4 ms·

Agreed. It's felt like so many of the technological marvels have either happened quietly (e.g. the reductions in chip size) or in the past (e.g. all the physics

Agreed. It's felt like so many of the technological marvels have either happened quietly (e.g. the reductions in chip size) or in the past (e.g. all the physics breakthroughs of the 1900s). Like ChatGPT, this seems to have the characteristics of being both accessible and completely novel.

fnordpiglet 3y ago
I feel like the host of “in 30 years we would have X” made 40 years ago are suddenly manifesting.
- jacquesm 3y ago
  What is interesting is that assuming it all pans out these are all in entirely unrelated fields. That sets the stage for a whole raft of follow on inventions. Similar to how the telephone + basic electromagnetism led to radio, tv, radar, transistors and ultimately to computers small enough to be practical for businesses, the internet, cell phones and so on. My grandmother was born in a house without running water, no sanitation and no phone. That's just a bit over a century ago. The rate of change on an annual basis isn't all that large, a decade and you'll see big changes, our world can't be compared at all to 120 years ago in terms of luxury, communications, personal energy budget, food, travel options etc. Still, there are large areas of the planet where the last 120 didn't bring any progress and there are those where they actually went backwards, not rarely to our (the western world for me) benefit.
  - fnordpiglet 3y ago
    Yeah - I think the next 40 years are going to be absolutely stunning to witness. It’s an amazing time to be alive and be a nerd.
    - jacquesm 3y ago
      The last 20 are already mindblowing to me, to the point that I am a bit overwhelmed. Just reading to keep up with all of the tech developments is basically impossible today.
      - javajosh 3y ago
        In terms of basic tech, other than CRISPR what are you thinking of? Smartphones + internet are important, but are more combinatorial. Early quantum computers are cool, but niche (and even if perfected, seem to have application for breaking PKI). Reusable rockets are great, but not fusion. The standard model is locked in, at least up to LHC energies modulo sensationalist PR.
        zarzavat 3y ago
        Fusion is progressing well, just look at MIT SPARC. Better (conventional) superconductors and better supercomputers are pushing the field forward. Back when ITER was the only game in town it looked like workable fusion was never going to happen, but things are looking more hopeful now.
        JohnBooty 3y ago
        mRNA vaccines would be on my list. I don't know if we'd consider that basic or more combinatorial tech.
        gibolt 3y ago
        GPUs have been huge, unlocking so much more compute than was possible with CPUs. Most of the burgeoning AI industry is thanks to that cost decline, which is only getting started.
        jacquesm 3y ago
        Every field of science has had breakthroughs in the last decade or two. Even superconductors (check out 'H2S', though it isn't without problems), medicine, genetics, quantum computers I'm not yet all that impressed with but they're too early stage to be really judged, the energy transition is really happening (sub-subject: the price of solar and wind power), semiconductors (every time we think it's over...), GPS (check out how it works under the hood), so much in materials science that I can't begin to keep up, phased arrays, lidar, the insane increase in computational power that you can stick under your desk, battery tech (one more breakthrough there and we will see all kinds of effects on other fields as well), solid state lasers the size of grains of sand, fiber optic transmission rates, the James Webb (ok, 'old tech' by now, but that's one impressive thing they pulled off there, especially the delta between the hot and the cold side of it) and on and on. As for the future: Fusion would be huge, but I'm not all that hopeful for cost efficiency there once you get to net power out but I'm not going to talk down the people that are doing the work and the research. And yes, the basic physics seems to be pretty stagnant, we're really waiting for a unification of the two major fields there but even if we do get that unification it may not lead to new practical tech, it could simply nail things down once and for all without moving the needle in terms of costs, speed or new materials science. It may have some implications for various computer models used in those fields and it probably would have impact on astronomy.
    - earthboundkid 3y ago
      Yes just think of the joy of living between 1903 (Wright brothers) and 1943.
      - tornato7 3y ago
        In 100 years people will be pondering what it would be like to live between 2003 and 2043 :) Uh oh, did I just jinx 2043?
        earthboundkid 3y ago
        The Oppenheimer movie equivalent of 2123, but it's about someone in Gen Z, so their name is Brayden or something.
      - darkwater 3y ago
        Well, as an European, with 2 world wars in that period, I would not trade now for that.
        earthboundkid 3y ago
        Yes, that's how I feel about now. :-)
  - Accujack 3y ago
    It's exactly like we got one critical item in the tech tree of humanity taken care of.
    - jacquesm 3y ago
      Technology trees are fascinating, how much sometimes hinges on one tiny invention.
- robotresearcher 3y ago
  Im posting this reply from my mainstream smartphone: a pocket supercomputer with a 4K 60Hz HDR video camera. I’m chock full of designer vaccines and can watch a catalog of almost all the movies ever made on demand tonight. I listened to an podcast in my EV on the way to work. And SpaceX probably launched 60 satellites this week on the 14th flight of a rocket that flew home afterwards. Things have been moving along. edit: comments are quibbling about the fraction of all movies ever I can see on a paid streaming service. This is like complaining about that the meals and elbow room are not wonderful on a $400 flight from LA to London. It's a goddam miracle and you're still grumbling. Please tell me now how your $12/mo Spotify account doesn't have the June 1972 Grateful Dead New Jersey show your mom was at, and is thus near worthless. I spent $12 in 1980s money on single album in my youth. Let me amend my grossly hyperbolic statement and say I could stream on demand more movies than I could ever watch even if I did nothing else the rest of my life, including many but not all of the good ones. Now the statement is strictly true, but did this make my contribution better?
  - fnordpiglet 3y ago
    And it’s only going to get faster… unless it all ends suddenly.
    - a_vanderbilt 3y ago
      I feel we will eventually outpace our own means of destruction. The next big step is getting self-sustaining colonies off Earth, which will do wonders for our ability to survive as a species. The biggest threat is perhaps nuclear weapons and climate change, in my opinion.
      - fnordpiglet 3y ago
        I actually feel like the biggest threat we face is a collapse of world order and another world war, even conventional coupled with a degradation of humanism. These lead to a global decay of basically everything, including our ability to outpace our own means of destruction and an entire inability to address climate change. The global environment becoming increasing toxic to our age’s life, including humans is I think ultimately the end of our line.

fnordpiglet 3y ago

I feel like the host of “in 30 years we would have X” made 40 years ago are suddenly manifesting.

jacquesm 3y ago
What is interesting is that assuming it all pans out these are all in entirely unrelated fields. That sets the stage for a whole raft of follow on inventions. Similar to how the telephone + basic electromagnetism led to radio, tv, radar, transistors and ultimately to computers small enough to be practical for businesses, the internet, cell phones and so on. My grandmother was born in a house without running water, no sanitation and no phone. That's just a bit over a century ago. The rate of change on an annual basis isn't all that large, a decade and you'll see big changes, our world can't be compared at all to 120 years ago in terms of luxury, communications, personal energy budget, food, travel options etc. Still, there are large areas of the planet where the last 120 didn't bring any progress and there are those where they actually went backwards, not rarely to our (the western world for me) benefit.
- fnordpiglet 3y ago
  Yeah - I think the next 40 years are going to be absolutely stunning to witness. It’s an amazing time to be alive and be a nerd.
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    The last 20 are already mindblowing to me, to the point that I am a bit overwhelmed. Just reading to keep up with all of the tech developments is basically impossible today.
    - javajosh 3y ago
      In terms of basic tech, other than CRISPR what are you thinking of? Smartphones + internet are important, but are more combinatorial. Early quantum computers are cool, but niche (and even if perfected, seem to have application for breaking PKI). Reusable rockets are great, but not fusion. The standard model is locked in, at least up to LHC energies modulo sensationalist PR.
      - zarzavat 3y ago
        Fusion is progressing well, just look at MIT SPARC. Better (conventional) superconductors and better supercomputers are pushing the field forward. Back when ITER was the only game in town it looked like workable fusion was never going to happen, but things are looking more hopeful now.
      - JohnBooty 3y ago
        mRNA vaccines would be on my list. I don't know if we'd consider that basic or more combinatorial tech.
      - gibolt 3y ago
        GPUs have been huge, unlocking so much more compute than was possible with CPUs. Most of the burgeoning AI industry is thanks to that cost decline, which is only getting started.
      - jacquesm 3y ago
        Every field of science has had breakthroughs in the last decade or two. Even superconductors (check out 'H2S', though it isn't without problems), medicine, genetics, quantum computers I'm not yet all that impressed with but they're too early stage to be really judged, the energy transition is really happening (sub-subject: the price of solar and wind power), semiconductors (every time we think it's over...), GPS (check out how it works under the hood), so much in materials science that I can't begin to keep up, phased arrays, lidar, the insane increase in computational power that you can stick under your desk, battery tech (one more breakthrough there and we will see all kinds of effects on other fields as well), solid state lasers the size of grains of sand, fiber optic transmission rates, the James Webb (ok, 'old tech' by now, but that's one impressive thing they pulled off there, especially the delta between the hot and the cold side of it) and on and on. As for the future: Fusion would be huge, but I'm not all that hopeful for cost efficiency there once you get to net power out but I'm not going to talk down the people that are doing the work and the research. And yes, the basic physics seems to be pretty stagnant, we're really waiting for a unification of the two major fields there but even if we do get that unification it may not lead to new practical tech, it could simply nail things down once and for all without moving the needle in terms of costs, speed or new materials science. It may have some implications for various computer models used in those fields and it probably would have impact on astronomy.
  - earthboundkid 3y ago
    Yes just think of the joy of living between 1903 (Wright brothers) and 1943.
    - tornato7 3y ago
      In 100 years people will be pondering what it would be like to live between 2003 and 2043 :) Uh oh, did I just jinx 2043?
      - earthboundkid 3y ago
        The Oppenheimer movie equivalent of 2123, but it's about someone in Gen Z, so their name is Brayden or something.
    - darkwater 3y ago
      Well, as an European, with 2 world wars in that period, I would not trade now for that.
      - earthboundkid 3y ago
        Yes, that's how I feel about now. :-)
- Accujack 3y ago
  It's exactly like we got one critical item in the tech tree of humanity taken care of.
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    Technology trees are fascinating, how much sometimes hinges on one tiny invention.
robotresearcher 3y ago
Im posting this reply from my mainstream smartphone: a pocket supercomputer with a 4K 60Hz HDR video camera. I’m chock full of designer vaccines and can watch a catalog of almost all the movies ever made on demand tonight. I listened to an podcast in my EV on the way to work. And SpaceX probably launched 60 satellites this week on the 14th flight of a rocket that flew home afterwards. Things have been moving along. edit: comments are quibbling about the fraction of all movies ever I can see on a paid streaming service. This is like complaining about that the meals and elbow room are not wonderful on a $400 flight from LA to London. It's a goddam miracle and you're still grumbling. Please tell me now how your $12/mo Spotify account doesn't have the June 1972 Grateful Dead New Jersey show your mom was at, and is thus near worthless. I spent $12 in 1980s money on single album in my youth. Let me amend my grossly hyperbolic statement and say I could stream on demand more movies than I could ever watch even if I did nothing else the rest of my life, including many but not all of the good ones. Now the statement is strictly true, but did this make my contribution better?
- fnordpiglet 3y ago
  And it’s only going to get faster… unless it all ends suddenly.
  - a_vanderbilt 3y ago
    I feel we will eventually outpace our own means of destruction. The next big step is getting self-sustaining colonies off Earth, which will do wonders for our ability to survive as a species. The biggest threat is perhaps nuclear weapons and climate change, in my opinion.
    - fnordpiglet 3y ago
      I actually feel like the biggest threat we face is a collapse of world order and another world war, even conventional coupled with a degradation of humanism. These lead to a global decay of basically everything, including our ability to outpace our own means of destruction and an entire inability to address climate change. The global environment becoming increasing toxic to our age’s life, including humans is I think ultimately the end of our line.