Physics of the Future: How Science Will Shape Human Destiny and Our Daily Lives by the Year 2100

telling jokes, writing software, leadership, analysis, science, creativity—qualities that “make us human.”
    People in the arts will have jobs, since the Internet has an insatiable appetite for creative art. Computers are great at duplicating art and helping artists to embellish art, but they are miserable at originating new forms of it. Art that inspires, intrigues, evokes emotions, and thrills us is beyond the capability of a computer, because all these qualities involve common sense.
    Novelists, scriptwriters, and playwrights will have jobs, since they have to convey realistic scenes, human conflicts, and human triumphs and defeats. For computers, modeling human nature, which involves understanding motives and intentions, is beyond their capability. Computers are not good at determining what makes us cry or laugh, since they cannot cry or laugh on their own, or understand what is funny or sad.
    People involved in human relations, such as lawyers, will have jobs.
    Although a robolawyer can answer rudimentary questions about the law, the law itself is constantly changing, depending on shifting social standards and mores. Ultimately, the interpretation of the law boils down to a value judgment, where computers are deficient. If the law were cut-and-dried with clear-cut interpretations, there would be no need for courts, judges, and juries. A robot cannot replace a jury, since juries often represent the mores of a specific group, which are constantly shifting with time. This was most apparent when Supreme Court justice Potter Stewart once had to define pornography. He failed to do so, but concluded, “I know it when I see it.”
    Furthermore, it will probably be illegal for robots to replace the justice system, since our laws have enshrined a fundamental principle: that juries be made up of our peers. Since robots cannot be our peers, it will be illegal for them to replace the justice system.
    On the surface, laws may seem exacting and well-defined, with precise and rigorous wording and arcane-sounding titles and definitions. But this is only an appearance, since the interpretations of these definitions constantly shifts. The U.S. Constitution, for example, appears to be a well-defined document, yet the Supreme Court is constantly split down the middle on controversial questions. It is forever reinterpreting every wordand phrase in the Constitution. The changing nature of human values can be easily seen simply by looking at history. For example, the U.S. Supreme Court in 1857 ruled that slaves could never become citizens of the United States. In some sense, it took a civil war and the death of thousands to overturn that decision.
    Leadership will also be a prized commodity in the future. In part, leadership consists of sizing up all the available information, viewpoints, and options and then choosing the most appropriate one, consistent with certain goals. Leadership becomes especially complicated because it deals with inspiring and providing guidance to human workers, who have their own personal strengths and weaknesses. All these factors require a sophisticated understanding of human nature, market forces, etc., that is beyond the ability of any computer.
    FUTURE OF ENTERTAINMENT
    This also means that entire industries, such as entertainment, are undergoing a profound upheaval. For example, the music industry since time immemorial was based on individual musicians who went from town to town, making personal appearances. Entertainers were constantly on the road, setting up shop one day and then moving on to the next village. It was a hard life, with little financial reward. This age-old pattern changed abruptly when Thomas Edison invented the phonograph and forever changed the way we hear music. Suddenly, one singer could produce records sold by the millions and derive revenue on a previously unimaginable scale. Within a single generation, rock singers would become the nouveau riche of society. Rock stars, who might have been lowly waiters in a previous generation, became the venerated idols of youth society.
    But unfortunately, the music industry ignored the predictions of scientists who foresaw the day when music would be easily sent over the Internet, like e-mail. The music industry, instead of laying the groundwork for how to earn money selling online, instead tried to sue upstart companies that offered music at a fraction of the cost of a CD. This was like trying to sweep back the ocean. This neglect is