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Eleven Reasons To Be Excited About The Future of Technology (medium.com)
Chris Dixon, an American internet entrepreneur and investor in a range of tech and media companies including Kickstarter and Foursquare has written an essay on Medium highlighting some of the reasons why we should be excited about the future of technology. The reasons he has listed are as follows: 1. Self-Driving Cars: Self-driving cars exist today that are safer than human-driven cars in most driving conditions. Over the next 3-5 years they'll get even safer, and will begin to go mainstream.
2. Clean Energy: Attempts to fight climate change by reducing the demand for energy haven't worked. Fortunately, scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs have been working hard on the supply side to make clean energy convenient and cost-effective.
3. Virtual and Augmented Reality: Computer processors only recently became fast enough to power comfortable and convincing virtual and augmented reality experiences. Companies like Facebook, Google, Apple, and Microsoft are investing billions of dollars to make VR and AR more immersive, comfortable, and affordable.
4. Drones and Flying Cars: GPS started out as a military technology but is now used to hail taxis, get mapping directions, and hunt Pokemon. Likewise, drones started out as a military technology, but are increasingly being used for a wide range of consumer and commercial applications.
5. Artificial Intelligence: Artificial intelligence has made rapid advances in the last decade, due to new algorithms and massive increases in data collection and computing power.
6. Pocket Supercomputers for Everyone: By 2020, 80% of adults on earth will have an internet-connected smartphone. An iPhone 6 has about 2 billion transistors, roughly 625 times more transistors than a 1995 Intel Pentium computer. Today's smartphones are what used to be considered supercomputers.
7. Cryptocurrencies and Blockchains: Protocols are the plumbing of the internet. Most of the protocols we use today were developed decades ago by academia and government. Since then, protocol development mostly stopped as energy shifted to developing proprietary systems like social networks and messaging apps. Cryptocurrency and blockchain technologies are changing this by providing a new business model for internet protocols. This year alone, hundreds of millions of dollars were raised for a broad range of innovative blockchain-based protocols.
8. High-Quality Online Education: While college tuition skyrockets, anyone with a smartphone can study almost any topic online, accessing educational content that is mostly free and increasingly high-quality.
9. Better Food through Science: Earth is running out of farmable land and fresh water. This is partly because our food production systems are incredibly inefficient. It takes an astounding 1799 gallons of water to produce 1 pound of beef. Fortunately, a variety of new technologies are being developed to improve our food system.
10. Computerized Medicine: Until recently, computers have only been at the periphery of medicine, used primarily for research and record keeping. Today, the combination of computer science and medicine is leading to a variety of breakthroughs.
11. A New Space Age: Since the beginning of the space age in the 1950s, the vast majority of space funding has come from governments. But that funding has been in decline: for example, NASA's budget dropped from about 4.5% of the federal budget in the 1960s to about 0.5% of the federal budget today.
2. Clean Energy: Attempts to fight climate change by reducing the demand for energy haven't worked. Fortunately, scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs have been working hard on the supply side to make clean energy convenient and cost-effective.
3. Virtual and Augmented Reality: Computer processors only recently became fast enough to power comfortable and convincing virtual and augmented reality experiences. Companies like Facebook, Google, Apple, and Microsoft are investing billions of dollars to make VR and AR more immersive, comfortable, and affordable.
4. Drones and Flying Cars: GPS started out as a military technology but is now used to hail taxis, get mapping directions, and hunt Pokemon. Likewise, drones started out as a military technology, but are increasingly being used for a wide range of consumer and commercial applications.
5. Artificial Intelligence: Artificial intelligence has made rapid advances in the last decade, due to new algorithms and massive increases in data collection and computing power.
6. Pocket Supercomputers for Everyone: By 2020, 80% of adults on earth will have an internet-connected smartphone. An iPhone 6 has about 2 billion transistors, roughly 625 times more transistors than a 1995 Intel Pentium computer. Today's smartphones are what used to be considered supercomputers.
7. Cryptocurrencies and Blockchains: Protocols are the plumbing of the internet. Most of the protocols we use today were developed decades ago by academia and government. Since then, protocol development mostly stopped as energy shifted to developing proprietary systems like social networks and messaging apps. Cryptocurrency and blockchain technologies are changing this by providing a new business model for internet protocols. This year alone, hundreds of millions of dollars were raised for a broad range of innovative blockchain-based protocols.
8. High-Quality Online Education: While college tuition skyrockets, anyone with a smartphone can study almost any topic online, accessing educational content that is mostly free and increasingly high-quality.
9. Better Food through Science: Earth is running out of farmable land and fresh water. This is partly because our food production systems are incredibly inefficient. It takes an astounding 1799 gallons of water to produce 1 pound of beef. Fortunately, a variety of new technologies are being developed to improve our food system.
10. Computerized Medicine: Until recently, computers have only been at the periphery of medicine, used primarily for research and record keeping. Today, the combination of computer science and medicine is leading to a variety of breakthroughs.
11. A New Space Age: Since the beginning of the space age in the 1950s, the vast majority of space funding has come from governments. But that funding has been in decline: for example, NASA's budget dropped from about 4.5% of the federal budget in the 1960s to about 0.5% of the federal budget today.
1. Self-Driving Cars: Self-driving cars exist today that are safer than human-driven cars in most driving conditions. Over the next 3â"5 years they'll get even safer, and will begin to go mainstream.
Hackable cars, easier surveillance, depressing.
2. Clean Energy: Attempts to fight climate change by reducing the demand for energy haven't worked. Fortunately, scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs have been working hard on the supply side to make clean energy convenient and cost-effective.
Expensive energy, depressing.
3. Virtual and Augmented Reality: Computer processors only recently became fast enough to power comfortable and convincing virtual and augmented reality experiences. Companies like Facebook, Google, Apple, and Microsoft are investing billions of dollars to make VR and AR more immersive, comfortable, and affordable.
People avoiding the real world more, depressing.
4. Drones and Flying Cars: GPS started out as a military technology but is now used to hail taxis, get mapping directions, and hunt Pokemon. Likewise, drones started out as a military technology, but are increasingly being used for a wide range of consumer and commercial applications.
Flying bombs and deathtraps, depressing.
5. Artificial Intelligence: Artificial intelligence has made rapid advances in the last decade, due to new algorithms and massive increases in data collection and computing power.
It'll enslave us all, depressing.
6. Pocket Supercomputers for Everyone: By 2020, 80% of adults on earth will have an internet-connected smartphone. An iPhone 6 has about 2 billion transistors, roughly 625 times more transistors than a 1995 Intel Pentium computer. Today's smartphones are what used to be considered supercomputers.
NSA can process the taps locally, depressing.
7. Cryptocurrencies and Blockchains: Protocols are the plumbing of the internet. Most of the protocols we use today were developed decades ago by academia and government. Since then, protocol development mostly stopped as energy shifted to developing proprietary systems like social networks and messaging apps. Cryptocurrency and blockchain technologies are changing this by providing a new business model for internet protocols. This year alone, hundreds of millions of dollars were raised for a broad range of innovative blockchain-based protocols.
Economics, depressing.
8. High-Quality Online Education: While college tuition skyrockets, anyone with a smartphone can study almost any topic online, accessing educational content that is mostly free and increasingly high-quality.
More know-it-alls who can't think rationally on the market, depressing.
9. Better Food through Science: Earth is running out of farmable land and fresh water. This is partly because our food production systems are incredibly inefficient. It takes an astounding 1799 gallons of water to produce 1 pound of beef. Fortunately, a variety of new technologies are being developed to improve our food system.
Soon we can kill off all the animals and plants and replace them with factories, depressing.
10. Computerized Medicine: Until recently, computers have only been at the periphery of medicine, used primarily for research and record keeping. Today, the combination of computer science and medicine is leading to a variety of breakthroughs.
Combine this with AI and VR, what could possibly go wrong, depressing.
11. A New Space Age: Since the beginning of the space age in the 1950s, the vast majority of space funding has come from governments. But that funding has been in decline: for example, NASA's budget dropped from about 4.5% of the federal budget in the 1960s to about 0.5% of the federal budget today.
The rich will either force the poor up into space, or go themselves to escape the pollution, depressing.
Self driving cars being the main culprit for making things boring, but the rest of them don't fill me with excitement either. The future seems to be clean, sterilised, free from madness, politically correct and by-the-book. It also seems to be filled with capitalists who want to automate their entire business and live a life of hedonism on the bahamas while everyone else supposedly keeps working for their money.
Tl;dr? The future is a load of sh1t really
That list looks like everything that was promised at a 1950's World Fair Expo.
1. Self-Driving Cars: Someone Else's Car.
2. Clean Energy: Someone Else's Wealth.
3. Virtual and Augmented Reality: Someone Else's data, displayed.
4. Drones and Flying Cars: Someone Else's "paperless office" or "alternatively fueled car".
5. Artificial Intelligence: Someone Else's algorithm on Someone Else's CPU.
6. Pocket Supercomputers for Everyone: Someone Else's data collection.
7. Cryptocurrencies and Blockchains: Someone Else's wealth.
8. High-Quality Online Education: Someone Else's knowledge...that no employer will ever esteem as highly as a degree.
9. Better Food through Science: Someone Else's farm.
10. Computerized Medicine: Someone Else's algorithm.
11. A New Space Age: Someone Else's patent.
Aging, yes. What to do after your retirement funds run out before you can live an extra 30, 40 or 50 years? No so much.
>> High-Quality Online Education: While college tuition skyrockets, anyone with a smartphone can study almost any topic online, accessing educational content that is mostly free and increasingly high-quality.
This has been true of libraries and the early days of the Internet as well: there's PLENTY of free material available to those who want to learn something. However, most people still spend most of their time consuming pop/political lit or playing games instead of learning or contributing anything worthwhile.
And...you'll still need a degree to get a job, and what you learn online isn't going to help there except to let you skate through a class or two at the university.
If aging is resolved, why would you retire?? Slave forever!
I can't call that English
Some of us actually do enjoy driving, track/race and are quite good at it.
That's a far different thing from 99.9999% of the driving most of us do. I get to drive roughly 60 minutes per day for my commute round trip. There is nothing enjoyable about the drive and changing to an exciting car wouldn't make it more exciting. If my commute is something you would find fun then I would wonder what is wrong with you. The vast majority of my driving time is a waste of my life. It is unproductive, boring, occasionally dangerous, polluting and wasteful. Sure getting behind the wheel of a fast car on a track is a blast but very little driving even remotely fits that description.
You missed the point, this is much more '11 dreams I hope will become true to maximise MY investments'
Or do you think 'an American internet entrepreneur' is doing his best for the health and happiness of others?
btw, several of the items are quite obvious astroturfing.
9, is downright funny, there is, by definition, less than 1 pound of water in 1 pound of beef, unless this guy thinks
cattle magically transmute h2o into something else. there is much MUCH more waste of produced food that limitation
on production.
5, is quite obviously the dream of someone who sees himself in the 'winning' side of that equation with little care for those
who will find themselves on the losing side (which will be many, unfortunately). Pop goes your knowedge-based-economies.
7, is just silly, blockchains dont in any way suddenly revolutionise anything - they are one cute solution to one specific problem.
10, is of no actual value unless the elephant in the corner of medicine is addressed - massive financial graft and inefficiency. Anyone
think that lower internal costs will lead to cheaper service? Didnt think so.
4, Mines (the exploding sort) started out as a military technology also ;) any link between GPS and Drones via military as a sign of social benifit is... tenuous at best.
But hey, he is just hoping we drink the coolaid and help out his portfolio I am sure. Good luck with that.
Are you so messed up that you think that working == being a slave?
Sad. Just fvking sad.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
1. Self-Driving Cars: If the tech and legal issues ever get sorted, it can be great. But that's nowhere near happening, so the hype machine needs to continue to roll to continue bringing in new investors.
2. Clean Energy: Very expensive and requiring massive diversity of investment. Wind and solar (the big "new" players) are not for every environment. Moreover, there has only been minimal gains in the grid balancing act required to make use of these intermittent energy sources.
3. Virtual and Augmented Reality: Porn and games. For all other applications, it would just be too much of a distraction.
4. Drones and Flying Cars: Drones come with MASSIVE safety and privacy risks. Flying cars are and always will be BS.
5. Artificial Intelligence: Always just around the corner.
6. Pocket Supercomputers for Everyone: If we can designate smartphones supercomputers because they're as powerful as supercomputers once were, then I am the smartest man on Earth (by comparison to pre-Enlightenment Europe).
7. Cryptocurrencies and Blockchains: Until there's a means of securing cryptocurrencies in peoples' hands, they will never gain sufficient faith for widespread usage. Until then, they're just volatile niche currencies.
8. High-Quality Online Education: Online Education will be crap until you can figure out a way to use it to consistently educate the lower socio-economic ranks. Until then, we're going to continue to NEED to require them to physically show up to a classroom with humans adjusting to the needs of the students.
9. Better Food through Science: This is the past. We've been doing this for hundreds of years.
10. Computerized Medicine: Which will be useless unless our social policies surrounding the relationships between medical costs and medical profits aren't addressed.
11. A New Space Age: This is where the drones comes in. Today's governments are spending more money on keeping their populations healthier and prolonging lives. As they invest more, there will be less money for exploration (and 99% of exploration is funded by governments). It is, and will continue to be for a long time, to just send drones to do our exploration for us.
And you, sir, no doubt are a billionaire, since you've declared that you're one of those who subscribe to the idea that only lazy people are poor.
I don't see "sex robots" in his list of things to be excited about. I fail to understand why I should be excited about self driving cars, but a robot GF would actually change the world.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
'Self driving cars' are not 'here today', they're a JOKE, and they will not be 'mainstream in 3-5 years'. At best they'll be allowed to be sophisticated autopilots, so don't throw away your drivers license you'll need it.
Drones need to DIE. Flying cars aren't going to happen.
So-called 'artificial intelligence' is highly overrated and they're using the wrong term for what they have now. When you come to me with a so-called 'AI' that is indistinguishable from a human being in every way then I'll call it an 'AI', until then it's just another silly limited computer program.
'By 2020, 80% of all humans on Earth will carry around personal surveillance platforms that greedy corporations, governments, and criminal organizations use to collect personal data on them that they sell, use for advertising, use to build 'profiles' of people, and use to steal your identity". That's what that line should read. Smartphones are becoming a scourge, not a help.
'Crytocurrencies' need to die. All they're good for, really, is money-laundering by criminals and terrorists.
How about we get some 'high quality PUBLIC SCHOOL education' so kids don't end up dumb and useless?
How about we get doctors to not suck instead of 'computerized medicine'? I don't want an 'automated doctor', I want a HUMAN doctor that knows what the hell they're doing!
Our 'better food through science' may yet kill us all. I've stopped even bothering to talk about it because it's all already in the wind so there's nothing we can do to stop it now. Either our meddling is harmless, or it destroys us. Come back in 20 years and we'll see which it is.
'Clean energy' may or may not catch on. We'll see if India and China get on board for real or if their mad rush to be 1st World Countries means they just keep burning coal. Also, can we get some Thorium up in this mix, please? Seriously stop being paranoid about nuclear power, damnit.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Here's a picture of coal mine pollution. It doesn't show the mercury being released into the air when it burns. Do you have any pictures of solar cell pollution, or is that more a hypothetical thing?
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."