One example I've heard where this will kill a lot of jobs is banking: banks currently need to spend a lot of money having humans parse and develop policy changes so that the bank can remain compliant with changing legislation. I haven't had direct experience, but I've been led to believe that LLMs are already starting to automate this kind of work, and early experiments have been successful.
Aside from banks, I suppose the general principle will apply to any kind of work where we currently need humans to comb through and curate a bunch of data, before regurgitating summaries of it. Historians, statisticians, librarians, accountants, lawyers, doctors and journalists come to mind. I don't claim all these fields will become obsolete per se, but I think we'll, at minimum, see them evolve into new forms.
For example, I'm having trouble imagining how a human applied statistician will be able to compete with a well-prompted LLM which is able to hook into external statistical compute engines when it needs to do some actual number crunching. It doesn't mean human statisticians will no longer exist, but we may see fewer applied statisticians in industry, and the remaining statisticians will earn their crust through either software development or writing about more theoretical approaches in academia. (Despite optimistic appraisals of LLMs, I don't think either software development or academic researchers will be made obsolete within 10 years.)
Aside from LLMs, to think about what technology will be obsolete in 10 years from now, it pays to look at what became obsolete in the last ten years, and why. What we overwhelmingly see is a trend where applications formerly handled by dedicated and/or analogue devices are being absorbed into web applications and smartphones, or equivalent smartphone-like technology in cars and home appliances. It stands to reason that, where it is possible to virtualize and digitize a task, it will happen soon if it hasn't happened yet.
This leads me to another prediction, that TVs will no longer ship with remote controls in 10 years, because TVs will expect you to control them with smartphones.
"I'm feeling lucky" will find its way back, somehow, as Google tries to one-up LLM-generated answers. Traditional Google Search is already increasingly aiming to supply as much info as possible—and It feels likely an increasing number of Google Search results will be Gemini neé Bard answers (same for Bing, with GPT).
Teaching an LLM to talk about your product will be the new SEO.
Which, should be bullish for Kagi and DuckDuckGo (not affiliated with or an active user of either), as the utility of real search is still so high if done well, something it's hard to shake the feeling that Google has gotten worse at. Perhaps it's time to take it for a serious spin.
* HDMI will be replaced by USB-C or some other multi-purpose standard.
* USB/Audio ports on handheld devices like smartphones.
* General purpose personal computing won't be obsolete, but it will become increasingly obscure.
* Screens will still be around, but I predict a some kind of push for augmented reality devices to take place of screens if devices like the Vision Pro take off.
Regular large TVs will be replaced by VR glasses more and more for everyday media consumption. It will be like putting on sunglasses. I'm guessing large TVs will combine computer monitor capabilities as we move towards this.
Subway or bus cards will disappear, replaced by phones or touchless entries.
Buying large desktop PCs for gaming or others will disappear instead of laptops (maybe). I feel like the way is like an online hosted gaming platform like Stadia (though I know it didn't pan out).
Big asian cities are already seeing iSwap battery stations for electric scooters | bikes, and the handyman market is rapidly turning electric.
Even laptops are at risk.
There will be a time when Mobile phones will be able to power multiple monitors and have the processing power of current desktop computers without their heat generation.
- Social media. We're already seeing a backlash towards it due to the effects it has on people's mental health, and I've noticed a large drop in usage from non celebrity/influencers too. Based on this, I suspect it going the same way as smoking; still used by some overly addicted people (and in this case, also those whose job depends on it), but perhaps shunned by much of society.
- Most internet forum scripts. On the other end, I also suspect the likes of vBulletin and Invision Power Board are probably on borrowed time. There's already been a depressing drop in forum usage and new communities of that type being opened, and I question how long these business models will be sustainable.
- Phone calls. Phones themselves are taking over the world, but less and less people are actually calling people on them. Given how much of a mess the system is for spam and scams, and how much other communication software has caught on, I kinda wonder how long we'll even call smartphones 'phones'.
- Television. At least in terms of 'normal' TV, now that streaming seems to be the main way younger people watch TV shows. I suspect a lot of this industry is going to collapse when the older generations start dying off, since many traditional channels and shows are mostly propped up by boomers and older in terms of demographics.
- Physical copies of video games and most other media. As someone who always prefers buying physical copies of everything, I hate this change with a passion. Alas, the numbers don't lie, and many people seem to have switched over to digital/download only/streaming media near entirely. Plus many stores (including major brands) have said they'll stop stocking them too, meaning that eventually it'll come down to whether companies want to distribute in this format solely so their work can be sold on Amazon and their own websites.