Predicting developments in technology over the next 10 years (thread)...

I foresee software development becoming quite commonplace for young people, who grew up in the past decade where computing was mainstream, where dev tools have been relatively accessible, and software frameworks abundant. /2

I think the quantity over quality approach to software in the 2010s will give way to a culture of increasing personalisation, as new AI assisted development tools become available, and make software development more accessible to the masses. /3

I think there could be this new approach with "trainable algorithms", where programming becomes a process of guiding an AI, which works out what you really want the algorithm to do and restructures itself to match your will. Anyone could work with dev tools like that. /4

People don't care about details - what goes on under the hood. They only care if the output corresponds correctly with the input. /5

I think televisions will start to support video conferencing by default, and make landlines increasingly obsolete. I think the desktop PC and television will begin to overlap in functionality, and eventually merge. /6

Television and desktop PC merging will lay a foundation stone for "mainstream" e-sports. Because I foresee e-sports becoming more accessible to the mainstream (which it currently isn't) /7

We will see mainstream e-sports emerge which everyone can relate to, and crucially viewers could also be players. Any spectator can compete in the 2030 world championships, become a minor celebrity in their region, and then maybe win the whole thing? /8

The excitement of being on that world stage, with the massive prize funds, could tempt every viewer to jump in. More exciting than buying lottery tickets. /9

The natural evolution with humans is from a Golden Age with a large numbers of small groups, to a Next Generation with just a handful of goliaths. There are social forces which consolidate attention in all things. /10

Consider how humans have come to gather around a few political parties. Or how the myriad ball kicking games became displaced by soccer. Or how the many thousands of online forums gave way to facebook/twitter/instagram. /11

Gaming/esports has not yet experienced this consolidation phase, where world attention becomes focused onto a handful of massive titles, each accessible enough to have mainstream appeal, like soccer. I think this decade will be the dawn of that new era. /12