What people always leave out is that society will bend to the abilities of the new technology. Planes can't land in your backyard so we built airports. We didn't abandon planes.
Yes but the idea was lost in the process. It became a faster transportation system that uses air as a medium, but that’s it. Personal planes are still either big business or an expensive and dangerous personal toy thing. I don’t think it’s the same for LLMs (would be naive). But where are promises like “we’re gonna change travel economics etc”? All headlines scream is “AGI around the corner”. Yeah, now where’s my damn postman flying? I need my mail.
> It became a faster transportation system that uses air as a medium, but that’s it.
On the one hand, yes; on the other, this understates the impact that had.
My uncle moved from the UK to Australia because, I'm told*, he didn't like his mum and travel was so expensive that he assumed they'd never meet again. My first trip abroad… I'm not 100% sure how old I was, but it must have been between age 6 and 10, was my gran (his mum) paying for herself, for both my parents, and for me, to fly to Singapore, then on to various locations in Australia including my uncle, and back via Thailand, on her pension.
That was a gap of around one and a half generations.
* both of them are long-since dead now so I can't ask
Sure, but that also vindicates the GP's point that the initial claims of the boosters for planes contained more than their fair share of bullshit and lies.
> What people always leave out is that society will bend to the abilities of the new technology.
Do they really? I don't think they do.
> Planes can't land in your backyard so we built airports. We didn't abandon planes.
But then what do you do with the all the fantasies and hype about the new technology (like planes that land in your backyard and you fly them to work)?
And it's quite possible and fairly common that the new technology actually ends up being mostly hype, and there's actually no "airports" use case in the wings. I mean, how much did society "bend to the abilities of" NFTs?
And then what if the mature "airports" use case is actually something most people do not want?
We are slowly discovering that many of our wonderful inventions from 60-80-100 years ago have serious side effects.
Plastics, cars, planes, etc.
One could say that a balanced situation, where vested interests are put back in the box (close to impossible since it would mean fighting trillions of dollars), would mean that for example all 3 in the list above are used a lot less than we use them now, for example. And only used where truly appropriate.
