In his book Homo Deus, Israeli history professor  Yuval Harari explores the future in the context of the past.  His ideas prompted some interesting thoughts.

This post builds on some of the ideas in the book however, it is neither a summary or a review of the book, if you are interested you will need to read it if you have not already.

History as a Train

Consider historical human progress as a freight train moving ahead with increasing speed.  Occassionally progress is derailed but over the long term it steams ahead.

As a passenger on the train you can get off (this can be an orderly departure or a more forced one) or you can stay on for the ride accept and adapt to the changing environment as human kinds train forges ahead.

Going Faster

Intuitively, as humans capabilities progress, past advances feed future ones and the speed of progress is exponential rather than linear. 

That is, the pace and magnitude of change is probably measured in days and months versus the centuries, decades and years progress required in the past eons.

This increasing pace makes it harder to get off the train without consequence (although many still do) and it make it harder for those that stay on the train to adapt.

Artificial Intelligence

The near future holds major changes for all of us as artificial intelligence is leveraged to enhance human capabilities.

Human endeavors will change drastically as more autimation is employed and those of us staying on the train will be part of significant change.

The rest will be left behind.