possibly Behavior-driven code generation... meaning create some platform to enable watching users use an application, then it could make machine code to create a similar application. This would enable making videos for training that simulated a working application but the AI would not care if the application worked or not in reality but could make it work type thing?
Ask HN: What's a promising area to work on?
121–130 of 947 posts
Re: Ask HN: What's a promising area to work on?
#122Digital privacy / security.
People and companies are becoming more and more privacy aware/conscious/concerned. All the scandals (e.g. data breaches, targeted advertising, selling of user data) and new regulations such as GDPR are only increasing the need and demand for privacy
Re: Ask HN: What's a promising area to work on?
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
Siberia will be the next California ;-)
Wow! Here's a review of Siberia's climate by 2080: "Even under mild climate change, they estimate a five-fold increase in the potential human capacity." https://www.newsweek.com/russia-siberia-habitable-climate-ch...
I remember a news crew interviewing Russian citizens on the street about climate change. One guy said, "I welcome global warming, it's f&cking cold here!"
Re: Ask HN: What's a promising area to work on?
#124tools for micro-entrepreneurs: with the growth of automation (e.g. RPA and AI) and the consequent decline of the world middle class, many people are being forced to work informally as a food deliverer or be an uber driver. others will become micro-entrepreneurs (solo-entrepreneurs for many). the opportunity is that these entrepreneurs will need all kinds of specialized tools during their journey (payment, marketing,…
bullish on this as well
Re: Ask HN: What's a promising area to work on?
#125The climate emergency has pushed me hard into quite a few areas that have a lot of promise for huge impact, to name a few:
- electromobility: concerting bikes, kick-scooters, cars ... this all is much easier than it seems, also has a vibrant open source culture
- demand response in electricity grids has quite a few startups (one of which I just joined) that help integrating a lot of renewables in a way that does not break grid stability
- passivhaus buildings that can save 90% of heating/cooling for 10% extra cost in construction
- storing carbon into buildings with wood/CLT
- plating trees, reforesting deserts etc
- if you really want to go long there are a few fields of microbiology that could reduce our pollution from agriculture a lot
Re: Ask HN: What's a promising area to work on?
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
Who's going to pay for it?
likely individuals, not governments. We bought our way into this problem.
But the number of people who will is very obviously tiny. For any well-off individual, it's cheaper to buy their way out of the downsides. Everyone else is wondering about rent and (in the US) healthcare with a lot more immediacy.
We can see this from the low takeup of carbon offsets.
Re: Ask HN: What's a promising area to work on?
#127Find a popular web app. Make a privacy-centric version of it. Features publicly listed on the home page:
- No 3rd party analytics
- No 3rd party data sharing
- GDPR for users worldwide
- Logs deleted after x days
- Clear data retention policies
- Clear process on how to communicate change on these features
Apple, Firefox, and others have started to realize that people are now taking privacy seriously and willing to pay a premium for it. And, no, security is not a acceptable form of privacy. We should not be complacent with "Trust us" platforms with out clear definitions.
Re: Ask HN: What's a promising area to work on?
#128Climate change will create the first trillionaire. Find everything that eats fossil fuels and electrify it. Find everything that requires stable land and predictable weather and put it in a shipping container. Find every infrastructure investment that requires decades to pay off and decentralize it. Instead of water line pipes, pull water out of the air. Instead of copper and fiber optic cables on telephone poles, us…
You mean geo-engineering specifically, or just a transition to a renewable economy?
Olivine weathering and ocean cloud seeding both seem like reasonably likely solutions that each cost on the order of 10's of billions. Major doubts that addressing carbon will be a big money maker.
But obviously the carbon economy is huge, so the renewable economy will at least that big.
Re: Ask HN: What's a promising area to work on?
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
What value does augmented reality add to anything?
I'm thinking of assisting drivers. Projecting stuff into the road to guide the driver, or warn him when there are dangerous objects.
I like the idea of using it for safety. Is that something currently being done, or still in the experimental stages?
Re: Ask HN: What's a promising area to work on?
#130Climate change will create the first trillionaire. Find everything that eats fossil fuels and electrify it. Find everything that requires stable land and predictable weather and put it in a shipping container. Find every infrastructure investment that requires decades to pay off and decentralize it. Instead of water line pipes, pull water out of the air. Instead of copper and fiber optic cables on telephone poles, us…
Who's going to pay for it?
As one example, imagine that someone invents a process to manufacture gasoline using carbon extracted from the air, at a price that's cost competitive with gasoline extracted from the ground.
Any car running on that as fuel would immediately become carbon-neutral, and it could be produced anywhere on the planet. Almost overnight you could make the entire automotive industry carbon neutral (burning this gasoline would merely return the carbon into the air that was sequestered when the gas was produced) without needing to replace all the cars on the road.
Who would pay for it? Everyone. Individuals would buy manufactured gasoline to power their cars. Governments all over the world would subsidize its production both for environmental reasons (to meet Paris targets), and for energy security to reduce their dependence on oil imports.
That would be a license to print money and could probably produce a trillionaire.