The next great technology & change?

[DDE]

13 minutes ago, Second Hand Rocket Science said:

I'm sure there's a few cons, but I can't find any online. Can anyone inform me of some of fusion's pitfalls?

Yes. Fusion reactors are prone to catastrophic explosions if they overheat. The D-T reaction renders the entire reactor quite vigorously radioactive. Every other reaction hasn't been even theoretically achieved. Deuterium harvesting from water is a complex and somewhat environmentally unfriendly process.

Finally, deuterium is the ultimate non-renewable fuel of the universe, created only in the first 20 seconds of time, whereas nearly everything else is produced in the cores of new stars.

Finally, the "always twenty years away" nature of fusion research creates room for all sorts of wastage and abuses. You can keep fission power projects to a timeline. You can't with fusion. It's the epitome of Big Science.

[kerbiloid]

1 hour ago, DDE said:

Every other reaction hasn't been even theoretically achieved.

The first fusionuke was pure deuterium.

Tritium joinned the party later.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_16_nuclear_bomb

1 hour ago, DDE said:

Deuterium harvesting from water is a complex and somewhat environmentally unfriendly process.

Compared to uranium or oil?

1 hour ago, DDE said:

deuterium is the ultimate non-renewable fuel of the universe

It's every 6 000 th atom of hydrogen in th ocean.

We'll get thirsty before it ends.

Also, it's mineable on almost any celestial body.

1 hour ago, DDE said:

the "always twenty years away" nature of fusion research creates room for all sorts of wastage and abuses.

Because combustion works, why bury the hen with golden eggs.

[StrandedonEarth]

3 hours ago, DDE said:

Finally, the "always twenty years away" nature of fusion research

Well, a fusion demonstration plant is now supposed to be only five years away..

https://generalfusion.com/fusion-demo-plant/

[farmerben]

On 6/27/2022 at 5:36 PM, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

That's one of the things I'm pondering - because in the context of the question I originally asked the technology cannot replace people, but instead, 

• The concept of 'cycles' or game-changing technological inventions that effectively brings on a new age of development and prosperity (although and albeit via massive disruptions and disenfranchisement of the prior beneficiaries) 

Note that disenfranchisement of the prior beneficiaries is analogous to the number of farriers and blacksmiths and wainwrights prior to the automobile becoming common.  Their specialty may have become anachronistic - but they could still work. (And it was far from a flick of the switch transition) 

Fundamentally people must still be able to work for there to be an economy in the first place.

 

This is one of the things contributing to my current belief.  Especially, trucking. 

The covid crisis laid bare the flaws and risks inherent in our logistics systems.  One of the most important things within the US is trucking... And yet we have a trucking shortage. Or rather a driver shortage and an inflexible system w/r/t where drivers are needed and where they can afford to live.  Someone will solve the problem and one solution is legislation that says 'only authorized autonomous vehicles are allowed on the interstates'.  Musk has even said that if the only vehicles on the road are automated and in the same system... Accidents are unlikely.

The US has a precident for 'making this work' and it is the advent of rail.  Legislation that absolves any corporation involved with transportation from liability (simple negligence) can make this happen in a decade, especially if it's profitable 

 

There is no driver shortage.  I can't find the stats right now but over half the qualified CDL-A holders are not driving.  The lifestyle commitment for an over the road truck driver is so extreme that very few people choose to do it continuously for decades.  The pay is decent compared to a normal job, until you factor in all the lifestyle sacrifices.  So really we have a pay shortage, which could also be ameliorated by making the job better.  

Everything difficult happens within the first or the last five miles of a trip.  The interstate is a cake walk.  We may see a period when a truck driver is required on board but allowed to sleep while on the interstate.  Also a period where autonomous vehicles are purchased to do one routine over and over, while the flexible part of the industry still requires humans.  

[farmerben]

On 5/10/2022 at 2:55 PM, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

I've been delving into a variety of historical and political topics and analysis recently - which I won't post about here - but an interesting thread emerged in a couple of them, that I think works with the theme of and people who populate this forum: The concept of 'cycles' or game-changing technological inventions that effectively brings on a new age of development and prosperity (although and albeit via massive disruptions and disenfranchisement of the prior beneficiaries). 

The examples given (largely focused on the US/West) are:

• Factories
• the Railroad 
• Electricity 
• the Automobile, and finally, 
• the Microchip. 

Each new technology had a massive impact - a transformative impact - on not only the economy, but also society and how humans use our time and interact with the world. 

One part of this thesis is that we are (with Social Media & the ubiquity of the Microchip in pretty much everything) at the end of the current era / cycle. 

If true - we are ripe for the next big 'game changing technology'. 

Prognostication isn't my strong suit* but maybe some of you have ideas? 

 

What's your guess about the next game changer? 

 

 

 

*(or I'd have picked a different long-shot in the Derby!) 

The innovations have been fast and furious for several centuries.   We are seeing the age of the individual amatuer inventor diminish as time goes on, with larger institutions driving more expensive research.  

Funny how the prosperity is a "cycle", while the development is a hockey stick.  Railroads are still working perfectly.  But the era of inflating money to lend to railroads has long past.  

The US and perhaps the whole world is addicted to economic bubbles.  This is perhaps a feature of how our money is created.  In the absence of the next great tech, the money flows into redistribution bubbles, like real estate, fine art, crypto-currency,  etc which do not really uplift the rest of humanity.  

 

Hopefully space colonization is more of a one way street than a cycle.  But there must be an initial period when the Earth is making massive investments in the hope of future returns.  This means lots of jobs financed by debt, synonymously a cyclical boom of prosperity for most people.  Ultimately the jobs and the debt will cease and we are left with increased asset value, the other half of the economic cycle.   

 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

41 minutes ago, farmerben said:

over half the qualified CDL-A holders are not driving.  The lifestyle commitment for an over the road truck driver is so extreme that very few people choose to do it continuously for decades.  The pay is decent compared to a normal job, until you factor in all the lifestyle sacrifices.  So really we have a pay shortage, which could also be ameliorated by making the job better

That is one of the (ahem) drivers for autonomous vehicles.  There exists a job that industry cannot get people to do cheaply.  Yes, one solution is to pay people more to do the work and another is to develop a way to automate it. 

Quote

Another issue presented by truck stop food is the cost. As of 2021, the mean annual pay for a truck driver was $50,340 — down significantly from 1980, when the average pay was $110,000 after adjusting for inflation, according to one analysis. Pay can be especially low for new drivers, or independent contractors, as they can be on the hook for costs like training fees, maintenance and fuel

... 

There are no figures on how many people work in the various professions that support the trucking industry, but it takes an army of truck washers, gas station cashiers and truck stop custodial staff to help drivers and their cargoes get from Point A to B

... 

If driverless trucks are the future of America’s highways, the industry surrounding truckers is likely to head the way of other once essential, now forgotten support industries, like the businesses that once served gold rush towns, mining towns or Route 66 motorists.

 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2022/06/04/business/truck-driver-shortage-support.amp.html

 

Note: I'm not advocating for this (I have family who drive), but it does appear that the change could be inevitable, and the effects broadly felt and transformative 

 

[kerbiloid]

55 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

There exists a job that industry cannot get people to do cheaply.  Yes, one solution is to pay people more to do the work and another is to develop a way to automate it. 

While there are goods to drive far, while people have enough salary to buy them, while they have job to be paid for.

Once they have become basic incomers, and while the industry gets domesticated, they will be ordering a limited range of basic goods, mostly produced at the factory nearby.

Also, to save money, and due to the remote presence technology progress (videoskype for talks and tactile sensors for hugs), they will be preferring remote presence and local routes by public _omnibus.

This highly reduced traffic will be easily provided by teslabot drivers and railroads.
So, exactly the drivers are absolutely not protected.

***

The janitors, too, btw.

As most of people will be unemployed, they will gather every piece of garbage to bring it to the recycle center for bonus.

 

And as the offices will be closed, so most of people will be making junk at home, and forced by the hygiene police sanitation support service to keep their home clean.

Because look at your wise neighbours. They get $500 unconditionally, and do public chores for $500 of bonus.
That's why they look happy, live in a clean home, and eat natural meat every day week. _{To eat it daily you must participate in a guinea pig plague vaccine testing.}
And now look at yourself.
What's wrong with you? Can't you help yourself and do this simple domestic cleaning job for two hours per day? Okay, we understand and will help you in the city motivation center.
Feel invited and don't hesitate to visit it three days per week next month, together with your new friends in orange robes.
Ordnung und Disziplin Hygiene and Diligence!

Edited July 4, 2022 by kerbiloid

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

49 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

As most of people will be unemployed, they will gather every piece of garbage to bring it to the recycle center for bonus.

 

[magnemoe]

On 7/4/2022 at 5:53 PM, farmerben said:

There is no driver shortage.  I can't find the stats right now but over half the qualified CDL-A holders are not driving.  The lifestyle commitment for an over the road truck driver is so extreme that very few people choose to do it continuously for decades.  The pay is decent compared to a normal job, until you factor in all the lifestyle sacrifices.  So really we have a pay shortage, which could also be ameliorated by making the job better.  

Everything difficult happens within the first or the last five miles of a trip.  The interstate is a cake walk.  We may see a period when a truck driver is required on board but allowed to sleep while on the interstate.  Also a period where autonomous vehicles are purchased to do one routine over and over, while the flexible part of the industry still requires humans.  

This makes sense, you could also run convoys as in front truck is manned the rest just tag along, yes its a lot like an train but rail in the US is set up for kilometer long freight trains not 5 container jobs and this would probably be pretty on on demand, 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

3 hours ago, magnemoe said:

This makes sense, you could also run convoys as in front truck is manned the rest just tag along, yes its a lot like an train but rail in the US is set up for kilometer long freight trains not 5 container jobs and this would probably be pretty on on demand, 

 

 

 

[kerbiloid]

Spoiler

 

 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

On 5/10/2022 at 4:47 PM, DeadJohn said:

What do you have to support the end of a cycle? New tech could easily extend from the microchip.

Maybe the next big advancement will be a leap in AI. That's a continuation of the microchip and wouldn't show a clear distinction between cycles.

Or maybe the next big thing is implantable medical technology. That's also a continuation from the microchip. Wide scale gene editing, though, a different medical technology, might be seen as a start of a new cycle.

Disruptive technologies are often only disruptive in hindsight. Maybe we're already partway into the next era with "remote work" or "facial recognition" but need a few more years to see if/how those developments transform society.

I'm starting to think DeadJohn is correct with AI being the next 'killer app' / 'disruptor'. 

While the processors that power the technology are rooted in the microchip, so too was the microchip rooted in the technology that preceded it.  Just as we had transportation before the internal combustion engine, the advent of the new tech changed things in some unexpected ways. 

So - having let this stew a while, I don't think any of the other nascent technologies has as much potential to be both disruptive and beneficial.  To permeate the entire economy as pervasively as the automobile and the microchip. 

I don't think in 1985 I knew I would need a phone in my pocket anymore than the guy on a train in 1885 knew he'd need a car or two in his garage.  Similarly, AI could be the thing that just keeps growing - not in a 'welcome the overlord' sense, but as a ubiquitous tool that we pretty much take for granted 20 years from now. 

[magnemoe]

7 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

I'm starting to think DeadJohn is correct with AI being the next 'killer app' / 'disruptor'. 

While the processors that power the technology are rooted in the microchip, so too was the microchip rooted in the technology that preceded it.  Just as we had transportation before the internal combustion engine, the advent of the new tech changed things in some unexpected ways. 

So - having let this stew a while, I don't think any of the other nascent technologies has as much potential to be both disruptive and beneficial.  To permeate the entire economy as pervasively as the automobile and the microchip. 

I don't think in 1985 I knew I would need a phone in my pocket anymore than the guy on a train in 1885 knew he'd need a car or two in his garage.  Similarly, AI could be the thing that just keeps growing - not in a 'welcome the overlord' sense, but as a ubiquitous tool that we pretty much take for granted 20 years from now. 

You are very unlikely to be wrong I say, AI might be more important than the internet for productivity. Granted for productivity its serious claims that the washing machine was more of an productivity gain, I doubt it, yes it was very important but I guess most people smelled and it was the fact unless in social circles there you was expected to have maids, but then the maids smelled. 
Internet obviously had more of an cultural impact than the washing machine. And as an software developer stackoverflow has been priceless. 

[farmerben]

I bet large language model AI will revolutionize (and cause mass unemployment in) legal services, programming, and journalism faster than self driving trucks will replace drivers.

[StrandedonEarth]

24 minutes ago, farmerben said:

I bet large language model AI will revolutionize (and cause mass unemployment in) legal services, programming, and journalism faster than self driving trucks will replace drivers.

You’re probably right, although fact-checking the AIs will be a probably be a growth industry for awhile. Except if they’re using google to fact-check, then how does one know the Google AI is giving accurate results? It’ll be the same old tailchasing of bogus papers supporting bogus claims ad infinitum. 

Robotics was supposed to be a game changer for the last 50 years. While automation has been a boon to productivity, I still don’t have a full-service robotic housekeeper. The marriage of AI and robotics opens the door to the proverbial post-apocalyptic scarcity future. 

[kerbiloid]

5 hours ago, farmerben said:

I bet large language model AI will revolutionize (and cause mass unemployment in) legal services, programming, and journalism faster than self driving trucks will replace drivers.

You won't see if the truck on the road are crewed, uncrewed, or even virtual.

The biological drivers will be replaced together with trucks, because it's enough one robo-truck instead of former ten to deliver the packs of standard food paste to the human feeding storehouse.
But for greater optimism, a score trucks more will be simulated, so you will be sure, that their amount has doubled.

TV, webcams, other remote control devices will show you a generated picture, the roads will be unavailable for a pedestrian walk, or even hidden, to make the infrastructure more eco-friendly.
So, being outdoors, and looking from far away at a road, full of trucks, with bare eyes, you even won't know, which 5% of them are real, and which 95% are moving holograms.

The fairy tales of old farts, that previously there was a hundred kinds of food and drinks in the shop, instead of bottles with "Drink #4 ("Milk"-like)" and "Balanced Food Ration #5b", will be sounding for the young people as weird as radioactive toys and creams from early XX century.
Believe me, I know. The details of the early XX reality for the Soviet people were sounding as weird, as the Soviet reality details are sounding for zoomers.
And the recipes of cheap food substitutes are well-known and widely used since XIX.
Just the modern change will be much weirder, and take much less time.

5 hours ago, StrandedonEarth said:

Robotics was supposed to be a game changer for the last 50 years.

Together with the mass cut of needs, it also will need much smaller industry to automate it.

5 hours ago, StrandedonEarth said:

I still don’t have a full-service robotic housekeeper.

That's why you don't have to wash your appartments daily with a toothbrush. There is no housekeeping robot to make you do this.

When it comes, the Smart Home will remind you.
"Good morning, Mr. StrandedonEarth. It's 06:30 am now. Please, don't forget that your house cleaning should be finished till 07:45, before the Daily Virtual Hygiene Inspection starts."
...
"It's already 07:52 now, and you still haven't washed the wall in the bathroom. Your Social Rating receives two penalty points. If you have not finished on the 08:00 Daily Hygiene Virtual Inspection, I will have to inform the Social Health Centre about your possible social ability problems, to let them help you."
...
"It's 07:58, and you have almost finished. Please, check that toothpaste spot at the right side of the mirror. I can see it via your augmented reality goggles, and am highlighting it red."
...
"It's 07:59, and the cleaning is over. Well done. One penalty point is annulled, so you receive four instead of five. As the calorie content of your daily food ration is matching the physically substantiated value, it won't be decreased. But the weekly limit of your TV watching is decreased by four minutes."

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

On 6/2/2023 at 6:01 PM, StrandedonEarth said:

I still don’t have a full-service robotic housekeeper

My roomba is presently banging about my furniture... But I'm not sure it is qualified for the toilets... Or dishes. 

 

Come to think of it... I'm happy keeping the robots to specific jobs 

[StrandedonEarth]

2 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

My roomba is presently banging about my furniture... But I'm not sure it is qualified for the toilets... Or dishes. 

 

Come to think of it... I'm happy keeping the robots to specific jobs 

Whole lotta Rosie...

[kerbiloid]

Spoiler

Edited June 4, 2023 by kerbiloid

[darthgently]

The social credit score stuff will spawn a pay to play economy where if you have the money and grease the right palms your score will always be fine, but if you don't have the money and don't pay the "fee" to the local bureaucrats your score will forever be held down for countless trivial infractions that no human could realistically avoid.  This would result in extreme disparity between two main classes

Edited June 4, 2023 by darthgently

[DDE]

On 6/3/2023 at 1:01 AM, StrandedonEarth said:

You’re probably right, although fact-checking the AIs will be a probably be a growth industry for awhile.

I'm not sure it would. The media seems to have given up on fact-checking and spell-checking their imterns for a while now. Labor expenditure would still drop manifold in either case.