Extraterrestrial commerce is coming, the era of data oligarchs is ending, and software could do away with fake news and videos.

Those are some of the hottest trends coming in technology in the next five years, according to five venture capitalists on a panel Tuesday night in Silicon Valley. They made the predictions at the popular Top 10 Tech Trends event held annually for the past 20 years by the Churchill Club, which hosts forums with business executives, financiers, entrepreneurs and thinkers.

They’re not just any trends, which of course are a dime a dozen on Sand Hill Road. For one, they’re not supposed to be obvious. They’re also supposed to take off in less than five years. But both rules are often broken at the event, and some were this time, too.

The panel included David Cowan of Bessemer Venture Partners, Sarah Guo of Greylock Partners, Nicole Quinn of Lightspeed Venture Partners, Tomasz Tunguz of Redpoint Ventures and Mike Vernal of Sequoia Capital. Moderating were Mike Federle, chief executive of Forbes Media, and Forbes Publisher Rich Karlgaard.

The audience of several hundred local executives and managers were polled on what they think of the predictions, a process that went digital years ago via polling apps. But the panelists vote on each other’s ideas too, and that process remains resolutely analog: They hold up paddles with green on one side for yea and red on the other for nay.

So, here’s what the VCs expect to see, along with what they and the audience thought of the ideas.

1. The new space stack will enable extraterrestrial commerce

The idea, from Cowan, is that the space industry is being turned upside down by a new ecosystem of startups developing microsatellite constellations that replace mainframe systems at 1 percent of the cost. It no longer makes sense to do a billion-dollar satellite. Companies that aren’t space companies can now expand into space to be more competitive. This will allow us to colonize space, Cowan insisted.

The panelists waved three red paddles and one green. Guo agreed on the cost and the ecosystem, but she doesn’t understand why we need to go to space. For the average Fortune 500 company, there’s a lot of work to do on the ground, she said. Quinn thought space has plenty of opportunity but not this soon. As for Vernal, he thinks the opportunity in space itself will be limited to just a few companies. Cowan countered that he sees entrepreneurs coming in every day, suggesting a huge ecosystem opportunity.

The audience didn’t buy it: Sixty percent voted thumbs down.

2. Move fast and change everything: Mobility trumps mobile apps

Every segment of the transportation industry is changing and the unintended effects on our lives and infrastructure will be massive, predicted Guo. We can picture a self-driving future, but the first wave is already here. This sounds pretty obvious, but the second-order effects may be more surprising. Much of the next decade will be about mobility rather than apps.

Two green and two red paddles. Vernal, one of the greens, agreed, with the biggest question remaining who makes money from all this. Tunguz, the other green paddle, said self-driving cars and trucks will enable drivers to do much more valuable work. Quinn agreed the technology is exciting, but regulation and consumer adoption will hold everything back. Cowan believes the most interesting change is the shift to electric cars, but that doesn’t change our lives too much: Even scooters, the current startup darling or scourge depending on how you look at it, may be Segway 2.0. A lot of people will lose their jobs, he added, and truck drivers wanna drive. Guo argued that trucking is an obvious likely success, because it’s more or less a straight line driving with fewer edge cases.

More than 60 percent of the audience agreed with her.

3. ’Voice first’ will open up the internet to the world

Quinn noted 25 percent of the world is illiterate, so voice is the way to bring them online. We’re already doing this with Alexa, but voice could be used for commerce, and even for gaming.

Three panelists held up the red panels, only one green. Cowan wasn’t convinced the link to literacy is why voice is so important, because literacy rates are actually rising. Guo said voice is exciting but ends up being only a facet of mobile — which currently is dominated by pictures and video. Tunguz, the one green, is a big believer in voice, having dictated his book that way. Vernal also loves voice, but he worried that base connectivity is a big obstacle, and voice is not that efficient on the output or consumption side.

The audience was pretty split but a little more on the positive side.

4. The hunt for authenticity will become a big growth area

Tunguz pointed out that fake photos, disinformation and the like will make the need to determine authentic information will be critical. How do we operate in a world in which we don’t know whom to trust, who said what, what videos are real or not? A new class of software will guarantee authenticity, he argued.

Three greens and one red. Vernal said it’s a great problem to solve, but he wasn’t sure it would be a good venture business. And he wondered how much of a technology problem it is versus a societal problem. It was hard to follow what Quinn, the sole red paddle, was arguing, but Guo also thought this is less a software problem than a social issue. Plus, things like Instagram and Facebook are not really about authenticity. Cowan noted that there are several problems presented here, so the solution for news may be different than for other domains. Tunguz’s response: “Blockchain.” Seriously: Blockchain will be a key technology in providing a way to sign content to prove authenticity.

A commanding 79 percent of the audience agreed, though it’s not clear precisely what about.

5. China accelerates past the US in key technology areas

Technologies such as deep learning are already revolutionizing medicine, but in China first, Vernal contended. The strong alignment between tech companies and the Chinese government, which is focusing on key technologies such as artificial intelligence, mean China will vault ahead of the U.S. in a wide variety of technologies, he argued.

One red and three greens from the panelists. Cowan, the one red, said the fundamental premise is faulty because it implies a single-winner game. We all buy each other’s products, he noted, so it’s beneficial to have multiple regions developing technologies. Guo agreed with Vernal, though, because China can make and sell things more cheaply and even tests things such as self-driving cars without so much regulation. Tunguz echoed that thought, saying many startups here face lots of regulation. Also, China has greater access to scale of data to improve algorithms.

The audience also agreed this is a valid trend by a ratio of about 70 to 30.

6. High-density AI promises conversational bots smart enough to disrupt mobile commerce

In his second trend prediction, Cowan contended that these bots will displace mobile apps as the dominant mode of mobile devices. Computing can be much more intuitive through, yes, voice. They’ll go beyond just question-and-answer to more natural interaction like real people do, starting with individual topic areas.

The response from the panel: solid red. Quinn has kept hoping this trend would develop faster, but she hasn’t seen transformational change. AI just isn’t smart enough yet, she added. Guo said there are two ways this could go: the equivalent of a smarter command line, or truly human interactions. And she didn’t think that’s a three-year problem that will get solved. For Tunguz, the reality is that shopping is entertainment, and browsing for products isn’t something he sees this technology solving. Vernal would rather have an interface optimized to particular tasks rather than a generally smart AI. Cowan argued that it’s just early and too many companies currently are trying to do too much with their chatbots, when they really need to break up the tasks into discrete tasks.

Audience reaction? Pretty negative, about 60 percent doubting this will happen, at least in the next three to five years.

7. The all-seeing eye will capture unprecedented amounts of data.

Cheap and smart cameras with computer vision algorithms are blanketing the world, Guo noted. They can understand the content they’re capturing, and that will usher in a lot of unintended consequences. Businesses will be able to mine lots of data from videos on a manufacturing line or perceived emotions of shoppers. Your Uber rating may depend on data from videos of you riding, such as whether you were rude. This ubiquitous surveillance will change our behavior too, she said. But are we ready for it?

The panel is split in half. Vernal said this will happen for sure, with a Cambrian explosion of apps on top of these cameras. Tunguz, though, really doesn’t want it to happen. “I’m not ready for it,” he said. “You’re going to be a different person if you’re watched all the time.” This also won’t wash with Americans, who will rebel, he said, so there will be regulations to stifle this. Quinn, a green paddle, raised the “Black Mirror” episode on this, “and that terrifies me.” Nonetheless, she thinks it will happen at least in terms of the commercial potential. Guo’s acknowledged there could be a backlash, but every time consumers choose functionality over privacy.

Seventy percent of the audience appeared to agree.

8. People will no longer distinguish between the online and offline worlds

Social, dating, media, fitness and everything else will go virtual in additional to e-commerce, Quinn contended in her second megatrend. Peloton, for instance, is more popular among some people than biking outside. (Ugh.)

Three reds and a green. Tunguz said he thinks offline data will be important in targeting ads, as Quinn argued, but he said people will continue to be able to distinguish between the two. Cowan, another red paddle, said we’re already living in this world today, so it’s not really a forward trend. Vernal just wasn’t sure this is the future of commerce. Guo, the only green paddle, also noted that this is already happening: Every business is trying to be a digital business. Summing up the negatives, this is just too obvious. Quinn said government, real estate and many other industries have barely started.

But the audience also found this unsurprising, with more than 80 percent giving a thumbs-down.

9. Decentralization of data is coming as data oligarchs fade

Tunguz said users will start to exert more control over the data currently held by a few huge tech companies he calls data oligarchs. Blockchain or a similar technology will enable people to take more control of their own data, he contended.

All four panelists wave red paddles. Cowan said the European data privacy standard already mandates some of this. But he also disagreed with the notion of data oligarchs in the future (though honestly, that’s exactly what Tunguz is contending). Guo couldn’t picture the business model where people get paid for their data (and she’s right: This has never worked so far despite countless attempts), and she didn’t get how blockchain plays here — something Quinn and Vernal also didn’t see. He also thinks centralized companies will win over decentralized efforts. Tunguz’s counter: Just look at how many people use ad blockers, because they don’t want their data captured to target ads to them.

The audience swayed toward the panel, with 57 percent percent voting thumbs down. (But Tunguz may well have something here, given the huge backlash against Google, Facebook, Equifax and other data-driven companies.)

10. Robotics go mainstream because of the autonomous vehicle gold rush

There are billions of dollars being poured into this, Vernal noted. And the rapidly dropping cost of sensors and related technologies is driving costs down for all kinds of robots and autonomous devices. At the same time, the number of engineers working on this will soon rise dramatically thanks to interest at universities. And there are so many dangerous and boring jobs that robots can do much better.

Three greens and one red. Guo, the “weak red” as she described her no vote, said the relative size of the ecosystem is small compared with, say, networking or consumer interfaces, and the skill set needed for robotics is both broad and deep, which means the talent is expensive and scarce. Plus, humans are still so much more flexible to handle edge cases that the bar for robots is really high. Cowan noted that robots built his car, drones are likely to become a huge market, so there’s plenty of opportunity and motivating lots of new engineers. Quinn, another green, acknowledged the opportunity, though she thinks consumer demand and regulations will take awhile to catch up. Vernal’s rebuttals: AI expertise grew really fast, and robotics will follow the same pattern. As for the benefits of people, well, they don’t like to work the graveyard shift, and they’re an operating expense, while robots are a less ongoing capital expense.

Audience: More than 70 percent go with Vernal.

So, the big winner was the hunt for authenticity, closely followed by China beating the U.S. in tech, robotics going mainstream and that scary all-seeing eye. For his winning prognostication, Tunguz won a magical wizard wand. Seriously.

Still, most of these trends seemed underwhelming compared with many in previous years that were more provocative and sometimes a little head-scratching, in a good way. Tunguz and Cowan deserve shout-outs for looking further ahead than some of the others, but the panel could have benefited from more visionary predictions.

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