We're about to be living in the future, people -- specifically, the campy future of "Back to the Future Part II," partially set in October 2015, which is 30 years out from the universe of 1985 Hill Valley from which Marty McFly hails.
The movie actually gets quite a bit of today's technology right.
Flying cars, hoverboards and Google Glass-like headsets aren't ubiquitous like they are in the movie, but they are very real, which leads me to wonder what advances would be included in another sequel set another three decades forward...in 2045.
Famously, 2045 is the year futurist Ray Kurzweil predicts we will achieve technological singularity, or the point at which artificial intelligence is smart enough to begin improving itself without the need for human help or supervision. The singularity, if it comes to pass, could arguably be so transformative it becomes difficult to even attempt to predict its implications. So it's convenient that this little thought experiment is only trying to predict what life will be like leading right up to that point but not beyond it.
In addition to knocking on the door of an AI revolution, by 2045 we should have a much better idea which distant planets might eventually be worth a visit based on the likelihood that they host life. I wouldn't bet that we'll yet have anything like a warp drive or other means of interstellar travel up and running by 2045, but if the recently started efforts to cure "aging" have begun to bear any fruit by that point, we may be ready to start looking for volunteers to undertake decades-long voyages ofexploration beyond our solar system.
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