can't remember the source for the 2070 date, but of this same group of scientists, a significant faction are of the opinion that extinction of the human race will follow shortly after 2070 as a result.
I know this sounds very Terminator, and I am not entirely sure I share the view on our doomsday scenario, but I think it's certainly a strong possibility. That intelligent "computers" - for want of a better word - will soon be more intelligent than us, is I think a nailed on certainty. It's also a nailed on certainty that by that point, these computers will already control pretty much every aspect of human existance, from the planting and growing of our crops, to the running of our cities infrastructures, the powering of our planes, cars, factories etc, the firing of our weapons. This is a given.
So we will be entirely in the lap of the gods as to whether these beings decide that humans, with all the damage we do to the planet, are worth keeping. Or not.
