Resolves YES for any number of technologies that are widespread enough in 2049 but not in 2024.
Resolution criteria:
Significant Adoption: The technology must be adopted to a degree that indicates it has moved beyond the experimental or niche phase.
Operational Efficiency: The technology should demonstrate reliable and efficient operation in real-world conditions.
Regulatory Approval: If applicable, the technology must receive approval from relevant regulatory bodies.
Economic Viability: The technology should be commercially viable, with clear economic benefits.
Independent Verification: The breakthrough should be independently verified by reputable sources.
If it is unclear whether any given technology meets these requirements before 2050, resolves to some subjective percentage value.
Update 2025-07-01 (PST): - True Mind Uploading Definition: Requires a perfect copy of at least some regions of the brain. (AI summary of creator comment)
Update 2025-16-01 (PST): - Autonomous Flying Cars: Only air travel capability is required; ground capability is optional. (AI summary of creator comment)
Update 2025-18-01 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): - Human mind uploading is the complete replication of a human mind's structure, function, and consciousness into a digital or artificial substrate.
It requires a high-resolution scan of the brain's neural architecture and synaptic connections.
The uploaded mind must exhibit continuity of identity, memory, and subjective experience.
It must be indistinguishable from the original mind in terms of cognitive and emotional responses.
The process must be verifiable through independent scientific validation.
It should not rely on speculative or unproven assumptions about consciousness.
Update 2025-02-08 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): Economic Viability Clarification:
Broader Market Requirement: A technology must demonstrate viability in a wider economic market, not just niche or research settings.
Niche vs. For-Profit: Technologies used solely in government-funded or highly specialized projects (e.g., exclusive use in space missions) are less likely to meet the economic viability needed for significant adoption.
Adoption Beyond Research: Evidence of economic viability should show that the technology is driving widespread use, creating new industries, or significantly improving existing ones, rather than merely transacting sales to research institutions.
Overall Impact: The economic viability criterion is assessed in terms of its contribution to overall significant adoption by 2049.
Update 2025-02-08 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) – Human Specificity:
In this market, BCI is defined strictly in a human-specific context.
Any breakthrough in BCI must be directly applicable to human cognitive enhancement or interaction to be considered for significant adoption.
Update 2025-02-08 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): Quantum Computing Applications Clarification:
Evidence that quantum computers achieve quantum advantage by 2049, meaning they solve certain real-world problems significantly faster or more effectively than the best available classical systems.
This quantum advantage must be demonstrated in commercially relevant applications consistently and reliably.
Update 2025-02-08 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): Synthetic Meat Criteria:
Must be indistinguishable by taste from conventional meats (e.g., beef, chicken, pork) as determined by blind taste tests, making it very difficult for typical consumers to reliably differentiate.
For novel meat types that do not replicate existing meats, resolution depends on whether culinary experts and consumers broadly recognize and accept it as a form of meat.
Update 2025-02-11 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): Commercial Viability:
Seafloor mining operations must be commercially viable by demonstrating a significant and measurable contribution to the global supply of at least one critical mineral (e.g., cobalt, nickel, manganese).
Seafloor Mining Robots:
Defined as autonomous or highly automated underwater vehicles capable of navigation and performing core mining functions such as resource collection with minimal real-time human control (supervised autonomy is acceptable).
Widespread Adoption:
By the end of 2049, the use of seafloor mining robots should be established as an industry standard, ensuring the breakthrough is widely implemented.
Update 2025-03-01 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): Time travel breakthrough clarification:
The technology must be distinctly time-machine-like, meaning it must produce a scenario where an object or individual experiences usefully less elapsed time inside the device as measured by a physical clock (not just a subjective sensation).
Any approach that does not meet this standard, even if it involves relativistic effects or other mechanisms, does not satisfy the resolution criteria for a breakthrough in time travel within this market.
This criterion must be met in addition to the existing general market requirements.
Update 2025-03-03 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): Desalination Technology Criteria:
Commercial Availability: The technology must be commercially available.
Energy Efficiency: It must reduce energy consumption for seawater desalination (salinity ~35,000 ppm, recovery rate ≥50%) to below 1.5 kWh per cubic meter.
Update 2025-06-24 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): - Brain computer interfaces (BCI): Must interface with multiple specific neurons for complex interactions and be a widely adopted regulated medical device.
Bioprinting: Must create complex, vascularized tissues (e.g., kidney organoids, heart valves) that can be successfully transplanted and function long-term.
Gene editing therapies: Must be for several common conditions and have a cost low enough to be a practical option within major healthcare systems.
Regenerative medicine: Must feature therapies that verifiably reverse damage from a major disease (e.g., regrowing heart muscle after a heart attack, restoring neurons after spinal injury).
Update 2025-06-24 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): For the Autonomous Flying Cars answer:
The vehicle's purpose must be human transportation.
A human operator must be able to specify the travel destination.
Update 2025-06-28 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): For the Time travel to the future answer, it must become a routine and practical method for achieving a real goal.
This goal can be commercial or non-commercial (e.g., for research).
Research into the phenomenon of time travel itself will not be considered a valid goal; the technology must be used to achieve a different objective.
@BalintPetro I've opened a 200 mana NO limit order at 80% if you're interested
@JuJumper I mean this is technically already possible if you consider moving at fast velocities or going up to somewhere with less gravity "travel to the future." The astronauts who've lived on the ISS are a few miliseconds younger than they would have been, so from their perspective they travelled to the future!
@JuJumper this has almost happened https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar-cell_efficiency
"The record in real-world conditions is held by NREL, who developed triple junction cells with a tested efficiency of 39.5%"
@vi But with bad consequences for health. And result will look unnatural (unnatural ratio of various parts of the body).
A person has to be mad or have an extremely serious reason to go for surgery with such high price for life!
Brain computer interfaces, bioprinting, gene editing therapy already exist and it's not super clear to me how significant a significant adoption should be for this to resolve. You can buy non-invasive brain computer interface kit from china for a few hundred bucks for example.
"Regenerative medicine" is a somewhat broad term, it's not clear to me what exactly would count.
@ProjectVictory for Brain computer interfaces, as specified in comments below, "the device interfaces with multiple specific neurons in the brain, allowing for complex and nuanced interactions (controlling external devices, cognitive enhancements, etc)." It should also probably be a regulated medical device adopted widely (not just by enthusiasts).
For bioprinting, we want to see complex, vascularized tissues (like kidney organoids, liver patches, or heart valves) that can be successfully transplanted and function long-term.
For gene editing therapies, significant adoption means therapies for several common conditions (e.g., high cholesterol, macular degeneration, some cancers) that cost low enough to become a practical option within major healthcare systems.
For regenerative medicine, we want to see several therapies that verifiably reverse damage from a major disease. For example, a treatment that regrows significant heart muscle after a heart attack, neurons to restore movement after a spinal cord injury, or a new lens in the eye.
Thank you for clarification requests!
@Lady3Millennium since race is totally a social construct, this could happen today if enough people went along with it
@digory Race is characterized by physiological traits that, with the current level of technology, cannot be changed without serious health consequences.
@digory Though it can be really more correct to say "racial appearance" instead of "race", but I can't already edit the item.
@JuJumper A commercially available desalination technology will reduce energy consumption for seawater desalination (salinity ~35,000 ppm, recovery rate ≥50%) to below 1.5 kWh per cubic meter.
@JuJumper we are always traveling to the future and we are fully aware of ways to do so faster or to make it seem faster. Accelerating and general anesthesia respectively. It's our just me or should this be way higher
@DavidOman It has to be time-machine-like and match general criteria for this market. (e.g. relativistic time dilation would count if it allowed to move something to the future usefully instead of it being an engineering problem)Inside a "forward time machine" must pass usefully less time than outside as measured by a physical clock, not just subjective perception. It seems to me your examples do not fit this definition.
@JuJumper would a manned spacecraft in a solar orbit at similar distance to the Parker Solar Probe that time travels about 2 hours into the future every year of orbit count?
@TheAllMemeingEye as in it becomes a routine, practical method towards achieving some real goal (which might be commercial or something else, e.g. research, but research into "time travel to the future" itself would not cut it, it needs to have some other goal).