Technology's Impact on the Future for AEC, PD&M, and M&E According to Eli Dourado

Source: Adapted and extended from Voros (2003)

Our team at Autodesk is called Strategic Foresight. We help identify and articulate long-term forces of change and their implications shaping the future for Autodesk and our customers. As Strategic Foresight, we do not attempt to offer definitive answers about what the future will hold. No one can do that. Instead, we recognize that the future is only partially visible in the present and cannot be fully known in advance (predicted).^* There are actually a wide variety of possible of futures, and some are more plausible than others. The trick is to identify probable futures and work to make one of the preferable ones come true.

With this in mind, our team helps reveal insights across the entire company by working with Autodesk leaders to shape a preferable future (out of the many possible futures) that delivers value for our customers and our business. We explore a broad range of areas (STEEP, i.e., Society, Technology, Economy, Environment, Politics) with a long-term focal length (~10 years). Autodesk has to be prepared to provide the right kinds of solutions for our customers by leveraging opportunities that the future will bring while mitigating potential risks to designing and making.

So it is with keen interest that I recently read an article by Eli Dourado entitled "Notes on technology in the 2020s." Eli Dourado is an economist and a senior research fellow at the Center for Growth and Opportunity at Utah State University. The article describes how technology will evolve between now and 2030. That 10-year horizon is right up our team's alley.

Autodesk serves three industries:

• Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC)
• Product Design and Manufacturing (PD&M)
• Media and Entertainment (M&E)

With those industries in mind, our team applies foresight techniques to research answers to questions like:

• How will the AEC industry address labor challenges as expertise garnered over decades of practice retires from the workforce?
• What is the best way to introduce robots into construction sites years from now?
• How will the scarcity of manufacturing materials impact the costs associated with designing and making?
• Can sustainability practices also reduce cost and save time?
• What are the best policies for ensuring that data continues to be used ethically?

I wondered how Dourado's predictions would apply to those industries, so I thought I would gather them using the STEEP framework that characterizes our team's efforts. These statements are only my interpretation of what Dourado covers in his article. I used "will" and "may" almost interchangeably to add variety to the sentences.

Society

• AEC
  • Reduced air pollution will lead to fewer premature births, cases of asthma, instances of cancer, and mystery illnesses.
  • Fully autonomous driving will drastically reduce automobile-related deaths.
  • Urban mobility air companies may become the Ubers of air travel. These planes may be fully autonomous and fly themselves.
  • With an abundance of SpaceX Starlink communication satellites in orbit, true global connectivity may become a reality.
  • A human may set foot on Mars before April 1, 2030. No fooling.
• PD&M
  • Filtration of a person's own blood (i.e., dilution of harmful factors) may allow that person to live longer. Anti-aging clinics may pop up everywhere.
  • Tests to determine a person's biological age will be embraced by society.
  • Vertical farming will yield more nutritious and better-tasting produce than conventional farming.
  • Plant-based meat substitutes will fail but lab-grown real meat has a chance.
• M&E
  • Eyeglasses will be widely adopted as computing devices.
  • The need for eyeglasses to understand context will drive improvements in digital assistants like Siri, Alexa, and Google.

Technology

• AEC
  • Improved boring technology may allow tunneling to provide an alternative to long rail lines above ground.
  • Hyperloop technology could leverage the tunnels; however, a nationwide US hyperloop network is unlikely.
  • SpaceX's Starship reusable rocket technology will dramatically increase mankind's ability to make use of outer space.
  • 3D-printed homes and advanced manufacturing-based housing will advance.
• PD&M
  • There may be a cure for HIV.
  • There may be a treatment for cancer.
  • CRISPR may help mitigate genetic disorders.
  • Machine learning will be put to practical use. For example, DeepMind will allow new drugs to be discovered more rapidly.
  • Apple watches will continue to get more and more health sensors.
  • Continuous health monitoring via personal devices will allow algorithms to offer medical advice.
  • Fuel may be made by pulling CO₂ from the atmosphere.
  • Transitioning from diesel, hydrogen fuel cells will power interstate trucking.
  • Fully autonomous vehicles (i.e., self-driving technology) will be applied at scale.
  • Alas, supersonic air travel will not be commonplace by the end of the decade.
  • In-space manufacturing will allow structures (e.g., pharmaceuticals, fiber optics, semiconductor wafers, nanotube materials) to be designed and made that would otherwise collapse if constructed under the Earth's gravity.
  • Computer hardware will be based on custom silicon. Systems will be available on a Chip (SoC).
• M&E
  • Augmented reality will be widely deployed by 2025.
  • Eyeglasses will become computing devices.
  • The need for eyeglasses to understand context will drive improvements in digital assistants like Siri, Alexa, and Google.

Economy

• AEC
  • Advanced geothermal research could result in a 2 cents per kilowatt-hour price (current price is 3.5 cents).
  • The cost for placing payloads in low-earth-orbit may drop to $10 per kilogram. The cost for the Space Shuttle was $65,400 per kilogram.
  • SpaceX's Starlink global communication program revenues could reach $72 billion per year. The current SpaceX budget is $2 billion per year.
  • Asteroid mining will not be cost-effective before the end of the decade.
  • It is possible but not a certainty that cryptocurrency will see mainstream use.
  • Advances in construction technology will help reduce the cost of housing.
• PD&M
  • Battery costs will decline, allowing energy to be stored when wind and solar are not available.
  • Fusion technology will not advance enough to be cost-competitive with other technologies such as wind, solar, and geothermal.
  • The costs of widespread geothermal will decline over time as the digging of the hole only occurs once.
  • Car rental companies will opt for electric vehicles due to the lower maintenance costs.
  • Business jets traveling at Mach speeds may become a cost-effective means of travel for a niche market of busy executives.
  • Drone delivery of goods will become cost-effective.
  • Engineering costs for objects in outer space will decline. Lower launch costs will allow replacement objects to be substituted for faulty ones instead of building resilience into the original objects.

Environment

• AEC
  • Deployment of wind and solar will accelerate.
  • Demand for electricity will increase as electric vehicles become commonplace.
  • Energy infrastructures will evolve to meet the additional demand.
  • Nuclear power will not have a resurgence prior to the end of the decade.
  • Advances in geothermal (from startups by those leaving the oil and gas industry) will allow it to be applied over a wider swath of the earth.
• PD&M
  • Car batteries may be used to supplement the United States electricity grids until the infrastructure can catch up to the demand.
  • Based on the move to electric vehicles, air pollution will dramatically decline.

Politics

• AEC
  • There will be strong political support for decommissioning fossil fuel plants.
  • Permitting reform will be required to allow advances in geothermal to be reaped by the population.
  • No longer dependent on oil, the alliance between the US and Saudi Arabia could end. A Saudi Arabia - Iran war could be the fallout.
  • Congress could address the high cost of housing that has skyrocketed due to zoning rules.
• PD&M
  • Drugs that reduce aging will gain Food and Drug Administration approval.
  • There will be a political push for aviation to decarbonize and move to hydrogen or sustainable aviation fuel.
  • Community standards for allowable supersonic boom noise will be adopted.
  • The Federal Aviation Administration will adopt new low-altitude air traffic control regulations to allow autonomous flight.
  • Governmental incentives related to Silicon on a Chip (SoC) may catalyze the industry to design and make high-quality chips in North America.

Although Dourado points out some things that are unlikely, most of his observations are positive. He made these observations as part of his hypothesis that technology could result in the Roaring 20s or the Boring 20s. He would consider the decade roaring if there is a significant increase in productivity.

"Collectively, these technologies add up to a lot of possibility. If we cure a bunch of diseases, slow down aspects of aging, realize cheap and emissions-free baseload energy, and deploy new modes of transportation and better construction technologies, we will almost certainly exceed 2 percent TFP [Total Factor Productivity] growth. But we might not do these things."
— Eli Dourado

At Autodesk, our mission is to empower innovators with design and make technology so they can achieve the new possible, and together, anything is possible. Let's make the new possible one that is preferable.

Looking forward is alive in the lab.