The Jetson’s was supposed to take place 100 years from when it was being made in the 1960s.
Which means the following technologies beat their predictions by decades:
Video calls
Robot vacuums
Tablet computing
Smart watches
Drones
Pill cams
Flat screen TVs
Flying cars exist, they just aren’t economically viable or practical given the cost, necessity to have a flight license, and aviation regulations regarding takeoff and landing.
And we’re still 40 years away from that show’s imagined future.
Your thesis focuses too much on the things here and there that were wrong, which typically related to expensive hardware cycles being assumed to be faster because the focus was only on the underlying technology being possible and not thinking through if it was practical (doors that slide into the ceiling is a classic example - the cost of retrofitting for that vs keeping doorknobs means the latter will be around for a very very long time).
What we are discussing is the rate of change for centrally run software which has already hit milestones ahead of expert expectations several times over in the past few years and set the world record for fastest growing new product usage beating the previous record holder by over a 4x speedup.
Yes. Technology went faster than people expected in some areas and much slower in others, to the point where the outcome may not be possible at all.
That IS my “thesis”. the idea that in the 1960s video calls and a sentient robot cleaning your house seemed equally cartoonishly futuristic is the entire point I’m making.
And to be clear, that holds even when restricted simply to consumer software and hardware. We got a lot better than expected at networking and data transmission… and now we’re noticeably slowing down. We are actually behind in terms of AI, but we’re way better at miniaturization.
Again, people extrapolate from their impression of current rates of progress endlessly, but it’s hard to predict when the curve will flatten out. That’s the thesis.
The Jetson’s was supposed to take place 100 years from when it was being made in the 1960s.
Which means the following technologies beat their predictions by decades:
Flying cars exist, they just aren’t economically viable or practical given the cost, necessity to have a flight license, and aviation regulations regarding takeoff and landing.
And we’re still 40 years away from that show’s imagined future.
Your thesis focuses too much on the things here and there that were wrong, which typically related to expensive hardware cycles being assumed to be faster because the focus was only on the underlying technology being possible and not thinking through if it was practical (doors that slide into the ceiling is a classic example - the cost of retrofitting for that vs keeping doorknobs means the latter will be around for a very very long time).
What we are discussing is the rate of change for centrally run software which has already hit milestones ahead of expert expectations several times over in the past few years and set the world record for fastest growing new product usage beating the previous record holder by over a 4x speedup.
You’re comparing apples to oranges.
Yes. Technology went faster than people expected in some areas and much slower in others, to the point where the outcome may not be possible at all.
That IS my “thesis”. the idea that in the 1960s video calls and a sentient robot cleaning your house seemed equally cartoonishly futuristic is the entire point I’m making.
And to be clear, that holds even when restricted simply to consumer software and hardware. We got a lot better than expected at networking and data transmission… and now we’re noticeably slowing down. We are actually behind in terms of AI, but we’re way better at miniaturization.
Again, people extrapolate from their impression of current rates of progress endlessly, but it’s hard to predict when the curve will flatten out. That’s the thesis.