Technological Forecasting and Human Factors

The March-April 2009 issue of The Futurist includes an interesting article entitled, “Timeline for the Future: Potential Developments and Likely Impact.”

The timeline is divided into six periods (2010-2014; 2015-2019; 2020-2024; 2025-2029; 2030-2039; and 2040 and Beyond) and twelve categories:

• Artificial Intelligence and Artificial Life;
• Biotechnology, Health, and Medicine;
• Business and Education;
• Computing;
• Environment and Resources;
• Home and Leisure;
• Machine / Human Interface;
• Robotics;
• Security, Law, and War;
• Space;
• Travel and Transportation; and
• Wearable and Personal Technology.

While all of the potential future developments, if realized, will impact people’s lives to varying degrees, some of the more intriguing ones, at least from a human factors and ergonomics perspective, include:

• Behavior alarms based on human mistake recognition – 2010;
• Computers linked to biological sensory organs – 2012;
• Spectacles that translate signs, labels – 2015;
• All technology imitates thinking processes of human brain – 2018;
• Computer-enhanced dreaming – 2020;
• Robot population surpasses human population in the developed world – 2025;
• Artificial brain implants – 2030;
• Robots replace humans in workforce completely – 2035; and
• Teleportation of a human being – 2040.

Upon completing the article, I was reminded that technological forecasting has important implications for the discipline of human factors and ergonomics. Thus, our professionals should strive to remain informed of where future technological innovations are heading. Doing so will afford us the opportunity to add our voice to the discussion to ensure that emerging technologies will better meet the needs of future generations.

For my part, I read multiple pertinent print and online publications, including following futurist Glen Hiemstra’s blog.