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> 3D TV, AMP, Augmented Reality, Beanie Babies, Blockchain, Cartoon Avatars, Curved TVs, Frogans, Hoverboards, iBeacons, Jetpacks, Metaverse, NFTs, Physical Web

> 3D TV, AMP, Augmented Reality, Beanie Babies, Blockchain, Cartoon Avatars, Curved TVs, Frogans, Hoverboards, iBeacons, Jetpacks, Metaverse, NFTs, Physical Web, Quantum Computing, Quibi, Small and Safe Nuclear Reactors, Smart Glasses, Stadia, WiMAX. Agreed, these things all failed to live up to the hype. But these didn't: Electricity, cheap computing, calculators, photography, the internet, the steam engine, the printing press, tv, cars, gps, bicycles... So you can't really start an article by picking inventions that fit your narrative and ignoring everything else.

enraged_camel 8mo ago
The article is trash. The only reason it got voted to the front page is because the author is salty about AI.
- lern_too_spel 8mo ago
  It's worse than AI slop. Unlike this article, AI slop usually includes reasonable supporting evidence. The only problem with AI slop is that this supporting evidence is presented in an annoying Buzzfeed-like way by default prompts.
dwoldrich 8mo ago
Exactly my thoughts. Selective whinging indeed. Also meta-platitude whinging like > The ideology of "winner takes all" is unsustainable and not supported by reality. Sometimes the winner deserves to win, AND that's a good thing even at scale. It kindof depends.
- nicbou 8mo ago
  The winner that deserved to win might turn into the complacent monopoly pf tomorrow. It might vow to Not Be Evil for a while, but the investors will demand that it does whatever it takes to grow.
  - dwoldrich 8mo ago
    Enshittification usually means you are right over time. It still kindof depends. To be fair, I also dislike abstract platitudes that are overly optimistic as I think you might be. "Diversity is our strength"?? I mean, I guess diversity of _opinion_ is desirable to a point so we get all the ideas on the table. But not at the sacrifice of unity and shared goals. Unity is our strength. Discord and wasteful politicking are our undoing.
    - nicbou 8mo ago
      Google had "don't be evil" and even that bar was not low enough.
throw10920 8mo ago
The first few paragraphs are all you need to see that the author is writing a propaganda piece. It's not meant to be truthful, it's meant to convince. I think this is what is meant by "bullshit".
- brudgers 8mo ago
  “Bullshit” is: + statement of dubious correctness + and that serves the author’s interest + and which the author does not care whether or not it is believed. When the author wants you to believe it, that’s horseshit.
hexasquid 8mo ago
Electricity bros want to put a socket on every wall. That is such a non-starter from a safety POV. It's a fundamentally unsafe technology and it can never be made safe.
edent 8mo ago
OP here! Thanks for replying. To take, for example, calculators. I can't find any evidence of a massive influx of hyperbolic articles talking about how the calculator will change everything. With bikes, there were plenty of articles decrying how women would get "bicycle face" but very little in terms of endless coverage about them being miracle technology. People adopted bikes and calculators and electricity because they were useful. Car manufacturers didn't have to force GPS into vehicles - customers demanded it. The narrative I'm describing is how hype sometimes (possibly often) fizzles out. My contention is the more a technology is hyped, the less useful it will turn out to be. Now, excuse me while I ride my Segway into the sunset while drinking a nice can of Prime.
- dfabulich 8mo ago
  You have gotta stop cherrypicking. The massive influx of hyperbolic articles about how electricity will change everything started in the 19th century. It became a common theme in fiction (including classics like Frankenstein) and became an enormous media hype war, which historians call the War of the Currents. Yes, electricity was useful. And it had hyperbolic articles talking about how transformative it would be. Like all prognostication, some of those articles were overblown, but, in some ways, they understated the transformative effect electricity would have on human history. And cars? Did you somehow miss the influx of hyperbolic articles about how cars will change everything? Like, the whole 20th century? What was your approach to researching the history of media hype? You somehow overlooked the hype around air travel, refrigeration, and antibiotics…?
  - Retric 8mo ago
    There was a great deal of hype around the atom changing everything, but electricity was just too slow to see such breathless anticipation takeoff. 200 years ago the was some hype around how electricity caused mussel contractions in dead flesh, but unless you consider Frankenstein part of the hype cycle it really doesn’t compare to how much people hyped social media etc etc. Public street lights long predated light bulbs as did both indoor and outdoor Gas lighting 1802 vs 1880’s was just a long time. People were burn, grew up, had kids, and become old between the first electric lighting and the first practical electric bulb. People definitely appreciated the improvement to air quality etc, but the tech simply wasn’t that novel. Rural electrification was definitely promoted but not because what it did was some unknown frontier. Similarly electric motors had a lot of competition, even today there’s people buying pneumatic shop tools.
massysett 8mo ago
Yes, and despite every single one of these world-changing inventions, people in rich countries still go to work every day, even though UBI is generally not a thing. People claim AI will eliminate large numbers of jobs. Maybe it will, just like the tractor did. But new jobs are created. I would never have guessed that “influencer” would be a thing! This current “AI will destroy all the jobs and make most people useless” fear is as old as, say, electricity, and even older than cheap computing. It hasn’t happened.
- qingcharles 8mo ago
  But what if new jobs aren't created? I don't think it's an absolute given that because new jobs came after the invention of the loom and the tractor that there will always be new jobs. What if AI if a totally different beast altogether?
  - inigyou 8mo ago
    What if we just run out of new jobs?
    - hdgvhicv 8mo ago
      Areas of the economy suffered this time and time again. Even if there are new jobs, even if those new jobs are better paid and better conditions than the ones they replace, how does that help the 55 year old coal miner who has seen his industry vanish. Can he realistically retrain? It’s not unprecedented however the scale and speed that it will come at is. Things like the spinning jenny came along and replaced spinners, but weavers stayed for another generation. Selfishly though I am more concerned about losing my job and industry than I was concerned about others suffering from the 80s, or during the pivot to the intenet. To quote Dr McCoy > We're all sorry for the other guy when he loses his job to a machine. When it comes to your job, that's different. And it always will be different.
      - ludicrousdispla 8mo ago
        Realistically, he can retrain, although he is unlikely to be a good culture fit. /s
kabes 8mo ago
Also I wasn't excited about anything from that list, but I am very excited about AI.
getnormality 8mo ago
So if you were overwhelmingly wrong about technology fads in your lifetime by saying yes to everything, you can comfort yourself by saying that if you had gone back a century and said yes to everything, you would have been right about some things!
- rsynnott 8mo ago
  But not most things; there was a lot of nonsense back then, too. We all go to work in a bullet fired through a tunnel by pneumatic pressure, right? (This was a real thing, and they got as far as partially building a tunnel under the Thames for it, before sanity prevailed.)
- ai-x 8mo ago
  Also, the ones you were right will provide 10,000x returns for all the 1x losses you have suffered.
deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]
throwaway5Am1k 8mo ago
>Electricity, cheap computing, calculators, photography, the internet, the steam engine, the printing press, tv, cars, gps, bicycles... All of those were invented pre-1980. To misquote Thiel, if you remove TVs/phones from a house, you would think we're living in the 1970s
- throwuxiytayq 8mo ago
  Neural networks were in invented in the 40s. I don’t know what your point is, and I’m mostly convinced that you don’t have any, just as the article author and 99% of people shitposting their wishful thinking about AI.
atoav 8mo ago
The thing is many of those did not fail at all. They just weren't that great from the start. A overhyped technology is a technology that makes people believe it is going to be something that it isn't and solve issues that it doesn't (or that weren't really issues). To take the first of the list: 3D TV. Everybody liked the idea of being more immersed in a fictional world. But if you watch closely (I studied both media science and film directing), you will realize that there are already traditional 2D films that are so immersive, parts of the audience dislike these films for the lack of distance between what they are watching and themselves. Which is why I said of the brink of the last 3D hype that this is not going to last. So the issue was for the most part that the problem 3D appeared to be solving wasn't actually a problem, while a whole segment of the market fooled itself and the consumers into this was actually the future. Blockchain is literally the same and everybody could easily predict it by the point block chain evangelists started trying to find blockchain-shaped problems, when they didn't find any useful legal applications where a traditional chain of trust wasn't vastly superior. Now LLMs are actually useful. The question is just, how much money is that usefulness worth for a regular person to pay and what does it do to society and the planet as a side-effect.
breadsniffer 8mo ago
Facts

enraged_camel 8mo ago

The article is trash. The only reason it got voted to the front page is because the author is salty about AI.

lern_too_spel 8mo ago
It's worse than AI slop. Unlike this article, AI slop usually includes reasonable supporting evidence. The only problem with AI slop is that this supporting evidence is presented in an annoying Buzzfeed-like way by default prompts.

dwoldrich 8mo ago

Exactly my thoughts. Selective whinging indeed. Also meta-platitude whinging like > The ideology of "winner takes all" is unsustainable and not supported by reality. Sometimes the winner deserves to win, AND that's a good thing even at scale. It kindof depends.

nicbou 8mo ago
The winner that deserved to win might turn into the complacent monopoly pf tomorrow. It might vow to Not Be Evil for a while, but the investors will demand that it does whatever it takes to grow.
- dwoldrich 8mo ago
  Enshittification usually means you are right over time. It still kindof depends. To be fair, I also dislike abstract platitudes that are overly optimistic as I think you might be. "Diversity is our strength"?? I mean, I guess diversity of _opinion_ is desirable to a point so we get all the ideas on the table. But not at the sacrifice of unity and shared goals. Unity is our strength. Discord and wasteful politicking are our undoing.
  - nicbou 8mo ago
    Google had "don't be evil" and even that bar was not low enough.

throw10920 8mo ago

The first few paragraphs are all you need to see that the author is writing a propaganda piece. It's not meant to be truthful, it's meant to convince. I think this is what is meant by "bullshit".

brudgers 8mo ago
“Bullshit” is: + statement of dubious correctness + and that serves the author’s interest + and which the author does not care whether or not it is believed. When the author wants you to believe it, that’s horseshit.

hexasquid 8mo ago

Electricity bros want to put a socket on every wall. That is such a non-starter from a safety POV. It's a fundamentally unsafe technology and it can never be made safe.

edent 8mo ago

OP here! Thanks for replying. To take, for example, calculators. I can't find any evidence of a massive influx of hyperbolic articles talking about how the calculator will change everything. With bikes, there were plenty of articles decrying how women would get "bicycle face" but very little in terms of endless coverage about them being miracle technology. People adopted bikes and calculators and electricity because they were useful. Car manufacturers didn't have to force GPS into vehicles - customers demanded it. The narrative I'm describing is how hype sometimes (possibly often) fizzles out. My contention is the more a technology is hyped, the less useful it will turn out to be. Now, excuse me while I ride my Segway into the sunset while drinking a nice can of Prime.

dfabulich 8mo ago
You have gotta stop cherrypicking. The massive influx of hyperbolic articles about how electricity will change everything started in the 19th century. It became a common theme in fiction (including classics like Frankenstein) and became an enormous media hype war, which historians call the War of the Currents. Yes, electricity was useful. And it had hyperbolic articles talking about how transformative it would be. Like all prognostication, some of those articles were overblown, but, in some ways, they understated the transformative effect electricity would have on human history. And cars? Did you somehow miss the influx of hyperbolic articles about how cars will change everything? Like, the whole 20th century? What was your approach to researching the history of media hype? You somehow overlooked the hype around air travel, refrigeration, and antibiotics…?
- Retric 8mo ago
  There was a great deal of hype around the atom changing everything, but electricity was just too slow to see such breathless anticipation takeoff. 200 years ago the was some hype around how electricity caused mussel contractions in dead flesh, but unless you consider Frankenstein part of the hype cycle it really doesn’t compare to how much people hyped social media etc etc. Public street lights long predated light bulbs as did both indoor and outdoor Gas lighting 1802 vs 1880’s was just a long time. People were burn, grew up, had kids, and become old between the first electric lighting and the first practical electric bulb. People definitely appreciated the improvement to air quality etc, but the tech simply wasn’t that novel. Rural electrification was definitely promoted but not because what it did was some unknown frontier. Similarly electric motors had a lot of competition, even today there’s people buying pneumatic shop tools.

massysett 8mo ago

Yes, and despite every single one of these world-changing inventions, people in rich countries still go to work every day, even though UBI is generally not a thing. People claim AI will eliminate large numbers of jobs. Maybe it will, just like the tractor did. But new jobs are created. I would never have guessed that “influencer” would be a thing! This current “AI will destroy all the jobs and make most people useless” fear is as old as, say, electricity, and even older than cheap computing. It hasn’t happened.

qingcharles 8mo ago
But what if new jobs aren't created? I don't think it's an absolute given that because new jobs came after the invention of the loom and the tractor that there will always be new jobs. What if AI if a totally different beast altogether?
- inigyou 8mo ago
  What if we just run out of new jobs?
  - hdgvhicv 8mo ago
    Areas of the economy suffered this time and time again. Even if there are new jobs, even if those new jobs are better paid and better conditions than the ones they replace, how does that help the 55 year old coal miner who has seen his industry vanish. Can he realistically retrain? It’s not unprecedented however the scale and speed that it will come at is. Things like the spinning jenny came along and replaced spinners, but weavers stayed for another generation. Selfishly though I am more concerned about losing my job and industry than I was concerned about others suffering from the 80s, or during the pivot to the intenet. To quote Dr McCoy > We're all sorry for the other guy when he loses his job to a machine. When it comes to your job, that's different. And it always will be different.
    - ludicrousdispla 8mo ago
      Realistically, he can retrain, although he is unlikely to be a good culture fit. /s

kabes 8mo ago

Also I wasn't excited about anything from that list, but I am very excited about AI.

getnormality 8mo ago

So if you were overwhelmingly wrong about technology fads in your lifetime by saying yes to everything, you can comfort yourself by saying that if you had gone back a century and said yes to everything, you would have been right about some things!

rsynnott 8mo ago
But not most things; there was a lot of nonsense back then, too. We all go to work in a bullet fired through a tunnel by pneumatic pressure, right? (This was a real thing, and they got as far as partially building a tunnel under the Thames for it, before sanity prevailed.)
ai-x 8mo ago
Also, the ones you were right will provide 10,000x returns for all the 1x losses you have suffered.

deleted 8mo ago

[deleted]

throwaway5Am1k 8mo ago

>Electricity, cheap computing, calculators, photography, the internet, the steam engine, the printing press, tv, cars, gps, bicycles... All of those were invented pre-1980. To misquote Thiel, if you remove TVs/phones from a house, you would think we're living in the 1970s

throwuxiytayq 8mo ago
Neural networks were in invented in the 40s. I don’t know what your point is, and I’m mostly convinced that you don’t have any, just as the article author and 99% of people shitposting their wishful thinking about AI.

atoav 8mo ago

The thing is many of those did not fail at all. They just weren't that great from the start. A overhyped technology is a technology that makes people believe it is going to be something that it isn't and solve issues that it doesn't (or that weren't really issues). To take the first of the list: 3D TV. Everybody liked the idea of being more immersed in a fictional world. But if you watch closely (I studied both media science and film directing), you will realize that there are already traditional 2D films that are so immersive, parts of the audience dislike these films for the lack of distance between what they are watching and themselves. Which is why I said of the brink of the last 3D hype that this is not going to last. So the issue was for the most part that the problem 3D appeared to be solving wasn't actually a problem, while a whole segment of the market fooled itself and the consumers into this was actually the future. Blockchain is literally the same and everybody could easily predict it by the point block chain evangelists started trying to find blockchain-shaped problems, when they didn't find any useful legal applications where a traditional chain of trust wasn't vastly superior. Now LLMs are actually useful. The question is just, how much money is that usefulness worth for a regular person to pay and what does it do to society and the planet as a side-effect.

breadsniffer 8mo ago

Facts