The "People were skeptical about X 10 years ago, and now we have X, so technological skepticism is wrong!" argument is profoundly spurious. The fact is that some of the technologies mentioned in this video are very probably impossible (e.g. harvesting enough energy from vibrating machinery for powered drone flight).
And for each of those many ideas that are currently infeasible, there are probably other solutions that will turn out to be more practical. Technology doesn't progress by someone saying "Here's a way we can probably do this thing in the future, we just need to fill in the details." It works by fulfilling incremental goals toward improving existing technology. Any speculation about currently-impossible means to the end of overarching goals is just adding burdensome details. ( http://lesswrong.com/lw/jk/burdensome_details/ )
So if someone predicts that in the next few decades, we may have small drones that can handle gusts of wind, that's not a bad prediction. When they predict that wind gusts will be handled by a nature-inspired wing-flapping-with-feedback system the which does not remotely exist, you should stop listening. Those extra details sound like they give the hypothesis more credibility, but in fact they are constraining its predictions to a laughably tiny space.
I am afraid you missed my point. I was responding to the statement "Cheap 3D renderings of hypothetical uses of not-so-technically-feasible dronish things. Nothing to see here.". That statement is so categorically dismissive that it prompted me to ask if he/she was equally dismissive of other (relatively recent) similar inventions. Nowhere did I suggest that "technological skepticism is wrong". To rephrase your comment more aligned with my point: "people were skeptical about X 10 years ago, and now we have X, therefore the skepticism about X (not everything under the sun) was wrong".
Last year we witnessed an amazingly complex landing of the Mars rover. There were about a million things that could have gone wrong, and I would bet money that there were skeptics (probably even within the technical leadership). Were they wrong to be skeptical? Of course not -- they had sound reasons to be skeptical, and a strong chance of being right. However, the mission was a success, and those skeptics (smart as they were) were proved wrong.
I'm surprised you pounced on my statement rather than the absurdly dismissive comment I was referring to. I'll write it off to caffeine :-) .
And for each of those many ideas that are currently infeasible, there are probably other solutions that will turn out to be more practical. Technology doesn't progress by someone saying "Here's a way we can probably do this thing in the future, we just need to fill in the details." It works by fulfilling incremental goals toward improving existing technology. Any speculation about currently-impossible means to the end of overarching goals is just adding burdensome details. ( http://lesswrong.com/lw/jk/burdensome_details/ )
So if someone predicts that in the next few decades, we may have small drones that can handle gusts of wind, that's not a bad prediction. When they predict that wind gusts will be handled by a nature-inspired wing-flapping-with-feedback system the which does not remotely exist, you should stop listening. Those extra details sound like they give the hypothesis more credibility, but in fact they are constraining its predictions to a laughably tiny space.