I have doubts about the future. In these days when they've stopped teaching about government in the public schools -- so people no longer understand the three branches of US Government and some seem to buy into the fact that the Legislative branch is a rubber stamp for the Executive, we've got real problems.
When they no longer teach the basics of math (or, perhaps they try, but it's much easier to pull out a phone and do the math than it is to actually THINK), and when you go to a store and the clerk has to pull out a phone to figure how much change is due, or what two of an item should cost.
When people no longer have to write - instead, they use some crazy shortcuts to reduce the number of characters in a tweet or message --- we have a problem.
Where, in the past, education was sometimes used to actually TEACH important things, much of this seems to be gone.
In the future, there will be two top tiers - the handful of programmers and engineers who don't lose teir jobs to artificial intelligence (and the people who make the computer hardware and software that runs it), and the hands-on people who do what we used to call 'trades.' It'll be people who can unclog your toilets, fix your electricity, actually BUILD and REPAIR things.
The rest of us will probably be relegated a bit lower, with robotics and AI taking over tasks that we formerly did; with farming resources mechanized and challenged by the ravages of global warming; with little value given to writers and thinkers (or some value given to a small handful to drift to the top).
I doubt that the next 50 - or even 20 or 30 will be better for most of us.
Medical research will continue; medical advancements will continue; perhaps our lives will be extended so we can enjoy life on an increasingly declining planet, with a majority of stupid (undereducated) people in the majority.
