r/accelerate • u/dental_danylle • 3d ago
Discussion What everyday technology do you think will disappear completely within the next 20 years?
Tech shifts often feel gradual, but then suddenly something just vanishes. Fax machines, landlines, VHS tapes — all were normal and then gone.
Looking ahead 20 years, what’s around us now that you think will completely disappear? Cars as we know them? Physical cash? Plastic credit cards? Traditional universities?
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u/AdorableBackground83 3d ago
Idk if I’d classify this as a technology but drivers licenses.
All vehicles need to be fully autonomous by 2045 eliminating the need for humans to own a car and by extension own a license.
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u/Urban_Cosmos 3d ago
Auto cars are the wrong answer to right question.
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u/Faceornotface 2d ago
Also the idea that they’ll be gone in 20 years is laughable
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u/ForgetTheRuralJuror 2d ago
Right, definitely not in the US. Road accidents kill 40k people a year, but if repeated school shootings don't trigger federal legislation, why would that do it?
Manual cars might be banned in California by then though.
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u/VirtueSignalLost 2d ago
Banning manually driven cars will be orders of magnitude easier than to ban guns
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u/pegaunisusicorn 2d ago
drone swarms will make guns a laughable curiosity. guns won't do shit to something that can move faster and shoot faster than a human ever could.
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u/Outside-Ad9410 1d ago
You also aren't going to get mugged by a drone swarm though, and if you did that would be hilarious to watch.
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u/Deadline_Zero 1d ago edited 1d ago
They'll just develop a weapon specifically designed to easily take down drones when it comes to that. Specifically something that can fry drones in a wide, directed area probably.
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u/Matshelge 3d ago
20 years? Completely disappear?
I can't really think of anything in particular. There are things we will see less of, non-electric cars, this will make refueling stations go away, but not completely disappear. No, I think we will continue to see most tech we have now, even stuff like LPs and such, stick around long past their normal day use.
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u/cloudrunner6969 3d ago
People still use looms, yokes and plows, windmills to grind seed, some people even still use the abacus to count. It's difficult to say if any technology will disappear completly, it's possible that anything that is in use today could still be in use by someone somewhere even in another 2000 years. Though it's likely that a lot of technology will be less used.
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u/Smells_like_Autumn 3d ago
True, pens didn't disappear when we created typewriters. Old tech still covers different smaller niches.
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u/captainshar 3d ago
IDs. I think we will have iris scanners or something very soon. You just let a video-powered AI ID you.
I also think filling out the same info in forms over and over will go the way of the past. You'll just have a data profile with everything from your allergies to your medical prescriptions to your bank account to your address to your streaming service login that you can just choose to share the relevant entries with a service and it will transfer just that info for just the time it's needed.
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u/astrobuck9 2d ago
Hate to break it to you but landlines, fax machines, and VHS tapes are still very much in use.
There is a much, much smaller group of people using them, but they are still here.
I use a landline for work, fax machines are still widely used, and VHS tapes have made a comeback in recent years, especially amongst the horror and sci-fi fandoms.
Hell, even cassette tapes are being sold again by bands.
I'd imagine there are still people watching BetaMax tapes and HD-DVDs.
I've ran into people at flea markets that buy and listen to 8 Tracks
As we move more and more towards the Singularity and whatever that entails, I think people will become more interested in "dead" tech.
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u/Ill_Reindeer_5046 3d ago
Photoshop
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u/Alive_Awareness4075 2d ago
What makes you say that?
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u/Ill_Reindeer_5046 2d ago
New image models like Google’s recently published “Banana” model show how powerful AI has become at manipulating and redesigning real photos. Soon, you’ll just tell the AI what you want instead of doing it manually in Photoshop or similar tools, making much of that software obsolete
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u/Alive_Awareness4075 2d ago
Yeah, but hand made stuff is still always gonna be around, even with AGI.
Some people just like to draw.
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u/meatrosoft 3d ago
Keyboards in favor of neural interface, individual human agency
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u/ChainOfThot 3d ago
Computers as we know them in general. Monitors, keyboards, mice, all gone
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u/420learning 3d ago
Keyboard and mice i get but curious about your thoughts on the monitors. I'd imagine we'll still appreciate visuals
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u/jonydevidson 2d ago
You'll be using glasses in less than 5 years.
You can already use them now, but the "virtual screens" are only 1080p.
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u/ChainOfThot 3d ago
AR will be in full swing, everywhere we look we'd see visuals. It wouldn't be bound to a screen.
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u/Ruykiru Tech Philosopher 3d ago edited 1d ago
Nothing truly disappears once invented and someone will find an use for all tech anyway.
If you're talking about mostly disappearing, go look at things that a general purpose tech will do better than the last. Internet search->AI search for example, or cars->autonomous cars. But you don't really fully "uninvent" the concept or thing; as far as I know horses are still kicking around.
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u/rileyoneill 2d ago
Small internal combustion engines, especially anything smaller than a car. In 2045 it would be really out of place to see a gasoline powered car on the road and if so, its someone's classic car they take out a few times per month. 99% of gas cars that exist today will be taken off the road the 1% that remain will be some sort of collector's item used more for recreation than actual transportation. But things like gas powered lawn mowers, hand tools, generators, scooters, bikes, will all be extremely rare. There will definitely be cases of people finding them in garages, the same with cars.
Home appliances that use gas will largely be phased out but might still exist in some climates known for extremely cold weather. You might see gas powered BBQs though. But for homes, HVAC, hot water heater, clothes dryers, and anything else will be electric (mostly heat pumps). Some people might have propane for outside stuff or in places that experience extreme cold for prolonged periods of time.
As much as some people think computers will communicate directly with your brain, I still think physical computers will exist as a consumer product for people who prefer that form factor. Likewise I think people will still carry around something that looks like a phone. I do see the 'telephone' part disappearing and the device instead just being an internet communications device (you will be able to still hold it up to your ear and use it like a phone). But a "Pocket device" - "Backpack device" and "Table top device" will still all exist for people who like using that.
Coal power will have completely disappeared. Natural gas plants will have mostly gone away but you might still see them in some placed used as standby units, likely in very cold climates.
We are in the early stages of the the RoboTaxi. It is small, but it is growing very quickly. My curve is that the number of weekly RoboTaxi rides in the US is increasing by a factor of 10 every 2 years. In 2024 the 100,000 rides per week mark was surpassed. If the curve holds, it will be 1,000,000 weekly rides hit in 2026, 10m weekly rides hit in 2028, 100m weekly rides hit in 2030. If the curve holds, the number of weekly rides in the mid 2030s will have displaced all the human driving. This will rapidly change society, and society will have to turn around and adapt to it.
The big adaptions to this are going to be construction, we are going to have to build lots and lots of depots, generation, but also reforming parking lots (which 90% will disappear). It will likely be a semi common thing for people who give up car ownership to remodel their garage into something that isn't used for cars. Drive thru restaurants will likely completely disappear. Ghost kitchens will largely replace them. A lot of new apartment buildings won't have parking spaces for residents but will have RoboTaxi loading systems. The cultural practice of kids turning 16 and getting their own car will die pretty quickly. Rural life will likely still involve driving but folks will have to leave the cars in the countryside when they go into cities. VTOL drones that carry people in rural areas will likely be a thing, but not everywhere and not everyone will be using them.
I actually see Universities mostly sticking around. They are currently treated as social institutions of prestige by a large portion of wealthy people and that won't change. I see a possibility of much of their parking lots and other blank space in campus being redeveloped into student housing.
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u/Crypto_Force_X 3d ago
I think door handles and locks might vanish for some sci fi doors that only open for pre-authenticated users.
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u/texas21217 3d ago
Some pet (doggy) doors do this already. They respond only to signals to open/close by electronics in the dog’s collar.
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u/UsurisRaikov 2d ago
Fossil Fuels.
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u/False_Process_4569 Techno-Optimist 2d ago
Hah! You're not wrong because it is a finite resource and we seem to be gobbling it all up faster and faster (XLR8?) so that it will run out sooner.
¯_(ツ)_/¯2
u/Cheers59 1d ago
The Stone Age didn’t end because we ran out of stones.
Also, every resource is finite. Hell, our universe is finite.
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u/UsurisRaikov 2d ago
Plausible!
I just think grid conversion to fusion is gonna prompt a lot of downstream architecture to scale up to power demands. And ripping through coal and gas is, to your point, a limited purchase.
A country like China will be operating in energy abundance as soon as they get that fusion plant fired up, and countries that want to stay "competitive" (see also; relevant) will have to follow suit.
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u/False_Process_4569 Techno-Optimist 2d ago
It's only a matter of time. Hell, even without fusion, renewables like solar and wind are becoming cheaper by the year. The transition will happen.
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u/SteelMan0fBerto 2d ago
I think that we’ll move from smartphones to fully self-contained AR smart glasses for all of our informational use at first, but in 20 years time, I imagine that we’ll have BCIs that allow us to download any information we want into our minds almost instantly and be able to see it in our own natural vision, as the BCI will also write visual information directly to the brain.
That would completely eliminate the need for smartphones/glasses entirely, which are currently everywhere.
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u/texas21217 3d ago
- Mobile phones
- Desktop computers
- Media streaming sticks and dedicated streaming devices
- Doorbell cameras
- ATM machines
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u/ColdSoviet115 3d ago
RCs for drones and robotics. I think it's going to develop into cybernetic neural interfaces using headsets or chip implants. I have a few ideas of my own
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u/Hermans_Head2 3d ago
Screens will disappear and be replaced with ocular implants so that social media is connected directly to the brain behind the eyes.
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u/Honest_Science 3d ago
Everything concerning human luxury, #machinacreata does not see any value in it.
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u/freeman_joe 3d ago
Cable tv and paper newspaper.