Sci-FINE Predictions for 2054

In 2024, FINE turns 30.

It's a good time to look back with gratitude. To recap some of the 1000s of projects, 100s of clients and staff, and the countless changes in music, culture, politics, and (especially) technology since 1994.

What a ride! Now, how about the next 30?

If we asked that question in 1994, we’d never have known where we’d be now. And we’d be even more daft in 2024 to try and predict where we’ll be in 2054.

So here goes!

Unlike the last 30 years, this isn’t about tech. Today, we are asking what being human means, above and beyond tech. It can (and should) get downright sci-fi. What are humans here to do that our gods and machines cannot?

Maybe—hopefully–by 2054 we’ll find out:

FINE: Our Zooms feel face-to-face on the metaversal plane and we are paid solely in positive vibes (FYI, we ALREADY accept tips in this currency).

Food: Nutrition is automatic. Flavor’s for funsies, like music for your taste buds. (Bonus: it has the same calories as music, too.)

Fitness: Like food, need has been replaced by want. For instance, the huge market for 20th Century infomercial fads like Thighmaster and Shake Weight is solely for their ability to produce spasmodic laughter.

Water: Easily generated anywhere for anyone, cucumber and lime optional.

Creativity: Everything else is handled. So we’re connecting with each other in technicolor dreamstates and great waves of quantum entanglement, as though we just licked a South American frog, anytime we want.

Love: See Creativity. These two modes of connection are now our “jobs.”

Lifespans: Everyone lives to exactly the same age and is then uploaded (hey, heaven really is in the cloud) and we all chat often. Shout out to William Gibson’s Neuromancer!

AI: Until these “steam shovels of information age” came along we spent all day digging ditches out of data. That sucked. Playtime!

Income: Universal, mostly useless.

Internet: It’s still around here somewhere, we know we’ve seen it.

Space: We’ve got shortcuts across light years, because otherwise things are just too FAR.

Aliens: We’ve met intelligent life from other planets. Meanwhile, they’re still not convinced they can say the same.

Air: The return of gills is the highlight of a bunch of vestigial wins (FYI tonsils turn out to be KEY).

Health: We’ve got a molecule for everything that the ability to program your DNA doesn’t solve.

Energy: Never stops being hilarious to say “they had unlimited power blasting from the sky all day every day, but for centuries chose to burn dirty old dinosaur bones instead.”

Nations: It’s like that club day in college when they put out the folding tables and lure you into joining too many things, except now you can join France just because croissants, or Pakistan for the cricket, or you just thought it fun to say “I wanna Botswana” and now you’re a citizen.

Language: There’s an app for that and everyone’s got it installed in their heads.

War: If that’s your bag, go do it on Proxima Centauri b. Just 4.22 light years away, the “paintball arena” of the galaxy is a great place for humans who like to do historic reenactments and shoot things at each other like in barbaric times. Bring a heal kit, some pointy things, and an old civil war uniform. Don’t hurry back.

Smartphone: Is this what you meant by oxymoron?

Envy: No need.

This may sound like the rosy start of a Black Mirror episode that quickly goes dystopian. Fear SELLS (movies, canned goods, Cybertruks). But optimism WORKS.

Just like in 1994, in 2024 the most important thing we need is the belief that not only will good things happen, but that we’ll MAKE them happen—if we’ve learned anything, it’s that to run an agency you have to believe in AGENCY.

We don’t know what 2054 holds. But if this is your last chance to work with old-fashioned humans, it’s not because of some techpocalypse. It’s because for the next 30 years we’ll be busy evolving into the most human humans we can be.