I open my eyes in the morning to my house speakers notifying me to wake up. My entire house has turned into a “smart house.” Everything is technology integrated and automatic, including our doors, our faucets, our AC system, and more. There are home settings in order to turn off the automaticness of the house to keep things manual, but no one really does that these days. No one cares enough.

I walk downstairs. My baby brother watches as I grab my phone off the counter. He isn’t old enough to use technology yet. The government outlawed device usage for children under the age of 13. Said instantaneous gratification messes with their time spans and rots their brains. Or something like that. Anyways, there are age restrictions now.

I walk down the street. I could have taken my car, but I want to get my exercise in. I watch as cars zoom past me. Automobiles are much more eco-friendly now. Scientists and engineers figured out a way to store and use solar power to start cars, and then utilize the kinetic energy from the momentum of the turning wheels to power them. Which is probably a good thing. My great-grandpa used to say that he hated the smell of gasoline.

I turn the corner and enter the public library. I’m not even sure why we have these around anymore since at least 98% percent of all written text has been uploaded into the Cloud. I could read any chapter by Socrates, Aristotle, or Plato instantly rather than having to browse through bookshelves. But libraries have a sort of comforting aspect to them, I guess. It’s like a way of reminding ourselves of our roots. Plus, I like attending class here.

I put on my VR glasses. Some people use contact lenses, and some people use goggles, but I prefer the glasses. (I don’t like touching my eyes, and the goggles feel too bulky.) I heard that they’re developing technology that can be surgically inserted inside your cornea so that you don’t even need to manually put on any of this stuff. Who knows though?

I turn my glasses on, and I’m instantly transported to school. VR schools are becoming more and more common. My great-grandparents would go on and on about how lucky we are to have these VR schools—that they would have been loads useful during something called the “Covid-19 Pandemic.” I don’t know what they’re talking about. 

My first class is history. My teacher reviews how humanity used to have humans as government leaders. I could not imagine. That sounds like a recipe for disaster. Nowadays, we have AI leading and making decisions for the good of humanity. Yeah, a bunch of people were mad at it. But at the end of the day, emotionless robots that lack greediness and are programmed to make the best decisions for humanity are better than a bunch lying, money-grabbing politicians. At least we can readily trust the AI. And our AIs are quite diplomatic and peaceful. There is a team of people who give “human advice” to the AI, but the AI ultimately make the final decisions.

I go to English class. We’re still reading the “classics,” such as Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and 1984 by George Orwell. I think 1984 is a little funny because of how morbidly it paints a fictional story about the future. I guess, technically to this book, we’re the future. And Orwell got it all wrong. He makes it sound like a world of technology would be detrimental to the human race, but it obviously isn’t.

During lunch, I eat with my regular friend group. There’s Alondra, my next door neighbor, Arlo, who lives in Europe, and Zenith, who’s from Mars. Oh yeah, we’ve successfully terraformed Mars. Children are even being born up there. And VR remote learning allows us to have class with anyone in the galaxy. Zenith hasn’t visited Earth yet, but they plan on going on a trip for their 16th birthday. 

After lunch, I go to science. The teacher informs us of how humans are now able to harness our energy. We’ve moved up in the Karshadev scale and are now a type II civilization. We’ve developed enough energy to harness energy from nearby stars using Dyson Spheres.

After school, I take off my VR glasses and go home. My mom arrives half an hour after me. She’s one of the VR teachers. There are so many teachers now that 95% of the world has access to education and remote learning. My dad works at an AI developmental technology office. I think he might be working on that VR eye technology that I mentioned earlier.

Overall, life is pretty good. I know that humanity has had a terrible history in the past, but I’m glad humans have survived this long.

I think that my vignette tangibly captures what I hope the future will look like. I think that we will overall advance in technology a lot. I think that people will realize how bad it is to raise kids on iPads and iPhones and instill some sort of restrictive law to protect the health of children. I think methods of education will evolve so that most of the world has access to it. I genuinely think that we will have VR classrooms someday. I think we will eventually have robot leaders who can be objective about their decisions. I don’t think that we’ll ever stop reading the classics and teaching them in classrooms. Mars will be terraformed, and children will be born up there. I also personally think that people wouldn’t even bat an eye at gender-neutral pronouns anymore. In terms of energy harnessing, we will be able to harness energy from nearby stars using Dyson Sphere technology or something similar. I think we’re currently at a 0.7 on the Karshadev scale, so if we move up to 2, then that means we’re much more advanced. In the future, there will be different jobs, but also evolved jobs. There may be a greater demand for teachers because of the VR remote learning and many more kids going to school. And there would still be scientists researching how to improve technology. But overall, I do think that humanity’s future will turn out well.