I still think Google Maps is pretty cool.
Garry Kasparov: The Last Revolutionary Technology Was The Apple II
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Re: Garry Kasparov: The Last Revolutionary Technology Was The Apple II
#32As industries grow too large sweeping changes become more difficult. There are too many dependencies in the current tech stack for computers. Processor architectures, people used to certain UIs, lots of jobs dependent on the status quo. Society may have caught up with the possibilities of yesterday's computers, jumping on social networks, ubiquity of devices, but the tech stack itself is stuck.
The most recent opportunity to move it forward are mobile devices. Companies are finally rethinking the OS (iOS, ChromeOS), compilers (LLVM), processor architectures (ARM, integrated graphics).
Kasparov probably thinks such steps should not be driven by market forces alone, but by technologists interested in experimentation. The right market conditions came about after decades of the same old more MHz, more HD space rat race. The market is not fast enough, it has other priorities, like getting the products to everybody.
Our biggest technological leaps came about when people with vision got others to invest big. The Industrial Revolution in 1800s, World Wars, Manhattan Project, Space race, PCs, GUIs, .COM bubble, GPS, CERN, LHC etc.. were all obnoxiously big gambles. These have become less popular, people prefer mindless market driven evolutionary change instead of vision.
Re: Garry Kasparov: The Last Revolutionary Technology Was The Apple II
#33This clearly shows that being very wise and being very intelligent are not the same thing.
I'm not sure that being the best chess player in the world is evidence that Kasparov is very intelligent--any more than being the best poker player, the best piano player, or even the best marketer. Chess is a learned skill just like any of those.
Put another way, looking at all of the world's very most intelligent people, the fraction that care enough about chess to become the world champion if they had the aptitude is very slim.
Re: Garry Kasparov: The Last Revolutionary Technology Was The Apple II
#34It's rare I want to call someone with conservative technological estimates unrealistic. Usually I see the opposite. But I don't think Kasparov is on the mark here. The cellphone was invented after that and has forever changed the way we reach people and fundamentally how they are reachable. Do you remember life pre-cellphones? When you left your house you literally dropped off the map. There was no way of anyone know…
It's non-trivial to compare cell phones with the combustion engine or flight, but I think we can agree with Kasparov that more inventions of that magnitude are something we should strive for.
Re: Garry Kasparov: The Last Revolutionary Technology Was The Apple II
#35Though I agree with some of the above comments that the technological innovations since 1977 haven't been altogether uninspiring, I do wonder: Who right now is funding innovation that doesn't directly have a business model tied to it? i.e., innovation for the sake of innovation, without the startup pitch, killer ceo, etc - the scientist pushing the limits for the sake of science?
Is NASA a place where this happens? And is it frivolous to suggest that this kind of innovation without an obvious money-making scheme is important?
Re: Garry Kasparov: The Last Revolutionary Technology Was The Apple II
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ubiquitous cell phones are definitely a revolutionary development. This becomes obvious when you read or watch fiction of any sort. How many story lines would be completely disrupted by the presence of a cell phone? As it turns out, a great many, even for stories being written today, as many writers haven't fully absorbed the way things have changed.
This drives me nuts whenever I read anything by Connie Willis. Her time travel books play (partly, obviously) decades in the future yet there are constantly people running around and frantically looking for each other and not finding anyone. I always want to scream “Pick up your goddamn cellphone!” (Some of those were written in the nineties which explains their lack of cellphones but even her most recent books from…
It's weird that the lack of portable phones requires more suspension of disbelief than time travel. Maybe that's a testament to the writer. In Doomsday Book there are a few plot points where even an answering machine would have helped.
Excellent books though, despite that.
Re: Garry Kasparov: The Last Revolutionary Technology Was The Apple II
#37We went from basic monochrome computers that could barely hold the text of a single book in memory to having instantaneous access to the sum of human knowledge from a device that fits in your pocket.
Perhaps my definition of revolutionary is different than his.
Re: Garry Kasparov: The Last Revolutionary Technology Was The Apple II
#38I’m not sure that Kasparov (or anybody) has a right to criticize the rate of progress for the last few decades or centuries. Since the Renaissance, human progress has grown leaps and bounds at such an astonishing rate, compared with before, that we may have outpaced the ability for the human animal to adapt without negative repercussions. (Some might argue that this already happened all the way back to agriculture.)…
We already have huge negative repercussions. Climate change, mass extinction, overpopulation thanks to industrial agriculture.
Now it might be more dangerous if tech slowed down, because we need new tech to fix disasters caused by the old.
In some industries, like energy, automotive, people have been catching their collective breath for decades and now we're in trouble.
Re: Garry Kasparov: The Last Revolutionary Technology Was The Apple II
#39Apart from the internet itself I think digital content distribution is revolutionary, it certainly has drastically changes the way we acquire games, books, music, movies etc.
Re: Garry Kasparov: The Last Revolutionary Technology Was The Apple II
#40It's rare I want to call someone with conservative technological estimates unrealistic. Usually I see the opposite. But I don't think Kasparov is on the mark here. The cellphone was invented after that and has forever changed the way we reach people and fundamentally how they are reachable. Do you remember life pre-cellphones? When you left your house you literally dropped off the map. There was no way of anyone know…
It's non-trivial to compare cell phones with the combustion engine or flight, but I think we can agree with Kasparov that more inventions of that magnitude are something we should strive for.
Yet engines are actually getting replaced by other alternatives, but those alternatives require different sets of infrastructure which are non-existent (such as for fuel cells or electric cars) Also, there are external forces driving the way to the opposite side of the story (aka keeping combustion engines, for money, of course)
Sometimes I just think that the Americans use too much cars (one person driving a car with four seats is an insult to the nature.)