6 ms·

> - The next big thing will be something totally unknown and unpredictable now, as user-generated content and social networking were in 1999. However, when it d

by darzu 7y ago

> - The next big thing will be something totally unknown and unpredictable now, as user-generated content and social networking were in 1999. However, when it does appear, various 'experts' on it will spring from nowhere to lecture us all about it. It will still be really cool, though. I think this basically describes AI.

soneca 7y ago
No, definitely Bitcoin
- joeyspn 7y ago
  Agree, particularly this bit describes the blockchain hype... > "various 'experts' on it will spring from nowhere to lecture us all about it"
- leoc 7y ago
  I suppose that partly depends on exactly how novel the blockchain part is, but broadly speaking the world of efforts to combine some of electronic money, cryptography, proof of work and decentralisation was not a new one in the late 2000s. For example Ecash had been hot once https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecash https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecash , while later on Hashcash got a fair bit of attention as a possible solution to the spam crisis. In 2007 (early 2010 is another story) it was definitely more of a deep cut than AI or cloud, though.
  - jaggirs 7y ago
    AI was hot too before winter came
- maxerickson 7y ago
  Bitcoin isn't really all that cool though. It replaces trust with massive resource consumption and doesn't do a good job of being digital money (it is hard to use safely, it is hard to use anonymously).
  - joeyspn 7y ago
    It is cool because it really disintermediates powerful entities. Maybe the first iteration of digital money/assets is not that efficient, but that could also be argued for many other innovative technologies. What is groundbreaking is the concept of P2P value exchange. And that's what bitcoin really is, still a young PoC that will surely evolve or get superseded by a 2.0 tech. The genie is out of the bottle....
  - icebraining 7y ago
    Eh, bitcoin is still a cool proof-of-concept. It's just that as it often happens, people took it to production when they shouldn't.
- RedBeetDeadpool 7y ago
  definitely Bitcoin/Blockchain. I wouldn't say it will actually disrupt traditional banking empires, but it was the next big thing and 'experts' definitely came out of nowhere and its still pretty cool.
dzhiurgis 7y ago
I thought about virtual assistants and deep fakes
- jbigelow76 7y ago
  Regarding deep fakes, I don't think you're wrong, just early. I think we are just getting a glimpse of what is unfortunately possible as this decade closes out, they could introduce some real chaos as in this new decade. Edit: spelling
- gnulinux 7y ago
  Neither virtual assistants nor deep fakes can be considered "the next big thing". They're in their infancy.
whiddershins 7y ago
Ummm, Uber?
- taneq 7y ago
  Crowdsourcing / the ‘sharing’ or gig economy are huge.
kick 7y ago
AI wasn't totally unknown: basically every coastal university during the 1970s and 1980s were filled with people working on AI, and it didn't die off, it just became embarrassing to work on.
- wbillingsley 7y ago
  Neither was user generated content (that's what the original web was) or social networking (irc, email, bulletin boards, etc). Making it useful and usable beyond an academic and techie niche was new.
  - leoc 7y ago
    > Neither was user generated content (that's what the original web was) The fall and return of the cat picture still amuses me. In the early days of Web adoption when people would put up a personal home page just for the thrill of having one, stereotypically the only bits of content they would be able to come up with for it were a list of favourite bands and one or more scanned-in pictures of their cat. So for years and years afterwards cat pictures were a synechdote, a punchline for jokes about the naïvety of the early Web. Then phone cameras and low-effort social media became big, and ...
- leoc 7y ago
  And more, the AI hype-cycle was definitely on the upswing again already by the beginning of 2010. The Netflix Prize and the motor-vehicle DARPA Grand Challenges were all 2000s events, for instance.
flir 7y ago
Nah, the rise of cloud, Shirley?
- leoc 7y ago
  Not at all unforeseen by the end of 2009 though. The GMail beta dates to 2004, while EC2 was announced by 2006, and that's aside from all older precedents or predictions. (That said, not everyone 'got' EC2 at first.)
voldacar 7y ago
neural networks are not new
rsynnott 7y ago
Doesn’t really qualify as unknown and unpredictable. We’re in about the third AI bubble right now, and I doubt it’ll be the last.

by darzu 7y ago

soneca 7y ago

No, definitely Bitcoin

joeyspn 7y ago
Agree, particularly this bit describes the blockchain hype... > "various 'experts' on it will spring from nowhere to lecture us all about it"
leoc 7y ago
I suppose that partly depends on exactly how novel the blockchain part is, but broadly speaking the world of efforts to combine some of electronic money, cryptography, proof of work and decentralisation was not a new one in the late 2000s. For example Ecash had been hot once https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecash https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecash , while later on Hashcash got a fair bit of attention as a possible solution to the spam crisis. In 2007 (early 2010 is another story) it was definitely more of a deep cut than AI or cloud, though.
- jaggirs 7y ago
  AI was hot too before winter came
maxerickson 7y ago
Bitcoin isn't really all that cool though. It replaces trust with massive resource consumption and doesn't do a good job of being digital money (it is hard to use safely, it is hard to use anonymously).
- joeyspn 7y ago
  It is cool because it really disintermediates powerful entities. Maybe the first iteration of digital money/assets is not that efficient, but that could also be argued for many other innovative technologies. What is groundbreaking is the concept of P2P value exchange. And that's what bitcoin really is, still a young PoC that will surely evolve or get superseded by a 2.0 tech. The genie is out of the bottle....
- icebraining 7y ago
  Eh, bitcoin is still a cool proof-of-concept. It's just that as it often happens, people took it to production when they shouldn't.
RedBeetDeadpool 7y ago
definitely Bitcoin/Blockchain. I wouldn't say it will actually disrupt traditional banking empires, but it was the next big thing and 'experts' definitely came out of nowhere and its still pretty cool.

dzhiurgis 7y ago

I thought about virtual assistants and deep fakes

jbigelow76 7y ago
Regarding deep fakes, I don't think you're wrong, just early. I think we are just getting a glimpse of what is unfortunately possible as this decade closes out, they could introduce some real chaos as in this new decade. Edit: spelling
gnulinux 7y ago
Neither virtual assistants nor deep fakes can be considered "the next big thing". They're in their infancy.

whiddershins 7y ago

Ummm, Uber?

taneq 7y ago
Crowdsourcing / the ‘sharing’ or gig economy are huge.

kick 7y ago

AI wasn't totally unknown: basically every coastal university during the 1970s and 1980s were filled with people working on AI, and it didn't die off, it just became embarrassing to work on.

wbillingsley 7y ago
Neither was user generated content (that's what the original web was) or social networking (irc, email, bulletin boards, etc). Making it useful and usable beyond an academic and techie niche was new.
- leoc 7y ago
  > Neither was user generated content (that's what the original web was) The fall and return of the cat picture still amuses me. In the early days of Web adoption when people would put up a personal home page just for the thrill of having one, stereotypically the only bits of content they would be able to come up with for it were a list of favourite bands and one or more scanned-in pictures of their cat. So for years and years afterwards cat pictures were a synechdote, a punchline for jokes about the naïvety of the early Web. Then phone cameras and low-effort social media became big, and ...
leoc 7y ago
And more, the AI hype-cycle was definitely on the upswing again already by the beginning of 2010. The Netflix Prize and the motor-vehicle DARPA Grand Challenges were all 2000s events, for instance.

flir 7y ago

Nah, the rise of cloud, Shirley?

leoc 7y ago
Not at all unforeseen by the end of 2009 though. The GMail beta dates to 2004, while EC2 was announced by 2006, and that's aside from all older precedents or predictions. (That said, not everyone 'got' EC2 at first.)

voldacar 7y ago

neural networks are not new

rsynnott 7y ago

Doesn’t really qualify as unknown and unpredictable. We’re in about the third AI bubble right now, and I doubt it’ll be the last.