Regular columnist and BT Futorologist Lesley Gavin takes a look at the potential development of virtual worlds.
By 2025, more than a third of the UK's population will be over 55. In fact, the United States is the only country in the industrialised world which has a population that‘s actually getting younger. This is thanks in part to the faster reproduction rate among immigrants than among native-born Americans but it means that in years to come, the US - unlike the rest of the west - will still have more people in work than on pensions.
So should we be worried about this? Well, while there may be economic concerns, one very important point is that our understanding of ageing is going to be very different in the future. Yes we're living longer but crucially, we’re staying active until much later in life.
My view is that this trend that will gather pace.
Advances in medicine, healthcare and biotechnology will mean more us will remain fit, able and healthy even as we go beyond our ninetieth or hundredth birthdays. Or even longer.
In the next 20 years we are going to find cures for most of the major diseases we see today. Providing there is enough money available (economic factors will always either handicap or accelerate technological, scientific or medical progress) we will be able to cure or arrest any particular type of cancer or fix or repair body parts.
Let’s face it, we’re already going bionic. For example, surgeons in Britain have recently fitted bionic eyes to two men to partially restore their eyesight. There’s also the story of the South African athlete, Oscar Pistorius, who competes against ‘able-bodied’ athletes using his carbon fibre legs.
Through films like The Terminator, Hollywood paints a frightening picture of how half-man, half –machine androids might one day look and behave. Yet the reality is that we already have a large number of androids amongst us. Anybody fitted with a pace-maker for instance.
Technology will continue to give us new and improved human capabilities. For instance, it won’t be too long before hearing aids become bionic so that people can perhaps tune in to private conversations being held on the other side of the restaurant. Indeed, in the future having electronic chips implanted in our brains will become as common as showing our bus passes to the driver.
So although it won’t happen overnight, it’s quite conceivable that, by replacing or improving our body parts, we could enable ourselves to be able to live forever .
That might be a while off. But in the shorter term, will be your new next-door neighbours.
A pair of 250-year-old newly-wed androids.