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Ask HN: What fields or technologies are you excited about?

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Re: Ask HN: What fields or technologies are you excited about?

#21

Post by aelmeleegy »

jschveibinz wrote: post #9

I'm a boomer, so I see things differently than younger generations. Nevertheless, I think that solid, heartfelt advice to young people looking to advance in this rapiy changing environment should consider the following: 1. Become an expert in using and augmenting AI tools to accomplish your work, whatever that may be. There is a difference between average and expert in the results that can be obtained. AI expertise w…

Unfortunately my college days are behind me, but I'm still learning (luckily most of my jobs have involved me learning about a field and about technologies that I didn't know before).

I wish I had paid more attention in maths class when I was college tho, but it's never too late.

AI sure seems like a good bet. I am also keen on what other fields are out there. I've been trying to understand what are the areas where there's something brewing and will likely breakout in the next 5-10 years.

Re: Ask HN: What fields or technologies are you excited about?

#22

Post by xnx »

aelmeleegy wrote: post #18
xnx wrote: post #13

We're still barely scratching the surface of AI/LLM/ML. It's correctly getting plenty of attention because it is general purpose technology (steam engine, electricity, the Internet, etc.). Lot of interesting things happening with NeRF, Gaussian splatting, and similar. We're close to be able to do full 3D video capture of locations and high-fidelity playback/exploration in VR.

Do you think LLM/ML is on the level of steam engine and electricity: a century and more in value, and still holding on; or more of cloud computing level: OpenAI being analogous to AWS, providing loads of value but still on the 1 decade scale?

Much much bigger than cloud computing. Cloud computing is more like steam engine to the internal combustion engine. ICE allowed for airplanes, but not as big a deal as moving from animal power to chemical power. AI is closer in significance to the transistor. Before the transistor, you could do the same things with vacuum tubes. The scale of the transistor made so much more possible. You can accomplish a lot of what AI does with millions of hand-written rules, but AI automates the generation of these rules.

Re: Ask HN: What fields or technologies are you excited about?

#24

Post by enos_feedler »

gladwindos wrote: post #7

I think the obvious answer right now is anything related to AI. But I'm actually quite excited about the embrace of open-source applications that traditionally have not been, such as Cal.com and Mattermost.

I agree that open source, or even more specifically open and interoperable protocols between applications/sandboxes is where the next leg of software growth will happen on the internet. I don't believe increasing centralization is a trend but rather a swing of a pendulum that would start inverting soon. It will be less about open equivalents of centralized/closed products and services but just the birth of something new with openness and interoperability at the core.

Re: Ask HN: What fields or technologies are you excited about?

#25

Post by aelmeleegy »

vouaobrasil wrote: post #16

In my opinion, for the vast majority of people, and hence for society, we are past the point of diminishing returns when it comes to truly improving the world with technology. We should now switch from unfettered development to trying to be more sustainable with the tools that we have. Academia has become a game and tech development has become driven by pure consumerism in the race to replace human relationships with…

Agree with your point about tech, and I don't know a lot about academia to disagree.

One of my issues as someone who works in tech is that it so much capital has poured in and so much attention was on the field that there are relatively few innovations where one can create value. OpenAI being an exception that also proves the rule. A true innovation that literally needs billions of $ to have a chance of happening. Microsoft or Amazon didn't need that kind of money to build successful companies on the back of new business models.

Re: Ask HN: What fields or technologies are you excited about?

#26

Post by aelmeleegy »

weinzierl wrote: post #14

When I look a people older than myself, I see a pretty clear stratification of technologies that each age group "just doesn't get" [1], yet it is hard to predict what this technology will be for myself. My best bet is medical tech and especially body modification and enhancement. While I have been excited and unafraid of all new inventions my whole life, this is a topic that makes me more uncomfortable than excited -…

Interesting. I am as far from the medical field as could be. Will need to investigate that for sure.

Re: Ask HN: What fields or technologies are you excited about?

#27

Post by add-sub-mul-div »

vouaobrasil wrote: post #16

In my opinion, for the vast majority of people, and hence for society, we are past the point of diminishing returns when it comes to truly improving the world with technology. We should now switch from unfettered development to trying to be more sustainable with the tools that we have. Academia has become a game and tech development has become driven by pure consumerism in the race to replace human relationships with…

Worse than diminishing returns, today we should expect a new invention to be used against consumers rather than improve the world for us.

Consider the DVR. It transformed the experience of watching television before cable companies figured out they needed to acquire it and worsen it. The damage (to them) is done, we got used to fast forwarding through commercials and now that's a necessary feature with cable.

That could never happen today. Profit, advertising, and surveillance are too strongly built into the process of invention right now. Technology companies have mastered enshittification on a level that older industries never innovated on their own.

Re: Ask HN: What fields or technologies are you excited about?

#30

Post by zcw100 »

People say that I'm cynical but wow this is just off the charts. It also makes me really optimistic that something big is right around the corner. When people start with the "it's all been done" and "nothing good or better will ever happen again" it just means they can't see how things will change. Because they're blind they won't see the next big thing creeping up behind them and when it finally does become apparent they'll exclaim, "Wow what a breakthrough" when the truth is more likely that it's been something that has been brewing for decades. I have some guesses about what the next ones are.
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