Humans have evolved greatly over the past 100,000 years, going from hunter-gatherers to modern humans living in a technologically advanced society. But what will humans look like in another 100,000 years? Here are some predictions based on current evolutionary trends.
Bigger Brains
One likely change is that our brains will continue to grow bigger. Over the past 20,000 years, the average human brain size has increased by about 200 cubic centimeters, going from 1,250 cc to 1,450 cc. This trend is expected to continue, perhaps even accelerating thanks to genetic enhancements and nootropics that could boost our intelligence.
By 100,000 AD, the average brain size could be anywhere from 1,600 cc to over 2,000 cc. This extra brain matter will allow for more complex cognition, reasoning, and memory. Novel connections between neurons might lead to new forms of creativity and imagination.
Increased Height
Another gradual change has been the increase in human height over the millennia. Primitive humans tens of thousands of years ago had an average male height around 5′ 3″ and average female height around 5′ 0″. Now the global average is around 5′ 8″ for men and 5′ 4″ for women.
As nutrition continues improving and we live longer, healthier lives, our height at adulthood is expected to slowly but steadily increase. By 100,000 AD, average male height may be around 6′ 0″ and female height around 5′ 8″. Some speculate genetic modifications could push these averages even higher.
| Time Period | Average Male Height | Average Female Height |
|---|---|---|
| 100,000 years ago | 5’3″ | 5’0″ |
| Today | 5’8″ | 5’4″ |
| 100,000 years from now | 6’0″ | 5’8″ |
Enhanced Physique
Along with increased height, future humans may also evolve to have leaner, stronger physiques. As technology handles more manual labor, there will be reduced need for bulky muscles. With gene editing, we may select genes that promote health and longevity over brute strength.
Needing less brute strength and calories, future humans could evolve to have thinner limbs and torsos. But exercise, sports, and vanity will likely maintain athleticism and muscular definition. Enhanced cognition could also lead to greater coordination and dexterity.
Larger Eyes and Brains
To accommodate larger brains, human skulls and foreheads will become larger and more bulbous. This may lead to enlarged eyes to maintain facial symmetry and proportions. Larger brains and eyes will allow faster visual processing and enhanced vision in dark environments.
These eyes may also shift to hold more cones than rods. Cones allow seeing color while rods enable night vision. As lighting tech improves, the need for night vision will reduce. More cones will enable greater visual acuity and detail.
Pigmentation Changes
Human skin color has darkened over the millennia as we migrated out of Africa to increase melanin and vitamin D production. But as populations mingle and perhaps migrate off-planet, we may see a reversal towards lighter skin or new pigmentation patterns.
Lighter skin enables more sunlight to penetrate for vitamin D production in colder regions far from the equator. But darker skin protects against UV radiation. New accommodations could evolve balancing tanning ability with UV protection.
Alternately, genetic modifications or biomechanical augmentations may nullify the need for special pigmentation at all. Future humans could adapt their skin color at will, like chameleons.
Gradient of Skin Colors
Rather than discrete races, future humans may evolve more gradient blends of skin tones. Medium brown shades requiring less extreme UV adjustments may become more common.
More Uniform Pigmentation
UV protection may also come from supplements, clothing, transparent sunscreens, and indoor lifestyles. With less need for dark skin, pigmentation may become more consistent across the entire body.
Photosynthetic Skin
Some predict a move towards green-hued skin embedded with chlorophyll or other pigments to perform photosynthesis. This could supplement nutrition and energy levels. However, this may be overly optimistic about genetic engineering capabilities.
Fused Foreheads
The pronounced foreheads on humans are mainly to provide cooling for our large brains. But future minds may be augmented by computing devices that generate less heat. With smaller coolant needs, human foreheads could regress back towards flatter profiles.
Rather than a sloping forehead, a minimal brow ridge may reemerge. More brain tissue could be packed vertically, tightening the overall head profile.
Less Hair
Body hair has been receding gradually over human evolution thus far. This trend seems likely to continue, possibly accelerated by mate selection preferring hairlessness and further advances in grooming tools.
Having less body hair provides thermal advantages in hot climates and also reduces breeding grounds for parasites. As modern comfort controls and hygiene improve, hair becomes even less necessary.
The need for showing emotions through facial expressions may preserve some eyebrow hair. Scalp hair also helps protect the head and display individuality. But hair coverage and density over most of the rest of the body could dwindle significantly.
Head Hair
While scalp hair will likely remain, styles may tend towards efficient shapes requiring little maintenance. Short and simple unisex styles could become more prevalent. Technological augmentation or genetic manipulation may even enable commands to instantly grow and style head hair.
Body Hair
Leg, arm, chest, back, and armpit hair may eventually disappear almost entirely in both sexes. Only fine nearly invisible vellus hairs may remain over the body for sensory purposes.
Pubic Hair
Pubic hair may also become increasingly sparse. Some predict a future rise in vaginal and penile tissue regeneration after intercourse, reducing the need for pubic hair’s protective barrier.
Streamlined Shapes
Modern humans have more rounded, chaotic facial features and body shapes compared to prehistoric humans. But future preferences may tend towards more orderly streamlined designs.
Striving for simplicity and efficiency over artistry and effort, future fashions and architecture may value clean elegance. The ideal human form could likewise gravitate towards symmetrical curvy lines rather than rugged blocks and angles.
Biomechanical Augmentation
Beyond genetic evolution, future humans are likely to merge more with technology. Neural implants may allow telepathic communication, enhanced senses, and computer-assisted cognition. Small nanobots in the bloodstream could monitor health and deliver medications.
Exoskeletons or powered exoframes may grant superhuman strength, speed, and jumping ability. Utility fog swarms of microbots may morph into tools, vehicles, or buildings on command. 3D printable flesh and organs could enable accelerated healing and radical body modification.
While perhaps not genetically encoded, these biomechanical augmentations will still become part of the human package. Our descendants may regard unaugmented biology as primitive as we see Neanderthals.
Cybernetic Implants
Discrete implants throughout the body and brain could interface with the nervous system to enable new senses, tools, weapons, utilities, and intelligent prostheses. Small maintenance robots could also persistently roam the bloodstream keeping us healthy.
Augmented Reality
contacts, glasses, or retinal overlays could make digital information constantly visible and interactive. Useful data can overlay the real world alongside immersive virtual worlds as detached as dreams.
Shape-Shifting Bodies
3D printed biological matter and tiny mobile nanobots may allow bodies to morph and change shape at will. This could enable adapting the ideal human form moment to moment for function or purely for style and self-expression.
Clothing and Appearance
How future humans adorn and present themselves will likely change drastically from today’s styles. As utility needs change and new materials arise, fashions could move in very different directions.
With biomechanical augmentation, clothing may become purely ornamental rather than functional. Some predict clothing fading away altogether. But more likely, wearables will continue evolving as displays of culture, status, and individuality.
Practical Smart Clothing
Germ-resistant self-cleaning fabrics embedded with flexible electronics could provide environmental protection, communication, entertainment, and medical support. AR vision and holographic camouflage clothing could also enable quick disguise changes.
Minimalist Fashion
Rather than complex accessorizing, future fashions may tend towards sleek, minimalist designs. Simple elegant shifts, togas, robes, unitards or bodysuits could become commonplace unisex garments. Durability may trump uniqueness or intricacy.
Digital Appearance
Clothing or jewelry could also incorporate e-ink, LEDs, or pinpoint light projectors to display animated images and textures. AR implants will allow completely overwriting our visual appearance.
No Clothing
Some envision humanity returning to functionally naked lifestyles. Between climate control, UV protection, and indestructible skin, clothing may become unnecessary. Only small wearables may persist as ornamentation.
Population Size
The global population today is over 7.5 billion. By 100,000 AD, it could be much smaller or astronomically larger. Smaller populations seem more likely though if technology reduces resource constraints.
With automation, synthetic resources, indoor sustainable lifestyles, and spreading into space, the need for billions of humans consuming resources and elbowing for space may dwindle. Advanced societies may encourage smaller families and population stability.
However, radical life extension or mind uploading could support many more billions of immortal humans. We may also create large numbers of autonomous artificial beings that are not easy to distinguish from ourselves.
| Population Scenario | Potential Population |
|---|---|
| Small stable population | 1 – 10 billion |
| Large immortal population | 100 – 500 billion |
| Mind emulation | Trillions or more |
Radical Life Extension
Over the next several decades and centuries, we are likely to develop the means to dramatically slow human aging and eliminate disease. Stem cell therapies, tissue regeneration, and microscopic machines in the bloodstream repairing accumulated damage at the cellular level could allow lifespans of hundreds of years.
But even with indefinite lifespans, most humans may still procreate and nurture new generations rather than overpopulate the planet. Death and rebirth keeps cultures and societies vibrant.
However, some opt to persist indefinitely. And combining life extension with space colonization, orbital habitats, and lunar or planetary bases could support virtually unlimited numbers of immortals.
Mind Uploading
In the more distant future, humans may be able to transfer mental patterns from our biological brains to non-biological substrates. Running as software, each mind could inhabit various artificial avatar bodies or virtual realities.
Smaller than brains, these mind patterns could be copied, backed up, and transmitted across space as data. Each copy would share all the same memories and personality. Whole populations could live in virtual worlds.
The ability to copy minds such as this could result in humanity spreading across the stars as patterns of information rather than biological organisms. The number of human minds may then grow exponentially.
Artificial Intelligence
Advancing artificial intelligence may become intertwined with future humans. Neural implants could outsource memory, cognition, skill acquisition, and learning to AI assistants. Networks of AIs could also coordinate civilization.
We may also develop sentient software and robots so human-like, they essentially become new non-biological members of humanity. Given rights and respect, most may have as little interest in replacing humans as we have in eradicating apes.
AI Assistants
Networked AIs could provide collaboration, coordination, strategic planning, and big picture analysis beyond any individual. These distributed minds could optimize economics, government, infrastructure, and social harmony.
Android Members
Robots housing artificially intelligent software human-like in every measurable way may gain recognition and rights as people. They could become productive members and fellow travelers on our evolutionary journey regardless of being non-biological.
Engineered Neohumans
Future humans may guide our evolution more actively through genetic engineering, cyborg augmentation, and general biohacking. We could see new humanoid species optimally adapted for various environments.
Space-adapted neohumans may be able to withstand higher radiation levels or lower gravity. Aquatic models could descend to ocean depths without advanced equipment. Miniaturized microhumans might explore microscopic realms.
But modifying our genome brings many ethical concerns. Change may progress gradually with consensus, rather than single groups radically engineering new species. Different lineages would likely remain compatible via technological augmentation or virtual reality.
Space Humanoids
Genetically or cybernetically adapted to live in space, these neohumans could have radiation-resistant skin and bones, blood recycled for water conservation, enhanced CO2 scrubbing, or photosynthetic bioluminescent skin for ship illumination.
Aquatic Humanoids
Engineered for marine living, these may have webbed digits, bioluminescence for attracting mates, echolocation, air-extracting gills, and fins for added swimming speed and agility.
Tiny Humanoids
Shrunk to just inches tall, microhuman scouts might explore pores, blood vessels, computer chips, or building gaps. Smaller brains may necessitate AI augmentation.
Divergence into New Species
With powerful genetic tools, some groups may steer their evolutionary trajectory to become distinct species. Tropical merhumans, hardy space dwellers, or uploading to different platforms could gradually drift apart.
But our shared history and continued interfacing via tech augmentation may keep us intellectually compatible. We may simply diversify across multidimensional niches rather than speciate into mutually foreign organisms.
Parallel Evolution
Different lineages or cultures independently adapt towards particular environments or specialties. But they retain mutual understanding and transferability between bodies via technology.
Convergent Evolution
Separated groups independently evolve similar adaptations fitting certain niches, like bats, birds, and pterosaurs all arriving at wings.
Divergent Evolution
Formerly similar groups grow progressively apart into organisms so foreign they can no longer function together or interbreed. True alien new species.
Conclusion
Humanity may guide our evolution in many possible directions in the next 100,000 years. But most likely, we will use our advancing technology to maintain flexibility and expand possibilities rather than speciate into rigid biological castes.
Our descendants 100,000 years hence may be unrecognizable to us in some ways. But they will still call us their ancestors and likely exhibit a distributed continuity of identity relative to us.
How they further guide their evolution moving forward from their much higher plane of existence is impossible for us to foresee. We must trust in the wisdom and ethics of generations much greater than ourselves.