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

news.ycombinator.com

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

#31

Post by aelmeleegy »

xnx wrote: post #22
aelmeleegy wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Love that comparison!

I'm so glad that some companies/people are building and releasing models to the public. This amazing development being exclusive to OpenAI would've been a terrible situation for the world.

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

#32

Post by RecycledEle »

AI is a personal tutor, amd the biggest change in education since the invention of writing.

I imagine a day when it is socially unacceptable to hire someone to do something for you. You have AI and Amazon, why not learn, order the parts, and do it yourself? Imagine a world where we all work a few hours a week but occupy ourselves learning new skills and applying those skills to improve our environments. This would also keep us ready to be useful at work.

I am reminded of a famous quote: "A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects." -Robert A. Heinlein

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

#33

Post by aelmeleegy »

zcw100 wrote: post #30

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…

No one said it's been done. There has been healthy debate about the fact that there hasn't been any (major) new social media networks since Snap (and Instagram before it). The cloud computing paradigm is now mostly dominated by 2 players (with GCP a distant third). here are 2 major desktop OSes, 2 major mobile OSes. etc.

This isn't proof that it won't happen again, it just says that the rate at which new innovations in software (and a new workout app doesn't count) has slowed down. LLMs being the exception but it's not like you and I can start an AI company in our garage.

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

#37

Post by secfirstmd »

aelmeleegy wrote: post #33
zcw100 wrote: post #30

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…

No one said it's been done. There has been healthy debate about the fact that there hasn't been any (major) new social media networks since Snap (and Instagram before it). The cloud computing paradigm is now mostly dominated by 2 players (with GCP a distant third). here are 2 major desktop OSes, 2 major mobile OSes. etc. This isn't proof that it won't happen again, it just says that the rate at which new innovations…

This is a joke right? No new major social media networks since Snap? Eh what about TikTok?

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

#40

Post by araes »

A bit ago (7 months) I asked a related question, that may have ideas for fields or technologies to be excited about working on.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37473795 (Ask HN: Tech that seems to have vanished?, 189 comments)

Memristors, alcohol batteries, laptop frame heatpipes, flywheel energy, smart textiles, and several others were mentioned.

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