The acceleration of technology and knowledge

[ChristineM]

First time a because aware of the accelerating pace of change was when the Pentium processor was launched. The scientists/engineers who designed and built the prototypes were, at the end of the project, so far behind current technology that they had to go back to university to stay in the game.

 

[Mock Turtle]

How fast will it get? Doctors, car mechanics, teachers, computer guys, and many other industries have ever quickening change in the knowledge and new technology. It's hard to keep up. Every time I rent a car, I have to re-learn new gadgetry. Fifty years ago, you could train to be a doctor, and do some sort of upgrading once every 10-15 years, and call it a career after 40 years, having upgraded 3 times. Now it seems you have to go once every year to learn the new stuff, or read new manuals on your vacation, so you can still be a doctor when you get back. This rate of change (acceleration) is changing. So ... how has it affected you personally, and what things seem to have had the greatest impact, or will have the greatest impact on life on this planet as we know it. I sure wouldn't want to be Rip van Winkle today. It would be an extreme culture shock to wake up in 20 years.

When I was at college (late 1960s) we studied both analogue and digital computers - guess which ones went into the bin of history. I think AI will affect so many areas as to make it rather difficult to predict as to what might happen. In the UK we had a series of TV lectures recently (for children mainly) explaining AI, and although some examples were given of current progress, it hardly touched on what such might do in the future. I would predict that advances will be made in understanding animal communications - work apparently is going on with whales currently - and also as to so many areas where humans are incapacitated in some manner. Perhaps people will have their own personal AI to enable them to keep up with all the changes that might happen.

As per at least one comment in this article below, there might be a dumbing down of society and plenty of jobs lost even if we can't predict exactly where such will happen. Also, the internet might become even less trustworthy than it already is. The dumbing down has already happened of course - on a TV quiz show recently a contestant was asked what is three quarters of 44 - the answer given, 11, and much the same happens when people are asked to take a two figure number from another two figure number.

For all the hype in 2023, we still don’t know what AI’s long-term impact will be | John Naughton

As with the printing press and the dotcom boom, initial frenzy and speculation obscures the lasting legacy of new technologies

www.theguardian.com