Machine learning as a programming paradigm. There is a lot of potential still in my main mind of simplifying AI training and using it to solve simple tasks.
Distributed AI and its potential to help here is a big one too. Projects like petals.ml and hivemind come to mind, but so does projects like open assistant showing what volunteers can build
I subscribe to the Tony Seba / RethinkX view that we are in a decade of multiple major technological disruptions - energy, agriculture, information, transportation. He's lectured on the topic several times: https://youtu.be/z7vhMcKvHo8
Even if he is wrong about the details, it's great hopium.
Virtual Reality. It still has a way to go, but the technology is incredible and immersive when done well.
The barriers at the moment are a mix of technical (high computing power, tethered systems, ongoing needs to improve camera and component sizes and weights to improve headset comfort) and conent (there is content but it is growing slowly; gaming and other entertainment seem the most likely uses for the tech, or 'spatial computing' if Apple can broaden the use scenarios).
I think the big shifts will come in the next few years:
Improved components and production lines - Apples extremely expensive headset makes more sense when you see it as the vanguard of a new production line - economies of scale, and ongoing technical improvements should bring even their current headset down in price in a few years. The iPhone did well initially but it really took off a few years in as Apple optimised it's production lines and costs, pumping up quality while maintaining price (although it was premium even then)
Streaming tech - both local wifi etc streaming from a PC to free up the user from tethering, and also longer term the potential for cloud based computing streaming to headsets. There will be technical issues but having used Stadia I'm convinced they can be overcome; although it failed commerically that (and other streaming techs) show low latency streaming for gaming can be done. Although with so much more to track and keep in sync VR will be harder; but streaming content will unleash VRs potential to mass market.
Procedural and "AI" generated VR content - I think content generation will benefit massively from the increased procedural and so-called AI generated technology. This will benefit gaming (and other entertainment) in general but that will feed into VR.
Market growth feedback loop - It's started already, VR is growing but we're still mostly in the early adopters phase, and particularly for the high end quality content end of the market. Meta's Quest based systems are really targetting a more casual low end of the market. But as the market grows and costs fall, it encourages more content which encourage mores users and VR will explode like many other technologies before it.
I agree. I love my VR. But, I also see that without more adoption it won't go much further than it already has. Apple stepping in might really help the space. The price is a bit concerning though..
3D printing. We are entering an era where we cannot mass produce anymore. We will have to rely on repairs. And 3D printing is an excellent way to replace broken parts of what we buy.
Open source hardware can easily become the norm. If your product comes with a 3D plan of every parts of it then it should be promoted by governments, by reducing taxes on your product for example. On top of that this technology can easily be used locally.
There's a fair amount of waste involved in 3D printing (support structures for example), as well as expertise needed to figure out tolerances and quirks of an individual printer. There's also an argument that we need improvements in 3D printing that would allow us to use metal (sintering) instead of plastic (extruding or UV exposure) both for sustainability and structural reasons.
I'd agree that 3D printing has a much higher potential than it currently is used for, but let's not pretend it's a cure-all for consumerism.
This waste is also present in traditional injection molding in the form of sprues, runners, and gates (probably less, though it depends on the site specifics).
Other people have already addressed the waste portion of your argument. The part that I'd like to address is the "expertise needed". I completely agree with how difficult it can be to learn. I mean, just calibrating your printer can be a whole job. However, I don't think it's necessarily something that everyone would have to have a printer to get the benefits of the tech. I already see many people that sell "3D-Printing services" I have my own 3D-printer, but I have even paid people to print certain things for me. If people can find 3D-printable files (thangs, printables, thingiverse) then they can get someone to pay for much cheaper and faster than ordering a rare part overseas.
I agree that AI is definitely very upcoming (already here actually), but I seriously fear it's going to be for the worse overall.
Every country should be putting down serious rules about AI while it's still early enough to prevent the problems.
The European Union is already at it, I hope they are bringing in many experts from different fields and try to enforce it all strictly.
Kinda agree, but we need to make sure the free world is always far ahead dictatorships on AI. If we slow down on AI developments, Xi will take the lead, and that's the worst outcome.
Probably "AI". It's not actual like AI in films , but it is a great program that can analyze human language and extrapolate pretty interesting data from a wide variety of sources, then reformulate that data into a human language that is concise and useful. I am personally excited about the prospect of a personal AI that can run locally or in a truly private cloud services that can learn my speech, my habits, my interests, etc and be ready to provide me with customized data from the Internet or from it's observation of me.
It's a double edge sword though. While a tool like this should be used to discover more truth about the world we live in, there will be many bad actors trying to use it to manipulate and lie to achieve their nefarious goals. AI will also need to be trained to detect when something is fake, and I feel that this will become a never ending arms race.
Maybe this is just a contrarian view, but I see "AI" as a potential rather than a technology. Right now, transformer-based technologies are what most of us mean when we talk about AI, and it's not clear to me how much more potential that idea really has. When I look at how much energy it takes to set up something like GPT-4 I see us pushing hardware to its limit and yet the outcomes are still too often unsatisfying. Significant breakthroughs are needed somewhere in that architecture just to do the kind of things we're trying to do today at the fidelity we expect and without breaking the bank.
The technology we have today might be to AI what the phonograph was to audio recording. As a technology we hit the limits of its potential pretty quickly and then… we fixated. Entirely different technologies eventually led to the lossless spatial audio experiences we can enjoy today, and seem more likely to carry future potential for audio too.
In that analogy, GPT might just be like someone arranging 8 gramophones in a circle to mimic the kind of spatial audio experience available in some headphones now. Impressive in many ways, but directionally not the path where potential lies.
I agree. Many people are fixated on GPT because it is shiny and novel, but it is certainly not the pinnacle of what AI could be, or even close. One day, we will look back on calling GPT an “AI” like we would someone calling the first two tin cans on a string a “phone”. Accurate enough, but certainly a far cry from any modern phone.
AI has the capacity to be the most impactful overall to our daily lives, but like most things, advancement will continue to be limited by hardware.
There's a lot of the toupee fallacy around AI. "AI is powerful and changing the world because it's displacing artists but also nothing to worry about because it can't write a real recipe."
Yeah I agree although I hate the use of the name "AI". It's marketing nonsense driven by a gold rush to sell both companies to shareholders and get consumers interested.
The stuff we're seeing like ChatGPT is not AI; it's extremely powerful and impressive language based models, and current systems have an impressive ability to "remix" content into new content. But the technology isn't ready for the mass market yet - it's too inaccurate yet it's being rushed into search engines out of fear of being left behind.
There is also a huge issues around the data used to "train" these systems. Train is a misnomer - that data is taken and stored and pulled upon actively and constantly. Who owns the data, whose data has been used? Whose art works for example are used as the engine to drive the generative art by art AIs? When human users create and share content, that is being copied and stored, or constantly accessed to drive the AI. User content across the internet is being used to drive these systems, and yet it's not the original content makers who benefit; it's the AI fims and the tech firms who are opaquely selling and hoarding our data and content for commerical gain.
People don't understand how much data has been essentially stolen from us to drive this technology. Look at the reddit saga - one driver for locking down the API is lock out AI companies - not to protect your data or content, but purely so Reddit can monetise it. We are the products when we use social media; it used to be that we were sold to advertisers but now the content we share has been comandeered by social medial and tech giants and is being used to drive "AI". And because it's complex and technical, we're being screwed over en masse to line the pockets of tech company executives and share holders.
True, I think AI has the biggest potential of changing our lives in the near future. I don't think we are anywhere near generalised AI right now, but even the current LLVMs have amazing capabilities. I think there may be many ways we can apply these AIs that we haven't thought of yet.
Now here's to hoping that these AIs won't be monopolised by corporations but instead stay available to the general public.
Sadly, it’s probably going to be exactly what happens over time, since that is almost always what regulation does. Some company (Amazon or Meta or Microsoft or Google) will back door legislation via campaign donations to you know who’s, to make sure large regulated companies are the only ones who can run advanced AI models, out of “responsibility” and “safety”. And by seeding all these doom and gloom headlines of a “AI will take over the world” narrative, the public will be just so happy to give up the rights of other people for a thing “they weren’t going to do anyway”, like usual.
Idk about most potential, but battery tech needs to be the thing everyone is working on. So much of our tech is limited by capacity of batteries.
EV cars, Drones, phones, VR headsets, home power back ups, smart watches, and so much more (these obviously aren't the only or most important things)
There's about to be a huge break through in battery tech called solid state batteries. They're already commercially available in small sizes. It's only a matter of time before they've available in larger sizes suitable for EVs or for energy grid storage. They can charge super fast and don't require elements that are awful for the environment like lithium ion batteries. It's gonna be a game change for EVs. They can charge to 100% in the time it takes to fill a tank of gas.
I have heard of this development for the last 5 years or so. I can't wait for it to be widely available. Killing two birds with 1 stone and helping decrease harmful chemicals waste is awesome
I'm with you that battery tech is a crucial linchpin for so many other developments. Until this transcends the current restrictions many other approaches will not really go anywhere in practice.
I'm not aware of any major breakthroughs currently so hopefully something viable is going to come up before too long.
Add comment