[Newsmaker] Living in a whole new world: a snippet of daily life in 2030 Seoul

Living in the fast-forward era, yesterday quickly seems blurry and outdated while tomorrow looks unreal and overwhelming.

With the evolution of technologies at full tilt, the new world, according to today’s predictions, would change or deprive us of our labor values and cost us never-ending consumption, yet provide us with great efficiency and even groundbreaking revolution of human kind.

The future could be a dystopia of man-eat-man world trounced by the artificial intelligence, or a utopia of a co-prospering space with technologies making famine, epidemics and war obsolete as preluded by Yuval Noah Harari in Homo Deus. One thing certain is that the present continues to hold the key to which direction to head, and to stay grounded as to what next quest we humans should, or should not, take on.

With little intention of challenging the impossible task of predicting the future, The Korea Herald’s Business Desk has compiled data, plans and imaginations from tech-related industries to roughly draw what an average day in Seoul would be like in the year 2030, a not-so-distant, yet a whole new, tomorrow.

Main characters and situations described below are fictional. 

[Home]

Main characters: Retired couple in their 60s, Lee Sang-won and Kim Seong-ah

At 6 o’clock on a summer day, as the couple wake up and get out of bed, LG Electronics’ artificial intelligence-based WHISEN detects their movement and automatically turns off. The AC, first introduced in 2017, is now not only able to have natural conversations with users, but also automatically adjust indoor temperatures and wind strength and direction at users’ needs without verbal commands.

After they wake up, a transparent mirror-like display on a wall in the living room shows all the data that was collected by several tens of Internet of Things items at home, which include the couple’s daily life patterns, health conditions and special occasions.

Today’s schedule: clean up the house.

This is not a luxurious mansion seen only in movies. Today in 2030, there are about several million smart home households where most home appliances are connected with each other, remotely controlled by a ubiquitous hub device, AI, and home robots that are able to converse with people.

In 2016 a report by the National Information Society Agency predicted that Korea’s smart home market is expected to grow at a rate of about 22 percent and expand from 15 trillion won ($13.2 billion) in 2017 to 23.4 trillion won in just two years. The report also found that the number of internet-connected devices is expected to surge from 34.9 billion in 2017 to 53 billion in 2020, and continue to rise.

Lee talks to Hommie, a robot assistant.

“Good morning, Hommie. I think we need your help for the cleanup today,” Lee says.

“No worries, Mr. Lee. You’ve got to go to gym while I clean up,” Hommie said through a circular display screen with a smiley face. The Hommie is a voice-activated stand-type robot that is as tall as a man’s waist. It is connected with all IoT devices and appliances and can control them.

According to Zhang Byoung-tak, professor of computer science at Seoul National University in 2017, home robots in 2030 would be able to express emotions like a child while having professional knowledge to a 30-year-old man’s level, enabling it to provide users with information and knowledge using big data and cloud.

During the gym workout in their apartment, Kim Seong-ah often monitors the cleanup process at home through her smartphone. When she finds the vacuum cleaner has stopped due to an abrupt error, she restarts the appliance via her mobile device.

According to a report by the National Information Society Agency, smart homes have gone through four stages of development. In 2030, the fourth stage, home appliances and IoT devices at home are not only remotely controllable but also can operate on their own, detect errors themselves, and cooperate with other devices.

Kang Mi-dub, researcher at LG Economic Research Institute, has predicted, the year 2030 would have gotten much closer to a super connectivity era, in which all objects run on power would be connected.

“Even water taps and lighting switches would be connected, and these utilities would provide automatic services to residents by understanding their needs from big data.”

The couple arrive back home and Kim readies breakfast, asking the Samsung Family Hub refrigerator’s latest version: “What do we have for breakfast?”

A screen on the upper right front door of the fridge shows ingredients inside and the voice-activated food manager Bixby, which as envisioned by Rhee In-jong, vice president at Samsung, to have a fundamentally different level of understanding of context and comprehension, suggests seaweed soup and eggs for breakfast. It also notes kimchi is out of stock and asks Kim if she wants to order some more.

Cracking the eggs, however, is dexterously handled by Kim herself.

[Work]

Main character: Kim Woo-hyoung, a 41-year-old manager of Samsung Electronics AI operating team, former financing position overtaken by AI

At 6:52 a.m. on a Monday morning, Kim Woo-hyoung wakes up in his electro-cooled apartment in the far eastern suburb of Seoul.

Starting off an early day, Kim has a system maintenance review meeting coming up at 7:00 a.m.

He turns on the home office mode, while activating the quick air shower function and raising the indoor oxygen percentage to shake off the sleep.

Waiting for an extensive set of three-dimensional weekly data to unroll on a display screen, Kim recalls the early years of his career, after joining the company as a financial officer.

Kim had majored in business accounting and achieved a master’s degree in statistics in 2017, incredulous at the time that he was choosing a career path soon to be taken over by AI.

He recalls snubbing a report by the World Economic Forum announced in 2015 that 65 percent of primary school students would end up working in jobs that don’t even exist.

Kim soon gains access to the central system by having an automatic retina scan to receive his weekly report to a supervising board member -- Skirlla, the AI in charge of Samsung’s fiscal affairs since 2026, as was predicted by the WEF’s Global Agenda Council in 2015 that 30 percent of all corporate audits began to be performed by AI.

Since the appearance of AI units as independent members of corporate leadership, the role of human workers has swiftly diverted from technology development to technology maintenance.

Document writing or typing died out as voice recordings automatically turned into written form, and written documents instantly converted into audio or video files. Computational processes have become unnecessary as AI performs the function in a speed and accuracy far beyond human capacity.

To Kim’s delight, today happens to be payday, a timeless source of joy for employees.

Kim logs into his fiscal records to find his monthly salary has been deposited -- half of it in internationally circulated digital fiscal units (DFU) and the other half in ethereum, a blockchain-based cryptocurrency, as is stated in his contract renewed every six months.

“With some 10,000 extra DFUs, I may even afford a maha jet taxi membership and move to a premium villa in the Seorak ravines,” Kim thinks to himself.

[Shopping]

Main character: Park Jun-ho in his 30s, divorced with a 5-year-old daughter and a mid-range income

Park Jun-ho gets out of his auto-pilot car and walks into the glitzy children‘s department store to shop for his daughter’s fifth birthday. It will be their first weekend together in two weeks. As he walks through the front gate, a scanner automatically scans his irises to pull up his customer information.

Park had already entered his shopping plans through his phone while driving over: find a birthday gift for a girl at between 200,000 and 300,000 won, and her size information.

The department store‘s system sends a virtual map to his phone, highlighting the stores where he can find recommended items.

Park passes the floors dedicated to children’s furniture and electronics and heads for the apparel floor. In no time he finds the recommended dress by holding up the dress to the mirror, which identifies the item and displays information about it.

According to the mirror, the dress is made of cotton and lace, is priced at 220,000 won, and is the right size for his daughter. Park waves his hand in front of the mirror to scroll through the online reviews of the dress. “Perfect for summer,” one person wrote. “Light, and great for parties,” wrote another.

Park takes the dress and wanders through the rest of the department store. He decides to get his daughter another robot puppy and a new canopy for her bed. Back at the front gate, he drops all of the items into a box and walks out. The iris scanner automatically charges his purchases to his pre-registered credit card and ships the box to his home address via a drone.

Park is exhausted. It has been a while since he had been to an offline shopping mall.

In 2017, Credit Suisse estimated that in 2030 online shopping will take up 35 percent of all shopping, with offline stores being unable to sustain business.

In Korea, that proportion is much higher. People rarely take the time to go out to shop, because everyone has a virtual reality shopping system at home.

As McKinsey had predicted in 2015, in 2030 people instead go to virtual retail worlds that “use augmented reality to give customers the experience of walking down a store aisle, or personalization engines that link to real-time biometric data to recommend meals with optimal nutritional content.”

Offline shopping centers that remain are usually themed malls that focus on children‘s items, pet supplies or products for seniors that combine shopping with entertainment facilities.

On his way home, Park sees a bicycle parked on the side of the street that he likes. He points his phone to it, and his phone finds the product online. Within seconds, Park is able to buy the bike and have it shipped to him the next day.

Park comes home and drinks tea that has been brewed upon his direction as he awaits his purchases to arrive. He accidentally drops the cup and shatters it, which his robot cleaner immediately sweeps away. He flips on the 3-D printer in his kitchen and selects the same cup from the database. He pushes “Print” on the screen and the cup begins printing. Park tells himself he won’t make another department store trip for at least another three months.

[Healthcare]

Main character: Kim Min-sung, a 35-year-old tech developer at an IT company living with his 85-year-old mother in Suwon

Lately, Kim Min-sung has been concerned about his mother who insists she’s okay on her own despite having had two tumors removed from her lungs a week ago.

Getting out of bed, Kim reaches out for his newly-purchased Samsung tablet, when he feels a sharp pain in his wrist. Groaning, he twists it left and right, thinking “that slide during last night’s company basketball match must’ve been rough.”

“Bixby, log into the National Health Insurance Service system,” he says. His tablet lights up with the portal open. Grabbing the device, Kim searches for “wrist injury.” The system asks a few questions, including “is there any swelling, bruising or tenderness around the injured area?” and “rate the intensity of the pain.”

Within seconds, the app processes Kim’s compiled health records, including any previous fractures and muscle damage, and combines it with Kim’s responses. It suggests a low possibility of a fracture, but still recommends he gets an X-ray exam to check for potential cracks in the bone.

Skipping the “live chat with an ER personnel” option, Kim scrolls through the list of orthopedic clinics in his neighborhood listed by availability and patient ranking. With a few clicks, he makes a reservation for 8 p.m. at a clinic offering late-hour services.

As Kim is about to take a shower, his smartwatch buzzes with a red alert labeled “check on mother.” Alarmed, he turns to the smart home monitor attached on his fridge.

The sensors installed in his mother’s living quarters suggest she has neither opened the fridge nor taken her morning medication today. Data from health wearables show that Kim’s mother has a faster-than-average heart rate, low blood pressure, as well as a fever and a cough that has continued since last night.

In 2016, global market research firm Research and Markets predicted in its Smart Wearables in Healthcare 2016-2030 report that the overall market for smart wearables within the healthcare industry will grow at an annualized rate of 13.6 percent until 2030, with relatively higher growth expected for novel wearables under the monitoring and diagnostics therapy segments.

Based on the data and health records saved on a cloud, a computer algorithm calculates that there is a greater than 80 percent chance that Kim’s mother has pneumonia and possibly pharyngitis. She should immediately be taken to the hospital.

Kim authorizes the system to arrange for an ambulance to be sent to his mother’s house. The emergency room has been alerted of his mother’s condition and health records. The same data has also been added to a cloud shared with her physician and visiting nurse.

“With the widespread introduction and seamless coordination of digital apps and connected devices, the healthcare industry is set to be transformed from a reactionary system to one that is proactively centered on the patient and driven by data,” the 2016 World Economic Forum White Paper on the digital transformation of healthcare had said.

“Digital healthcare has the potential to bring about not just small improvements in efficiency, but a step change in the productivity of the healthcare industry along with a significant impact on health outcomes,” added the WEF White Paper.

Kim cannot wait for the day they commercialize nanotechnology to find and kill cancerous cells.

[Transport]

Main character: Cho Won-sun, a 20-year-old student who commutes from Busan to a college in Seoul

After her birthday party on the weekend, Cho wakes up late on Monday morning, just an hour before her class starts at 10:30 a.m. But she has nothing to worry about.

While brushing her teeth, she touches buttons on the smart mirror set on the wall and tells artificial intelligence to find the best way to get into her class on time. The mirror shows, “estimated arrival time: 58 minutes” and asks if she wants to take transportations as it has recommended. Without hesitation, Cho says, “yes.” “Reservation, completed,” the AI responds. In three minutes, her smartphone rings that a self-driving taxi has arrived.

At 9:35 a.m., she gets into her cab and checks which hypertube train she has to take. Cho’s taxi enters an augmented highway where multiple roads are layered to cover heavy traffics.

The electric vehicle has 20 percent of energy remaining, but as it cruises down the road embedded with a power charger, it now has 50 percent in energy.

At 9:45 a.m., the taxi arrives at the station that links to the hypertube platform launched in January in 2030. The taxi then automatically parks itself at a parking lot, where it can fully charge its battery for the next customers.

South Korea’s hypertube train was developed by a consortium of academia, business and the government since 2016, led by Korea Railroad Research Institute. It took nine years to complete the initial development of the hypertube with 24 billion won for project cost, as was predicted by Lee Gwan-seop, leader of hypertube R&D team at KRRI.

The nation’s fastest transportation now links Seoul and Busan in 20 minutes, at speed of around 1,200 kilometers per hour. At 9:55 a.m. Cho takes a bus-sized pod that flies down a near-vacuum tunnel. Traveling at supersonic speed, Cho, however, doesn‘t feel much gravity created by the speed as the pod slides through the tunnel.

At 10:15 a.m. the tube stops at the underground transportation center in Samseong-dong, southern Seoul, and takes a taxi already waiting for her on the third floor underground.

The center, dubbed as “the giant underground city,” is 160,000 square-meter in size, which has six regional trains, including the hypertube, connecting the southern district of the capital to cities around the country. It also has the nation’s largest underground shopping mall center on the first and second floor underground, just underneath the Yeoungdong Boulevard which has been turned into South Korea’s largest public square.

At 10:28 a.m. the taxi drops her off at her school. At 10:32 a.m., Cho sits on her desk, but successfully answers to a professor calling attendance.

By the Business Desk staff

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