They’d use less power; they’d be hardy against the elements; they’d be repairable — that’s crucial — and they’d be comprehensible. The whole stack, from the har

They’d use less power; they’d be hardy against the elements; they’d be repairable — that’s crucial — and they’d be comprehensible. The whole stack, from the hardware to the boot loader to the OS (if there is one) to the application, would be something that a person could hold in their head. I think the slab will start with the smartphone. Someone will find a universal starting point within the complex mess that exists. This starting point will be successful and universally adopted (think: TCP/IP). Maybe it starts in the browser, as a page, then a plugin, then an app, then an OS, and finally hardware. The software written from this common starting point will, ideally, be able to run equivalently in each mode. Broadly this isn't a new idea. Historically people think this starting point is something like Lisp, and want Lisp machines. There are other paths, though. It is good though that so many people are pushing toward this goal from so many directions; getting a computer whose mutable state from startup to application can fit in your head would be a godsend for human programmers. The path we're on now, only AI will be able to understand our systems. And that's bad, not just from a livelihood perspective.