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Ask HN: What's the next big thing that few people are talking about?

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Re: Ask HN: What's the next big thing that few people are talking about?

#311

Post by ratg13 »

Geee wrote: post #284

General purpose humanoid robots. They're kind of mainstream idea, but very few people talk about them or take them seriously. Humanoid robots will have an absolutely massive impact in very near future. Most people don't realize that with general purpose humanoid robots, labor becomes software. Labor becomes repeateable, testable, simulatable, modular, extensible, verifiable, etc. All things that apply to software wil…

This is the one that scares me the most because the labor benefits are so big that the field will advance quickly, and it's only a matter of time before someone starts fitting them with rifles.

Re: Ask HN: What's the next big thing that few people are talking about?

#312

Post by suoduandao2 »

Shoemaker666 wrote: post #130

Fungus based mycoprotein for food and seawater battery. Im hopeful that the energy derived from saltwater may reduce the pollution of watervessels and maybe help in having more sustainable solutions where robots powered by the sea could be cleaning up the pollution.

Any ongoing projects in this space that would be worth checking out?

Re: Ask HN: What's the next big thing that few people are talking about?

#313

Post by trgn »

personjerry wrote: post #294

One thing I've been thinking about is, how do you scale tourism? Edit for clarification: For example, the destruction of local environment is a known problem for places such as Machu Picchu and Venice, to the point where you now need to reserve and pay for a visit to the city of Venice [0] As population gets higher more and more people want to visit the top destinations, and when a new one gets "found" it gets floode…

You don't have to. If the local environment becomes nicer (for americans, not a soul crushing schmear of strip malls and parking lots), people will do more things closer to home.

The driving aspiration of the future will be that you live in a place worth visiting. Not a place you look forward to flee 2-3 times a year.

Re: Ask HN: What's the next big thing that few people are talking about?

#314

Post by Workaccount2 »

WFHRenaissance wrote: post #145

Prompt engineering. The perfection of "programming as verbal intelligence".

I can't help but feel that this will be a fleeting skill.

As humans work towards clearer communication with AI, AI will be working towards clearer understanding of humans.

Re: Ask HN: What's the next big thing that few people are talking about?

#315

Post by _fat_santa »

elmomle wrote: post #224
blinkingled wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's amazing to me how little talk there is about reduce and recycle - with remote work, better city and public transport planning etc if we could completely eliminate the use of cars for the vast majority of the populace we would not need to mine more for batteries, wonder where and how our electricity is going to come from and how we are going to offset carbon. We literally have no vision for optimization, we just…

The problem is that it's a classic large-scale prisoner's dilemma. Living in a walking city is nicer than living in a driving city. But living in a walking city with a car is even nicer! The only way to fix it is by passing taxes or other restrictive legislation, which has so far been extremely difficult because most voters choose "let's make things a bit easier for you today" over "we should all sacrifice now to mak…

How I see it is that it's not that people own cars, it's that they drive them absolutely everywhere. I think there is a happy medium where you still have a car to get you places where you can't walk, but essential services are walking distance from where you live.

The apartment I moved into last year is in a neighborhood with grocery stores, some restaurants and a gym. It's not the epitome of walkability but it gets the job done. While at my old place I found myself getting into my car every day to go places, now I find myself only using it 1-2 times per week.

Also weather is a major factor. When I visited my friend in Florida last month I decided to walk to McDonalds one morning. By the time I got back I was drenched in sweat from the humidity. By comparison I make a similar length walk almost every morning and don't think anything of it. There even if the place was super walkable, folks would still drive because of the heat and humidity.

Re: Ask HN: What's the next big thing that few people are talking about?

#316

Post by neon_electro »

throwawaymaths wrote: post #147
cvccvroomvroom wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did this 20 years ago in an FMMS. It's not worth it. It's better to have an arbiter source of truth that can guarantee ACID principles with transactions rather than introduce merge conflicts or lose transactions for lack of synchronization. The internet is almost everywhere, so use that rather than provide academic features that cause more headaches than they solve. SQL databases with transactions and row locks are i…

Actually the theory to do this correctly didn't exist 20 years ago, so things truly are different now.

Sources and references help you make your argument shine!

Re: Ask HN: What's the next big thing that few people are talking about?

#317

Post by spaetzleesser »

Geee wrote: post #284

General purpose humanoid robots. They're kind of mainstream idea, but very few people talk about them or take them seriously. Humanoid robots will have an absolutely massive impact in very near future. Most people don't realize that with general purpose humanoid robots, labor becomes software. Labor becomes repeateable, testable, simulatable, modular, extensible, verifiable, etc. All things that apply to software wil…

“Put your robot in a forest with a few tools and soon you'll have a log house - built perfectly to the spec.l

I wonder how the capitalists will deal with this. If we have a robot that can build and maintain a house and grow food for you, how will they make money?

Re: Ask HN: What's the next big thing that few people are talking about?

#318

Post by JKCalhoun »

joshmarlow wrote: post #297
ChadNauseam wrote: post #247

Preimplantation polygenetic testing. The idea is that, when doing IVF, you sequence the genome of all the embryos and implant the ones that you predict will have properties that you like. This already exists for monogenetic screening (for parents who don't want to pass on heritable diseases for their children, where those diseases are localized to one gene). But the idea here is that, by checking thousands of genes,…

> If the process is expensive, it will only be available to rich people. I have trouble believing it will remain expensive unless there is a cultural taboo against it. In general, once proven out, there should be pretty high demand for the tech - and that provides a lot of opportunity for profit for whomever can get the costs down. What looks like a bigger blocker to me - AFAIK, IVF is really harsh on the body isn't…

Well, another way to put it, it requires that fertilization be the explicit focus of the pregnancy and the means of that fertilization not really of the more, um, traditional variety.

I think at the very least there is a hurdle of willfulness (and a monetary hurdle of at least some degree — compared to the traditional alternative certainly).

To be sure it need not be prohibitively expensive, but it sounds like it will go hand in glove with the parental mindset that also seeks out private schooling, tutoring, etc. That probably takes it fairly exclusively into the domain of the well off (and want-to-be well off).

Re: Ask HN: What's the next big thing that few people are talking about?

#319

Post by philwelch »

ChadNauseam wrote: post #247

Preimplantation polygenetic testing. The idea is that, when doing IVF, you sequence the genome of all the embryos and implant the ones that you predict will have properties that you like. This already exists for monogenetic screening (for parents who don't want to pass on heritable diseases for their children, where those diseases are localized to one gene). But the idea here is that, by checking thousands of genes,…

Rich people already have children who are more intelligent and attractive than average. They do this via mechanisms like “being intelligent enough to get rich, or at least not being stupid enough to go broke” and “being rich enough to marry hot people and have kids with them”.

I don’t know if polygenetic testing is going to have a significant effect, but if it does, there is going to be a significant generation gap in intelligence, and that will have unpredictable consequences in education and the labor market.

Re: Ask HN: What's the next big thing that few people are talking about?

#320

Post by alexpotato »

Geee wrote: post #284

General purpose humanoid robots. They're kind of mainstream idea, but very few people talk about them or take them seriously. Humanoid robots will have an absolutely massive impact in very near future. Most people don't realize that with general purpose humanoid robots, labor becomes software. Labor becomes repeateable, testable, simulatable, modular, extensible, verifiable, etc. All things that apply to software wil…

Reminds me of this entry from the Trivia section on IMDB for Ex Machina:

  Director Alex Garland has described the future presented in the film as "ten minutes from now," meaning, "If somebody like Google or Apple announced tomorrow that they had made Ava, we would all be surprised, but we wouldn't be that surprised."
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0470752/trivia?item=tr2358967
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