I came across an interesting podcast interview by Aviation Weekly, in which two aerospace industry analysts discuss progress in building electric planes, and make predictions about the future of the niche. Here’s a list of their key points:
There is a strong, long-term trend for aircraft to have more electronics, and fewer mechanical components like hydraulics. The Boeing 787 is the pinnacle of this.
Even though gas-powered planes get more fuel-efficient each year, the total number of plane flights is growing so fast that, by 2050, 10% of global CO2 emissions will come from planes. As time passes, public pressure will grow to reduce aircraft emissions. Logically, this will help the electric plane industry since they are less polluting than gas-powered planes.
A stumbling block will be the disparity between the stated and revealed preferences of customers: While most people claim to care about global warming and claim they’d be willing to pay extra money to avert it, they might not actually be willing to pay more to fly on a low-emission electric jet. [Consider how people today harshly complain about the small seats, bad food, and nickle-and-diming common on regional airlines, yet they aggressively demand low ticket prices and don’t want to pay more money for better service.] Electric planes will be more expensive than gas-powered planes for decades to come.
As with cars, there are two basic types of electric aircraft: all-electric and hybrid-electric. Many new technologies from the auto sector are crossing over into the aircraft sector, so the electrification of cars today yields insight into the future of planes.
A big difference is that plane engines require ~100x as much power output as car engines. Low battery weight is also much more crucial for planes, and is the primary impediment to their development. Electric planes will only become feasible once a battery with 500 watt-hours per kg is created [for comparison, a Tesla Model 3’s batteries are 207 Wh/kg]. Even that would be an order of magnitude less energy dense than jet fuel.
While advances in battery technology are unpredictable and happen in fits and starts, long-term trends suggest that a 500 Wh/kg battery will be invented around 2030.
Small planes that traverse short-distance routes will be electrified first. Large planes designed for long-distance routes won’t be electrified until the energy density of batteries equals that of jet fuel. The lag time will be decades long.
The number of experimental electric aircraft is rapidly growing. Most of the prototypes and their corresponding startup companies will fail.
$15-20 billion would be needed to develop a large, all-electric passenger plane. Due to the high cost, today’s electric plane startups are focusing on making small planes.
Electric aircraft could demand very different architectures from gas-powered aircraft. For example, large electric aircraft wouldn’t have fuselage-wing layouts. [The pundit doesn’t elaborate, but the default alternative is the flying wing layout.]
In 20-30 years, the aerospace industry could look very different.
To meet the energy demands of electric planes recharging their batteries on the ground, airports would have to be massively upgraded with power infrastructure. [In addition, if the planes had different layouts like flying wings, the airport terminals themselves would need to be rebuilt to accommodate the planes.]
China could seize the global lead in electric aircraft. The country has the technological expertise to make advanced electrical components and batteries, it lacks an established aerospace industry that would politically resist plane electrification in order to protect investments in legacy fleets of gas-powered aircraft, and its government supports any high-tech innovation that could lead to leadership in some industry.
“Subregional,” inter-city plane flights might get much cheaper. Electric, short-takeoff-and-landing (STOL) aircraft could use airstrips close to city centers in the future. This would pose a big challenge to inter-city rail networks.
Finally, let me cite one of my personal predictions, from my big post:
[By the end of the 2070s] It will be technologically and financially feasible for commercial aircraft to produce zero net carbon emissions. The aircraft might use conventional engines powered by synthetic fossil fuels, or they might have electric engines and very energy-dense batteries or fuel cells.
William Gibson, the author of the seminal sci-fi book Neuromancer, famously said that, and it’s often quoted in acknowledgement of its truth. My interpretation of the quote is that technologies, luxuries, and lifestyles that are today available only to rich people and elite institutions (like the U.S. military or Google’s most secret R&D labs) can be expected to percolate down to the masses in the future.
For example, the first TVs were luxuries that only upper-income people could afford (see the ads below and consider that, in 1939, the average American only made $1,092 – $1,456 per year, most of which went to rent, food, and other basic needs), but they were ubiquitous by 1965, and were found even in most poor households. Additionally, the TVs of the 1960s were qualitatively better, having higher resolution displays and lower screen size to volume ratios.
With this in mind, here are some services, technologies, and lifestyles that today are the reserve of the select few, but which, per William Gibson, should someday be available to everyone.
Chauffeurs
Rich people can afford to pay for human chauffeurs. This benefits the former’s quality of life since they have free time during car trips, and aren’t as stressed out by the driving experience.
Autonomous cars will someday make human chauffeurs obsolete, and will become affordable for ordinary income people. The cost of renting luxury autonomous vehicles for special occasions will also come down, so average people will be able to ride in vehicles with the same trimmings as the rich.
Servants
Rich people can afford to pay for butlers, maids, cooks, and yard care people. This benefits the former’s quality of life since they don’t have to do routine drudge work like washing their dishes, and instead have more free time. Clean, orderly, aesthetically pleasing surroundings also have positive effects on one’s mood. Rich people can also hire personal assistants to do higher-level cognitive tasks, like researching people, or things of interest.
Household robots will eventually get cheap enough for average people to own or rent them to do all the same tasks.
Intelligent virtual assistants will be able to answer complex questions about all types of subjects, giving ordinary people free or cheap access to high-quality information and advice.
Interior decorators and fashion consultants
Most rich people have nicer-looking homes and wear more attractive clothing not because they are aesthetically talented, but because they can pay for advice from professionals who are.
AIs will be able to look at photos of your home’s interior and come up with unique decorative motifs that could also be implemented at low cost. Reality TV shows like Junk Gypsies and Flea Market Flip demonstrate how a little artistry can transform cheap, throwaway furniture and random objects into stylish, impressive furnishings and decorations, and machines will someday possess the same creativity, bringing professional-quality decorating services within financial reach of nearly everyone. Similarly, AIs will be able to analyze your appearance and other variables, suggest attractive outfits, and do the hard work of finding whatever clothing you want at whatever your price point is.
Nannies
The rich can hire full-time nannies to care for their children, increasing the rich parents’ free time and decreasing their stress. The children can also benefit from getting more adult attention than they otherwise would have. The cost of quality childcare is so high in developed countries that it has lowered birthrates among even upper middle class people.
Once again, robots could level the playing field by providing this service to all households. Longer human lifespans will also mean more grandparents will be around to serve as babysitters. Birth rates in developed countries could rise above replacement level in the future.
Good lawyers
Rich people and deep-pocketed institutions can afford to hire smarter lawyers and large numbers of lawyers. They can defeat or deter opponents through better argumentation (quality advantage) or by burying them in paperwork and time-consuming procedural requests (quantity advantage).
Machines will take over the legal profession and offer their services for very little money, giving everyone equal or nearly equal access to quality lawyers. This will be of particular benefit to poor people accused of crimes, who today rely on inexperienced and overworked public defenders.
Enormous TVs
Rich people and deep-pocketed institutions can afford very large TVs and movie theater-sized projector screens.
At the rate things are going, paper-thin TVs that are big enough to cover an 8′ x 14′ wall should get cheap enough for middle income people to buy sometime in the 2030s. The TVs will have 8K resolutions or greater, and will be rollable so people will be able to fit them through the exterior doors of their houses.
High-quality meals
Rich people can afford to eat out at fancy restaurants or to hire personal chefs. As a result, they tend to eat finer meals and greater varieties of food. Not needing to cook or clean dishes also increases the amount of free time rich people have.
Robot chefs could enable ordinary people to eat like the rich do today. Consider that, in a typical restaurant, only 25 – 35% of a meal’s price pays for the cost of ingredients. Moreover, there are many ways cheaper ingredients can be substituted for more expensive ones without altering a meal’s taste (consider how widespread the illegal mislabeling of fish is, yet how rare it is for someone to taste that they’ve been cheated). If you had a robot chef that could make the best out of common ingredients, and if it worked for free, meaning you didn’t have to pay for wages, tips, theft, or any other business expenses, then you could have restaurant-quality food at around a 70% discount.
Additionally, machines will build detailed personal profiles of each human, and these will include their taste preferences. Just as Netflix and Pandora can reliably recommend movies and songs you’ll like based on your preferences, so will your robot chef be able to recommend meals that you’ll be sure to like.
Fine wines and liquors
Rich people can buy expensive wines and liquors that the rest of us can’t. (Admittedly, blind taste tests and the inherent subjectivity of a drink’s quality make it debatable how much tangible advantage the rich gain from this.)
Every type of alcoholic beverage, no matter its cost, rarity, or age, consists overwhelmingly of water, ethanol, and trace molecules that create a unique taste profile. Some independent breweries are in the early stages of using chemistry to create artificial versions of expensive, vintage drinks, and I think someone will eventually succeed. At some point in the future, cheap artificial versions of expensive alcoholic drinks (or “99% imitations” of them) will exist.
Leisure time
Rich people usually have the option of spending more of their time at leisure without sacrificing their financial security (whether the rich choose to do that over work is a different matter).
As mentioned, machines of all sorts will increase the amount of leisure time available to average people in the future. Additionally, if mass technological unemployment arises and a UBI or some package of generous welfare benefits were extended to everyone, leisure time would reach 100% for all people, regardless of income. The rich would no longer have an advantage.
Sex
Rich people have access to more sex partners (whether they choose to take advantage of the opportunity is a different matter) because wealth makes them more attractive and because they can afford prostitutes.
Sex robots will someday be better at sex than most humans (this simply derives from the broader precept that any job a human can do, a machine can eventually be taught to do as well) , and they will be available to everyone at low cost. Someday, the notion of there being nerdy or ugly people who could never obtain sex will be anachronistic.
Pet cloning
Rich people can clone their beloved, dead cats and dogs for $50,000.
The price will sharply drop thanks to better technology and the expirations of medical patents.
Medical immortality
As a general rule, rich people live longer partly because they can pay for expensive, cutting-edge medical treatments, which might also require overseas travel to obtain. There is no scientific reason why medical immortality technology couldn’t be created someday, and it will doubtless be expensive at first. This will predictably lead to social problems as poorer people get mad at the prospect of rich people living forever while they still have to die.
As with all medical technologies, the price of medical immortality tech will decrease as time passes, and become available to everyone. Since immortality is an absolute, the playing field between rich people and everyone else will be leveled.
Weaponized UAVs
Today, modern militaries have unmanned aerial vehicles that can drop bombs on or fire missiles at targets. The UAVs are remote-controlled and soon will be autonomous.
In the future, average people will be able to buy or build small UAVs that can kill people or destroy things. (On a related note, technology will also make it easier to secretly build guns and bombs.)
Bodyguards
Rich people and government officials have bodyguards.
Wow, now this just opens up a HUGE can of worms, doesn’t it? It will be possible someday for average people to buy robots that can follow them around in public places and, on their own initiative or at their boss’ command, attack or kill other humans and machines. (I think it would be a good idea to pass laws that limit robots to being no faster or stronger than average humans and to prohibit machines from transporting weapons in public spaces.)
Advanced augmented reality glasses
Today, F-35 pilots wear $400,000 augmented reality helmet/visor units that overlay images from their planes’ sensors onto their field of vision. As a result, a pilot can look down at his lap and see a computer-generated image of the ground, derived from a camera mounted on the plane’s underside.
Augmented reality glasses that fill the wearer’s entire field of vision with real-time digital images will someday be available to average people. Google Glass failed in part because of the smallness of its projected screen and high price, and once those problems are inevitably remedied, the device category will see a renaissance.
Additionally, we can glimpse how we’ll live in the post-scarcity/UBI era by studying the few people in the present who already live like that, such as trust fund babies, lottery winners, and retired people who are in good health. My research has revealed a few common elements of their lifestyles and habits:
Frequent travel and vacationing
Richer people travel for pleasure more because they have the spare time and money for it.
If machines take over all human jobs in the future, then more people will have the free time to travel (work-related commutes and the agony they inflict will also vanish).
There are important caveats: 1) There will still be large differences in the quality of accommodations at vacation spots, so richer people will retain access to better hotels and experiences than average people subsisting on UBI. 2) If more people travel, then travel destinations will get more crowded, which will drive up prices in those place and make them less pleasant.
The problems could be overcome with full-immersion virtual reality (FIVR), which would let people “travel” to other places at a small fraction of the cost of physically visiting and renting a hotel. Virtual tourism might be better in other ways as well, such as not posing a risk of crime, harassment or disease that visitors commonly encounter in many parts of the world.
Pursuing passions and interests
There’s some truth to the stereotype of the trust fund baby who spends many years in college studying an unprofitable humanities subject, like film or art history. With their personal finances assured by their trust payouts, they’re free to study subjects that genuinely fascinate them, regardless of job prospects. Similarly, it’s common for older, wealthy business people to observe that wealth is usually self-perpetuating since the security of being rich allowed them to experiment with riskier investments that in turn paid off. The common thread is that, once people are freed from a hand-to-mouth existence and have a decent amount of money to play around with, they invest in themselves or in enterprises and causes that come to interest them.
Freed from drudgery and with a government-provided financial cushion, average people would pursue their passions and interests. For many, this would mean spending more time in various instructional settings trying to achieve mastery of skills or subjects, even if those things were obscure (e.g. – ancient Japanese samurai swordsmithing or innovations of the Mexican silent film era) and it was understood that mastery wouldn’t lead to a profitable career. For others, it would mean starting small businesses, nonprofits, and other organizations. Unfortunately, as is the case now, most of those enterprises would fail or only become modestly successful through great exertion, and many of the people who founded them would be crushed by the realization that their Big Idea wasn’t actually so great, or that they were not as talented, or that actually running the enterprise wasn’t as fun or as easy as they had assumed. And on an important but dour note, it must be acknowledged that many people are most passionate about unproductive things, like playing video games, having sex, or doing drugs. It’s common for rich people–particularly those born into wealth–to be idle and self-destructive, and so it can be assume that in a post-scarcity future world, many ordinary people would act the same.
Spending time with friends and family
People with money and no job commitments typically spend more time with their friends and family members. Additionally, most people rate those as the most enjoyable periods of their day.
In a post-scarcity, post-work future, I have no reason to believe that most people wouldn’t choose to hang out with their friends and family members more.
Acquiring and managing possessions and property
Bargain-hunting is a popular pastime among retired people, and trust fund babies will commonly spend large amounts of money impulsively, often on luxury goods and fickle things. Retired people also usually have immaculate lawns and houses because they have the time to care of and to organize the things they own.
The impulse to find and hoard valuable things is deeply rooted in the human psyche, and is satisfying to us as it accords with our hunter-gatherer nature. For better or worse, I think people will spend more time obtaining things, mostly through shopping, and maintaining them, in a post-scarcity future.
