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You don't ask people to know everything about last tech, they just need to do their job. If a new cool tool benefit is high enough, everybody will know about it

You don't ask people to know everything about last tech, they just need to do their job. If a new cool tool benefit is high enough, everybody will know about it and use it. Based on what you said, one could infer Translate AR mode is a nice cool but not something that'll meaningfully change the life of the average joe. Humanity had been through multiple "event horizon" or whatever you want to call it. With industrialisation, one man with some steam could suddenly do the work of thousands, and it expanded to each and every activity. Multiple "event horizon" later (transport, communication, IT), we are still there with everyone working, differently than previous generations, but still working. We improved a bit reducing child labor but doubled the workforce by including women and we always need more people at work for longer time. The only constant thing is we keep people at work until we figure out how to burn the last remaining atom. People are far too optimistic believing a new tech will move people away from work.

ben_w 2y ago
> Based on what you said, one could infer Translate AR mode is a nice cool but not something that'll meaningfully change the life of the average joe. In every case I showed it to people, they were amazed and delighted because it absolutely did matter to them. This may be a biased sample because of how many of my colleagues (like myself) didn't speak German very well despite being in Berlin, but it was definitely the case that they benefited from me showing them a thing invented a decade earlier. > Humanity had been through multiple "event horizon" or whatever you want to call it. No: an event horizon is always ahead of you. That's why I'm choosing that name and rejecting the other. You can wake up to the news the world has changed unpredictably, or the stuff you thought was scifi turned out to be possible, but it doesn't happen every day, and even less so with your* job in particular. * generic "you" More common is e.g.: radio was invented, and almost immediately people started predicting that by 2000 there would be video conference calling — fiction writers can see possible futures coming well before it's possible. Plus some futures that aren't possible, of course. Radioactivity gets discovered, Victorian fiction talks about it being weaponised. Incorrectly as it happens, but it was foreseeable. When I was a kid, phone numbers were 6 digits, and "long distance" meant the next town over. It getting better and cheaper was predictable and predicted, as were personal videophones. Even the original iPhone wasn't much of a step change from everything around it, and no single update to the iPhone was either. Sputnik? Led to Star Trek, which even in TOS had characters using tablet computers that wouldn't be realised for 40-50 years. AI? The fiction is everything and anything from I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream to The Culture, via Her, The Terminator, Colossus: The Forbin Project, Short Circuit, and Isaac Asimov, and the attempts to do "real" predictions are even more diverse and include precursors for each scenario and what to expect on the way. Nobody knows how close any of the speculation is, or how soon it is assuming it's right, or even when specific things such as full self drive is coming (despite being in 80s TV). We don't know how long it will take between FSD and humanoid robots passing same legal/safety standard (despite everyone already being familiar with the ideas since The Jetsons) or what having them would mean in practice. We don't even know what we're getting from the AI labs as soon as the US election is over. From what I've heard, neither do they.

ben_w 2y ago

> Based on what you said, one could infer Translate AR mode is a nice cool but not something that'll meaningfully change the life of the average joe. In every case I showed it to people, they were amazed and delighted because it absolutely did matter to them. This may be a biased sample because of how many of my colleagues (like myself) didn't speak German very well despite being in Berlin, but it was definitely the case that they benefited from me showing them a thing invented a decade earlier. > Humanity had been through multiple "event horizon" or whatever you want to call it. No: an event horizon is always ahead of you. That's why I'm choosing that name and rejecting the other. You can wake up to the news the world has changed unpredictably, or the stuff you thought was scifi turned out to be possible, but it doesn't happen every day, and even less so with your* job in particular. * generic "you" More common is e.g.: radio was invented, and almost immediately people started predicting that by 2000 there would be video conference calling — fiction writers can see possible futures coming well before it's possible. Plus some futures that aren't possible, of course. Radioactivity gets discovered, Victorian fiction talks about it being weaponised. Incorrectly as it happens, but it was foreseeable. When I was a kid, phone numbers were 6 digits, and "long distance" meant the next town over. It getting better and cheaper was predictable and predicted, as were personal videophones. Even the original iPhone wasn't much of a step change from everything around it, and no single update to the iPhone was either. Sputnik? Led to Star Trek, which even in TOS had characters using tablet computers that wouldn't be realised for 40-50 years. AI? The fiction is everything and anything from I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream to The Culture, via Her, The Terminator, Colossus: The Forbin Project, Short Circuit, and Isaac Asimov, and the attempts to do "real" predictions are even more diverse and include precursors for each scenario and what to expect on the way. Nobody knows how close any of the speculation is, or how soon it is assuming it's right, or even when specific things such as full self drive is coming (despite being in 80s TV). We don't know how long it will take between FSD and humanoid robots passing same legal/safety standard (despite everyone already being familiar with the ideas since The Jetsons) or what having them would mean in practice. We don't even know what we're getting from the AI labs as soon as the US election is over. From what I've heard, neither do they.