The World in 2030

The World in 2030 255
produce plastic products or install congestion charging
schemes inside cities. If all of the efforts to design and
install the congestion charging scheme for London had
been captured in such a database (all the failures as well
as the successes along the way), imagine how valuable
that data might be to all of the other cities now planning
to introduce their own congestion charging schemes.
London taxpayers would have earned some additional
return from their large investment.
So, partly driven by our need for increased security, and
partly driven by businesses capturing new forms of wealth,
we will all become used to living in an ‘always on, always
connected society’ which is permanently recording. We will
all have access to the ‘off switch’ in 2030, but only in our
private surroundings.
Work and Leisure
Fifty years ago it was widely predicted that technological
automation would produce so much wealth and leisure time
that by the year 2000, people in the developed world would
only be working a couple of days a week (at maximum).
Those predictions were influenced by Kurt Vonnegut’s 474
first novel, ‘Player Piano’ 475 which was published in 1952.
His story was about a future world where computers and
automation have so improved the efficiency of production
that very few people need to work, yet all of the goods that
anyone could want are easily produced.