Big tech products are mostly useless • Hacker News Board

Re: Big tech products are mostly useless

#41

Post by redial » Mon, May 21, 2018, 2:06 PM UTC

beat wrote: post #36

The problem is a lot of these world-changing technologies seem inevitable only in hindsight. Read decades of science fiction before the '90s, and nobody predicted the idea of everyone carrying a personal phone with them at all times. Much less connecting it to a global data network. These things always look inevitable in hindsight. But it takes some real cleverness to get them in foresight.

When wireless is perfectly applied the whole earth will be converted into a huge brain, which in fact it is, all things being particles of a real and rhythmic whole. We shall be able to communicate with one another instantly, irrespective of distance. Not only this, but through television and telephony we shall see and hear one another as perfectly as though we were face to face, despite intervening distances of thousands of miles; and the instruments through which we shall be able to do his will be amazingly simple compared with our present telephone. A man will be able to carry one in his vest pocket.

- Nikola Tesla, 1926.

https://kottke.org/18/04/nikola-tesla-predicted-the-smartpho...

Re: Big tech products are mostly useless

#42

Post by swalsh » Mon, May 21, 2018, 2:09 PM UTC

This is dense, I think there are a few threads of reason though. The exaggeration in marketing common in tech is quite tumultuous. The AI behind duplex is a staggering technical achievement, and really is a small whistle at how AI is going to start to change some fundamental aspects of society. To say AI is not going to be a fundamental change to our literal society in the very near future is naive. But I can understand how the trivialness of the use case is playing down the real achievement here.

I do think though that AI is the last "fundamental" change information technologies will bring though. From here out, the future is in the convergence of other hard sciences with advanced IT. Each "Big thing" has been a fundamental building block. By themselves small, but they get significant as they combine.

Re: Big tech products are mostly useless

#43

Post by thisisit » Mon, May 21, 2018, 2:10 PM UTC

loblollyboy wrote: post #29

Of course, like raking leaves in your lawn, you’re going to run into a kind of diminishing returns situation. So I agree, albeit with an obvious point, My only qualm (beyond the banality of the thesis) is that this dude is forgetting about some other cool advances, such as the sharing economy (Uber/Lyft and airbnb) which kind of changed the world a little, messenger apps (which made day to day life a little more conv…

His point is most, not all, tech innovations don't really pan out. Sure there are examples of great products but there also examples of big duds. For example, according to an EPI paper sharing economy accounts for less than 0.1% of total economy:

https://www.epi.org/press/uber-drivers-earn-the-equivalent-o...

So, not a win really. At least not right now.

Re: Big tech products are mostly useless

#44

Post by arca_vorago » Mon, May 21, 2018, 2:10 PM UTC

icebraining wrote: post #2

Unfortunately, this article seems as empty and uninteresting as the products it's criticizing. The Guardian should ask idlewords to write one for them instead.

I'm not surprised since the day I got into an argument with the guardians senior tech editor and he tried to argue Foss didn't matter and Linux was a fanboy fad...

The senior editor...

Re: Big tech products are mostly useless

#45

Post by mLuby » Mon, May 21, 2018, 2:11 PM UTC

"It’s years since Silicon Valley gave us a game-changer. Instead, from curing disease to colonies on Mars, we’re fed overblown promises" Come on. "We don't have a colony on Mars yet" doesn't mean there isn't crazy innovation going on with extremely tangible benefits. Any of the following is a game-changer.

1. Dec'15 SpaceX performs first ever orbital-class rocket landing on land.

2. Apr'16 SpaceX performs first ever orbital-class rocket landing on a ship.

3. Mar'17 SpaceX reuses first orbital-class rocket.

4. Feb'18 SpaceX launches Falcon Heavy, the highest payload capacity of any currently operational launch vehicle.

5. May'18 SpaceX launches Falcon 9 Block 5, set to give USA direct human access to space (in late 2018) for the first time since Mar'11.

Re: Big tech products are mostly useless

#46

Post by redial » Mon, May 21, 2018, 2:12 PM UTC

galieos_ghost wrote: post #30

philipov wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hunger, crime, these are not technological issues solvable by tech companies, unless your idea of a solution involves building a more effective police state. These are political issues our leadership has neither the will nor incentive to solve. For example, Housing isn't a problem, it's an investment opportunity. The people donating to your campaign wouldn't like it if their investments were pushed down in value. An…

hunger- Has been mostly solved thanks to GMO increasing crop yields. crime- Is strongly correlated with poverty, which has been rapidly reduced globally thanks to technological innovation Housing- Will be solved by tech making remote work viable and thus reducing demand in cities. Automation and some form of income stipend could also allow people to live in more affordable places rather than cities. Your view of "tec…

> crime- Is strongly correlated with poverty, which has been rapidly reduced globally thanks to technological innovation

Small scale crime might be. White collar crime is adversely correlated, strongly, with poverty. And it sinks entire nations.

Re: Big tech products are mostly useless

#47

Post by Zak » Mon, May 21, 2018, 2:13 PM UTC

Now, when was the last time you came to book a haircut or restaurant table and concluded that the task was so onerous that you would ideally delegate it to a machine? And even if you can easily think of a scenario, would there not be something ethically questionable about doing so, if the person at the other end had no idea who or what they were talking to?

I hate talking on the phone. If I can't fill out a web form (login-free please) or send an email to complete some task like that, I'd love to have a robot do it for me. I don't see anything unethical about this as long as the robot performs the task reasonably well, doesn't waste the receptionist's time, etc....

The classic hacker ethic says it's bad for humans to be required to waste time on something a machine could do, and Google has just expanded the list of things machines can do. Of course, under that framework, it would be preferable to automate the receptionist taking the call as well.

I'm eager for this technology to become more general-purpose. For months, I've had a case open with an airline over an item that went missing from my checked bag. The only way to get updates is to call them on the phone. It first goes to an IVR, then a call center in India where the call is screened by a person, and only then to the actual department that can give me useful information. There is no direct line (I asked). The process is obviously designed to frustrate users so they give up. The hassle is arguably not worth the $90 they owe me, but I don't want to let them get away with it. I really wish I could have a robot talk to them.

Re: Big tech products are mostly useless

#48

Post by new299 » Mon, May 21, 2018, 2:14 PM UTC

swalsh wrote: post #42

This is dense, I think there are a few threads of reason though. The exaggeration in marketing common in tech is quite tumultuous. The AI behind duplex is a staggering technical achievement, and really is a small whistle at how AI is going to start to change some fundamental aspects of society. To say AI is not going to be a fundamental change to our literal society in the very near future is naive. But I can underst…

What is the real technical achievement behind Duplex? What we've seen is a rather short tech demo.

Speech synthesis has improved, but are you saying that Duplex is a massive step forward in speech recognition and natural language processing too?

Re: Big tech products are mostly useless

#49

Post by zerostar07 » Mon, May 21, 2018, 2:14 PM UTC

redial wrote: post #41

beat wrote: post #36

The problem is a lot of these world-changing technologies seem inevitable only in hindsight. Read decades of science fiction before the '90s, and nobody predicted the idea of everyone carrying a personal phone with them at all times. Much less connecting it to a global data network. These things always look inevitable in hindsight. But it takes some real cleverness to get them in foresight.

When wireless is perfectly applied the whole earth will be converted into a huge brain, which in fact it is, all things being particles of a real and rhythmic whole. We shall be able to communicate with one another instantly, irrespective of distance. Not only this, but through television and telephony we shall see and hear one another as perfectly as though we were face to face, despite intervening distances of thou…

to be fair that was not science fiction

Re: Big tech products are mostly useless

#50

Post by zrobotics » Mon, May 21, 2018, 2:16 PM UTC

013a wrote: post #28

This is only one small part of the article, but: I think the revolution in Duplex isn't about letting customers use it to schedule appointments and stuff. I think its much more significant from the perspective of using it as a way to improve Google's data for themselves. They mentioned they're going to use it soon to improve the accuracy of their business open/close times. Imagine other applications; asking businesse…

Great, so Google can get even more data. Huzzah!? Why is that a good thing, and what benefit does it provide to consumers? The only thing you mentioned that has even marginal benefit to the public is better search data, and I get less and less convinced that this will happen. I may be an outlier, but I have found Google search less useful in the past year, unless I go through steps to avoid personalization. Rather than search the part # that I requested, it just thinks I want to go to digikey.

And dear God, spam calls are already bad enough, why do we want to make them even more realistic? I fail to see even one application where I would prefer to talk to a more realistic robot.