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Consumer tech progress is slowing down. There are still advances in tech currently happening, but people’s daily lives have gotten as good as they’re gonna get

by xwdv 4y ago

Consumer tech progress is slowing down. There are still advances in tech currently happening, but people’s daily lives have gotten as good as they’re gonna get. Most progress now is just slightly faster processing on devices, better battery life, maybe new materials here and there, medical advances if we’re lucky. But for the most part there is no big thing waiting for the consumer, like the invention of plastics or a smartphone. Many of the advances we are seeing in tech are at the producer level. It’s getting easier to make better stuff faster, and this will just translate to more products, more content, and more processing of data. But all this stuff will be pretty much invisible or unknown to everyday people. All they will see will be the end products, which will be greater in quantity but not much different in quality. Life will be the same for a long time now until the next big tech catalyst emerges.

ss48 4y ago
In developed countries yes, but as more products, more content, and processing of data is available, it will make it to less developed countries and cater to other cultures, resulting in similar advances there.
- xwdv 4y ago
  That’s just moving goalposts. Developed countries represent the current standard of tech, everything else is just playing catch up, it’s not “progress”.
  - hnfong 4y ago
    Karl Marx disagrees. Seriously, if you're rich enough maybe what you say is true, but I don't think you could say "people’s daily lives have gotten as good as they’re gonna get" until poor people in "developed countries" don't have to worry about basic necessities to stay alive. Perhaps one could strike a couple countries off the "developed countries" list and call it a day, but that list would be much smaller..
  - ss48 4y ago
    Scale is important. If a medical breakthrough can be delivered to 1% of the population vs 50% of the population, that is progress that meaningfully improves the human condition and affects how risk averse we are to different diseases. If we deploy electric vehicles to 5% of drivers vs 100% of drivers, that is going to have a tremendous environmental impact that can benefit everyone.
cma 4y ago
> But for the most part there is no big thing waiting for the consumer, like the invention of plastics or a smartphone. Household robots and Augmented reality are two big obvious ones.
- xwdv 4y ago
  Household robots wouldn’t really do anything we haven’t seen before or can’t be done today with hired servants or slaves. Robots wouldn’t make much of a difference, it’s just no human required. Augmented reality might still have a chance but who knows. That’s a lot of progress that has to be made, and it won’t be quick. Look how long VR has tried to catch on.
  - cma 4y ago
    > Household robots wouldn’t really do anything we haven’t seen before or can’t be done today with hired servants or slaves We're talking about consumer households > Augmented reality might still have a chance but who knows. That’s a lot of progress that has to be made, and it won’t be quick. Look how long VR has tried to catch on. We've just seen the start of things editing reality instead of just AR overlays with papers like Dream Mix. Yeah it is a long way off from realtime. Hardware wise we already are close to being there on displays with Varjo XR-3 for passthrough AR. We have a path to full generative passthrough AR that really modifies the world instead of overlays, and we have the tech to keep making headsets more compact with microdisplays and pancake optics, with good enough brightness and HDR once we move to micro LED.
  - CM30 4y ago
    That's a pretty big change for the majority of the population that can't afford hired servants, or don't want to pay someone for that sort of work. At the moment, that sort of work requires you to have a decently upper middle class income/lifestyle, and it might not anymore.
doc_multimedia 4y ago
I don't think people's daily lives are "as good as they’re gonna get" - there are other advances in the horizon (I think AI is gonna be the big one), and it's impossible to predict the potential impact they'll have on people's lives.
joak 4y ago
1. Access to space is becoming cheaper. 2. News coming from fusion recently, it could be more than hype. 3. High temp (ie cooled with liquid nitrogen) superconductors at industrial scale 4. mRNA for cancer and vaccines 5. ...

by xwdv 4y ago

ss48 4y ago

In developed countries yes, but as more products, more content, and processing of data is available, it will make it to less developed countries and cater to other cultures, resulting in similar advances there.

xwdv 4y ago
That’s just moving goalposts. Developed countries represent the current standard of tech, everything else is just playing catch up, it’s not “progress”.
- hnfong 4y ago
  Karl Marx disagrees. Seriously, if you're rich enough maybe what you say is true, but I don't think you could say "people’s daily lives have gotten as good as they’re gonna get" until poor people in "developed countries" don't have to worry about basic necessities to stay alive. Perhaps one could strike a couple countries off the "developed countries" list and call it a day, but that list would be much smaller..
- ss48 4y ago
  Scale is important. If a medical breakthrough can be delivered to 1% of the population vs 50% of the population, that is progress that meaningfully improves the human condition and affects how risk averse we are to different diseases. If we deploy electric vehicles to 5% of drivers vs 100% of drivers, that is going to have a tremendous environmental impact that can benefit everyone.

cma 4y ago

> But for the most part there is no big thing waiting for the consumer, like the invention of plastics or a smartphone. Household robots and Augmented reality are two big obvious ones.

xwdv 4y ago
Household robots wouldn’t really do anything we haven’t seen before or can’t be done today with hired servants or slaves. Robots wouldn’t make much of a difference, it’s just no human required. Augmented reality might still have a chance but who knows. That’s a lot of progress that has to be made, and it won’t be quick. Look how long VR has tried to catch on.
- cma 4y ago
  > Household robots wouldn’t really do anything we haven’t seen before or can’t be done today with hired servants or slaves We're talking about consumer households > Augmented reality might still have a chance but who knows. That’s a lot of progress that has to be made, and it won’t be quick. Look how long VR has tried to catch on. We've just seen the start of things editing reality instead of just AR overlays with papers like Dream Mix. Yeah it is a long way off from realtime. Hardware wise we already are close to being there on displays with Varjo XR-3 for passthrough AR. We have a path to full generative passthrough AR that really modifies the world instead of overlays, and we have the tech to keep making headsets more compact with microdisplays and pancake optics, with good enough brightness and HDR once we move to micro LED.
- CM30 4y ago
  That's a pretty big change for the majority of the population that can't afford hired servants, or don't want to pay someone for that sort of work. At the moment, that sort of work requires you to have a decently upper middle class income/lifestyle, and it might not anymore.

doc_multimedia 4y ago

I don't think people's daily lives are "as good as they’re gonna get" - there are other advances in the horizon (I think AI is gonna be the big one), and it's impossible to predict the potential impact they'll have on people's lives.

joak 4y ago

1. Access to space is becoming cheaper. 2. News coming from fusion recently, it could be more than hype. 3. High temp (ie cooled with liquid nitrogen) superconductors at industrial scale 4. mRNA for cancer and vaccines 5. ...