The Scariest Predictions That May Come True In The Next Decade

For better or worse, the future is never certain, and while there's plenty to get excited about in the next few years, there's a heck of a lot to be worried about, too. These are some of the scariest predictions that may come true in the next decade.

Today, the use of remotely piloted drones is widespread in warfare, and most of the world's most advanced militaries have their own fleets of unmanned aerial vehicles. But there is one bottleneck that these militaries are eager to remove: the human pilot. This is because humans require things like food and sleep, and can generally only control a single vehicle at a time. But this problem can be overcome by the use of LAWs, otherwise known as lethal autonomous weapons.

LAWs are similar to drones, but are completely piloted by AI and require no human intervention. The most terrifying thing about them, however, is the L in their name: Lethal. LAWs are authorized to kill without human oversight.

"It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop...ever."

On the surface, you can kinda see the argument for LAWs. Instead of sending humans to fight costly and bloody wars, international disputes would be solved by what are essentially fighting robot contests, with few humans hurt or killed in the process. Unfortunately, war isn't that simple. For one thing, once the enemy's robot army is destroyed, the humans would inevitably be next, and there's always going to be a strong likelihood of collateral damage. And then you've got the situations in which an army manned by LAWs comes up against an army that has none. Things aren't looking so ethical then, are they?

But by far the biggest problems with LAWs come from the many what-if scenarios that surround them. What if they get hacked? What if a bug in their programming causes them to attack the wrong targets? What if a rogue nation or terrorist group gets their hands on them? Scariest of all, what if an army of LAWs are programmed to commit genocide? And if any of these things did occur, would anyone be able to stop them? It doesn't seem likely.

People rely on satellites now more than ever. Even in an era when satellite television and other obvious uses of the tech are on the decline, there are hundreds of other ways you're using them even without you knowing it. GPS is a major example, but even basic communications systems often rely heavily on satellites. Without those helpful machines floating around in Earth's orbit, you'd suddenly lose a whole lot of stuff that you depend on every day of your life.

And here's the problem: new satellites are constantly being launched, but the old ones are slow to be decommissioned or otherwise cleaned up. This leads to a build up of what's known as orbital debris, and this is starting to become a big concern.

Remember the 2013 movie Gravity with Sandra Bullock? In that film, Bullock plays a NASA astronaut who is working on the Hubble Space Telescope when a missile strike on an old satellite causes an endless chain reaction of collisions. But this scenario wasn't made up for the film. It's a real thing, and it's known as Kessler Syndrome.

If this were to occur, it's possible that some debris might not burn up in the atmosphere before reaching Earth, causing widespread death and destruction when it finally crashes down. Even more alarming, however, is the possibility that the chain reaction might just keep going, making it practically impossible to launch new satellites, as anything new that is sent into space will inevitably collide with the debris that already exists there.

Keep watching the video to find out more of the scariest predictions that may come true in the next decade.

Killer Robots | 0:12
Space Collisions | 2:01
Hacked Homes | 3:20
Automation | 5:03
Surveillance States | 6:08
Custom Viruses | 7:32
The End Of Antibiotics | 8:42
Death Of The Internet | 10:08