Have you been in business long enough to recall when you began using computers? Remember the first portable telephones and their evolution to become today’s sophisticated smartphones?

When smarter, more efficient ways of doing business came along, we all adapted, some of us more readily than others.

Well, get ready for some more technological change. Actually, change isn’t the best word for it. Rather, exponential technologies will disrupt virtually every aspect of the human race, and that, of course, includes big changes for financial advisors.

Yes, the advisory world is about to undergo an unprecedented makeover, whether we’re ready for it or not.

And the future I’m referring to isn’t a distant one. I’m talking about the next three to 10 years—not two to three decades from now. If that shocks you, well, it shocked me, too, when I first realized this.

My interest began several years ago, after I interviewed Ray Kurzweil on my weekly television show. Ray is one of the most acclaimed futurists in the world—inventor of, among other things, the first CCD flatbed scanner, the first optical character reader, the first print-to-speech reading machine for the blind, the first commercial text-to-speech synthesizer and a revolutionary music synthesizer (Stevie Wonder bought one of the first ones). He’s on the faculty at Harvard, the recipient of 20 honorary doctorates, and he’s now Google’s director of engineering.

Kurzweil has written extensively on singularity—the point in time when artificial intelligence will be indistinguishable from biological intelligence—and he co-founded Singularity University. (Disclosure: I graduated from its executive program in 2012 and later became a guest lecturer and investor in the accredited school.)

Kurzweil and others believe personal computers will become as fast as the human brain within five years. Software will emulate human intelligence within 10 years, and singularity will be achieved within 15. Even if these predictions are off by a factor of a million, many experts say, singularity will be delayed only 15 years.

How might we have to adjust the advice we give to clients and alter our business models?
 

To fully grasp the magnitude of the changes that are coming, consider this example: It is unlikely that children under the age of 5 will ever drive a car. The reason: the advent of self-driving automobiles. Such cars now exist. Google’s test vehicles have cumulatively driven nearly 1 million miles with no accidents, and they are legal for street use in five states. They’re already permitted on every major highway in the United Kingdom. Self-driving cars means you’ll never park a car again, run errands, fuel up or shuttle kids to soccer practice. Your car will do all that for you. But what happens to taxi drivers? Forget Uber. Just as DVDs wiped out videocassettes, only to themselves be crushed by Netflix, self-driving cars will cause Uber—currently accused of threatening the livelihoods of cabbies—to itself become extinct.

Not only will taxi drivers be gone, so too will truck drivers. And truck stops. With no human drivers making long-haul trips, no greasy-spoon joints will be needed. Also out of work: parking-meter readers, tollbooth operators, parking garage attendants and restaurant/hotel valets. While you’re at it, say goodbye to chiropractors; no more auto accidents means far fewer back injuries—a major source of work for them.

In fact, say goodbye to the entire “crash economy.” Hospital emergency rooms will have far fewer patients (also fewer transplantable organs, since car-crash victims are a major harvesting source); the entire automobile insurance industry might disappear; and muni bonds are at risk when thousands of counties suffer massive declines in revenue because police officers can’t issue citations for traffic violations anymore (speeding tickets alone generate $6.2 billion in annual revenue for local governments, according to the National Highway Safety Administration).

How many millions of people will be thrown out of work because of this one innovation? And whom do you sue when something goes wrong, the manufacturer of the vehicle or the person who owns it?

One more question: What advice do you plan to give to your clients who are faced with unemployment after the careers they trained for and worked in for decades are eliminated by exponential technologies? If you don’t have an answer, they’ll hire an advisor who does.

Lest you think nothing good can come of automated autos, consider these statistics from the Rand Corporation: Self-driving vehicles will virtually eliminate the 5.3 million auto crashes suffered in the U.S. annually. Those crashes cause 2.2 million injuries and 32,000 fatalities every year; car accidents are the No. 1 killer of adults ages 15-29 and the No. 2 killer of children ages 5-14. Americans spend $157 billion on auto insurance (1.5% of GDP), and the losses due to property damage, lost wages, lost household production, medical and legal costs, vocational rehabilitation expenses and workplace costs total 3.7% of our nation’s GDP. For context, that’s equal to two-thirds of the entire federal defense budget.

Eliminating accidents also sharply reduces traffic congestion. Time spent in a car will thus drop while productivity rises, because you can work instead of watching the road. Fuel economy goes up and pollution goes down, all while we triple road capacity.

And pay attention to real estate! It will undergo a massive renaissance, because 31% of city space in our country is currently used for parking. This land will be turned into parks, buildings and other public spaces that will transform both urban and suburban life. And we haven’t even talked about how those with disabilities will enjoy newfound independence; they will no longer be dependent on others for transportation, and they will have greater access to essential services and economic opportunity.

I hope you’re beginning to get a sense of how disruptive these changes may be. Indeed, exponential technologies will radically reshape our world, thanks to emerging and innovative developments in the areas of big data and analytics, nanotechnology, medicine and neuroscience, computer systems, energy and environmental systems, robotics, 3-D printing, bioinformatics and financial services innovation.

Here are some ways our profession will be changed:
College planning. Thanks to MOOCs (massively open online courses), higher education is becoming free. President Obama has proposed making community college free; in Tennessee it already is. Every class at MIT is available free online, and the Georgia Institute of Technology offers a master’s degree in information sciences for just $7,000 to online students. It costs $40,000 if you attend on campus. If college degrees will be virtually free within the next decade, will we need to keep recommending that clients establish 529 plans?

Longer life spans. Scientists have learned that aging is a disease; it’s not biologically inherent to life. So, as our body parts wear out, we’ll replace them. We already insert knees, hips, hearts, kidneys, livers and lungs into people. Futurists believe that the first person to reach age 150 has already been born, and that life spans eventually will stretch well beyond that. Best of all, aging itself will be reversed—meaning you will be 90 years old but have the body of a 45-year-old. Imagine how your advice on retirement planning, estate planning and long-term care will have to change.

Estate planning. What will longer life spans mean for our estate-planning advice? What about marriage? I’m not sure every relationship is sustainable for 100 years. Imagine the implications for society—and our industry.
 

Digital currencies. As more and more financial transactions are being handled anonymously with Bitcoin, credit card companies and banks could become obsolete. A financial blogger recently opined that “advisors who get smart on digital currencies should see a significant impact on their AUM in coming years. … Why should you care about Bitcoin?” she asked. “Do you want to be in the top 5% of performers? Do you want to be relevant in five years?” I don’t claim to know how Bitcoin and other virtual currencies will affect us, but I can tell you this: I own some. (There’s no better way to understand a technology than to use it. I own a drone for the same reason.)

Delivery of financial services. Robo-advisors are already proving that online advisory services can be provided at low cost. Can you keep charging 1% or more? The potential impact on your revenue model is obvious and, for some, chilling. This explains why, two years ago, we launched Edelman Online. Whatever the future, we’re positioning ourselves to remain relevant and successful. Are you?

These are just some of the issues all financial advisors must consider as these disruptive changes arrive. As I said in a previous column, you’ll likely have three options: change your business model drastically, join a billion-dollar firm or quit (perhaps retire).

Like it or not, we are all about to become acquainted with George Jetson, and sooner than you may have thought. You might want to prepare.

Ric Edelman is chairman and CEO of Edelman Financial Services LLC, a registered investment advisor. He is an investment advisor representative who offers advisory services through EFS and a registered principal of (offering securities through) Sanders Morris Harris Inc., an affiliated broker-dealer and member of Finra/SIPC. He can be reached at [email protected].