The race is on!

One horse: robotics and artificial intelligence. Breakthroughs will make labor redundant, with the only significant question being whether a person has money. The poor become excess bio-mass in the world.

The other horse: the transformation of matter into energy, and the transmutation of one type of matter into another. With this pair, the traditional repositories of wealth (gold, silver) and the traditional markers of class (being able to feed oneself) are no longer pertinent and capital becomes an afterthought.  You like your original Van Gogh? that's fine, but the Barrios made of solid gold and their inhabitants are dining on caviar and kobe beef!

It becomes clear why so few resources are put into physics, and so much money is poured into computer science and bioinformatics. But you know which horse to bet on.