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As part of their 50th anniversary, New Scientist published 50-year forecasts from over 70 scientists.

A couple highlights (mostly cut-and-pasted shamelessly from the above link):

• Francis Collins: Genetic advances will allow entire generations of us to live happily into our hundreds
• Edward O. Wilson: The biggest leap in biogeography and conservation biology will be the near-complete mapping of global biodiversity at the species level
• J. Richard Gott: Establishing a self-supporting colony on Mars would change world history - it wouldn’t even be “world” history any more
• Michael Gazzaniga: The next 50 years will focus on the social mind, the fact that humans are social animals and that most of the time we think about relationships
• Niles Eldredge: The most significant breakthroughs will come in the form of retro-fitting existing advances in molecular and biology to a more integrated synthesis of evolutionary theory
• Igor Aleksander: A scientific understanding of consciousness will come from a recognition of the brain as an informational machine
• David Deutsch: On the experimental side, the construction of a working, general-purpose quantum computer is what this emminent physicist hopes for
• Ray Kurzweil: By 2029 we will create computers that pass the Turing test, with formidable results
• Christof Koch: Machine-brain interfaces will be realised by 2056
• Gregory Chaitin: By 2056, weird astronomical observations may have led to radical new fundamental physics, and people will be tampering with the human genome, which should be fun
• Piet Hut: The discovery of life elsewhere in the universe would be the most significant breakthrough, not only for astrophysics, but also for biology, philosophy and culture

Recognizing natural human evolution is likely over, Popular Mecanics is carrying a story on technological trends and advancements that will build better humans.

Update – New Scientist is running a similar article.

The Savvy Technologist recorded a podcast interview with Ray Kurzweil and notes:

One of his main points was that most people don’t appreciate the exponential nature of technological advancement. Most change appears linear in the near term, but the linear model breaks down once the timeframe gets out beyond a few years.

Link to the blog post.