Random Observation/Comment #902: We’re already seeing heavy augmentation of work, but will humanity chill out and just let people enjoy life rather than focus on profits (ahead of employee empathy)?
//Clembot suggested an old shelf with the things I mention in this list
Why this List?
Not every tech becomes indispensable overnight. Some float around as luxuries while others stall because the old way just works fine. Adoption usually needs more than innovation. Adoption is about trust, timing, and a cultural “click.” Maybe AI is in that same waiting room as the EV space.
I wrote this list thinking about the tech that just took more time to find adoption and became really powerful within a niche. I wonder if there’s anything that will take away the blue collar worker’s means of seeming productive while mostly managing human expectations.
Energy & Heavy Tech
Nuclear power (fusion & fission) – The science works, but I think the fear lingers. People still see Chernobyl shadows, so adoption lags even when the potential payoff is huge. I may also be too “tech bro” about this as we see China’s move towards nuclear starting to pay off.
Hydrogen fuel cells – Cleaner than gas, but gas is already “good enough” and the infrastructure costs are enormous. This can also be a hard problem to optimize.
Personal jetpacks – Cool for a stunt video, but impractical for your morning commute. This is a Luxury toy, but not necessarily mass transport. I wonder if the military uses it.
Hyperloop/Boring concepts – Renderings were sleek and the engineering is probably great, but trains, cars, and planes are practical enough.
Carbon capture and climate change technology – A huge promise for climate change, but still largely stuck in pilot plants and research projects. It works, but we’ve also seen a lot of adoption lags from those early articles about creating clouds that remove pollution because the practical alternative is just reducing emissions. There’s definitely still a lot of adoption resistance to creating more efficient markets in carbon.
Mobility & Urban Tech
Segways – I remember there were some of these renderings in the 2000s wher everyone commuted with a Segway. I think walking and biking is simpler and cheaper. Luxury problem, solved the wrong way.
Autonomous cars – Technically impressive and I think we’re really close with Full Self Driving (FSD) through Tesla, but I can see a larger adoption curve on this than regular electric vehicles. It’s the trust, liability, and cost that will keep humans at the wheel. I can see a flip of Ride Sharing with Uber/Lyft/Waymo having cheaper options and testing across different cities.
Electric motorcycles – Efficient and futuristic, but people who are riding motorcycles (which are already dangerous) would want their gas bikes as a proud way to scratch the itch. Plus an electric motorcycle would just be a scooter (which seems less fun).
Delivery drones – Amazing demoed these, but sidewalks and vans still work faster. I’m not sure if it’s a range issue or maybe it’ll be too creepy to have a bunch of drones around our neighborhood that disrupts bees and wildlife because of all the buzzing from the fans.
Robotic suitcases – A suitcase that follows you feels like a solution for people who don’t need solutions. The suitcase that turns into a little electric scooter was pretty cool, but I imagine it’d be pretty hard to control when you get traffic accidents in airplane terminals.
Communication & Interfaces
Augmented Reality (AR) glasses – Too awkward to wear all day. Phones already do 90% of the job. Maybe Meta’s glasses will work. Google Glass was definitely ahead of its time.
VR headsets – Immersive, yes. I do love being a head toaster and the games are really fun. I do think it’s more of an isolating game than I thought it’d be and it’d probably not better than a console for most people. It’s definitely different. We are pretty resistant to the “Ready Player One” future.
Telepresence robots – Rolling iPads in offices felt more gimmicky than useful. I feel like Zoom without a 3d representation (like in Avengers) is good enough.
Brain-computer interfaces – High potential for those with disabilities. I think keyboards (even getting people off the QWERTY) and phones work perfectly well today. I do agree that there will be a point where we won’t need to use our meat flaps for talking and increase our communication bandwidth through a hive mind of telekinesis.
Holographic displays – Fun at CES, but a TV already works for most needs. I think we’ll see these more in public in modernized malls. Not everywhere needs to be a Vegas.
Home & Everyday Life
Smart lights – A nice luxury for mood-setting, but I think most people aren’t configuring their house with a full smart home. Lights with dimmers and maybe even clap-on/clap-off implementations are way behind the expected fully smart home features.
Smart appliances (fridges, ovens, coffee machines) – Yes, your fridge can text you and maybe it even has as screen to show you the Ring front door, but do you need it to?
Smart home features (thermostats, blinds, hubs) – Great when integrated, but fragmented systems and setup make them niche. I do think Google Home has come a long way for configurations.
Robotic lawn & garden tools – Luxuries compared to pushing a mower yourself. I would say xero-scaping is a better choice for those who don’t like to mow lawns (me).
Indoor vertical farm kits – Too much upkeep and I assume there are a large number of people who are really bad at keeping things alive. I would say this was more popular in cities, but if I have a house, I’d likely just grow within a patch in the backyard.
Health & Personal Tech
Digital health records – Everyone has a system, but nobody wants to use the same set of standards. A practical failure of interoperability. It’s ultimately about identity systems giving permissions and storage, which I thought blockchain was going to change. Somehow changing from a username/password centralized system is so much harder to adopt than using Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) and wallets/passports with verified credentials.
Telemedicine pods – Could be revolutionary, but in-person care still feels more natural. I get the feeling this is why we can’t have nice things. The cities with malicious people will make a public pod a much harder product.
Wearable medical monitors (continuous glucose, ECG shirts) – Game-changers for some, overkill for most. I do think these are well integrated with existing smart watches.
Bidets – WTF America. Get with the program. Bidets are so much better than toilet paper.
Cryonics & body preservation – Available, but feels more like luxury hope than practical healthcare.
Payments & Niche Systems
NFTs and Digital collectibles – I really want this to be something, but it's just another rich club of collectors. I think there's still an opening for normies, but you're better off owning a counterstrike skin because at least your game looks cooler.
Modular phones – Swappable parts made sense, but sealed smartphones were more practical. I also think we’ll have a lot more old phones in the market that this becomes pretty saturated.
3D printing at home – A maker’s dream, but most people are fine buying what they need from services. I do feel like more people have their own printer now and can make some certain replacements.
Contactless biometric payments (palm scans, face scans at checkout) - Maybe the people who shop at Wholefoods will disagree, but I don’t see this type of option available. It would be really cool if we had a single credits system that’s first identified by the biometric pieces and then rebuilt in security with other services. This means that I’d need to register properly and then reuse this identifier across financial systems.
Cryptocurrency for everyday payments – I only put this in here because I think it’s taking a hell of a long time to get this going properly. I do think that we’re getting really close with more people putting money in exchanges rather than commercial/retail banks. I don’t know if this is a good thing. It’s a casino, ser.
~See Lemons Research Old Tech
For more AI posts:
My Clembot AI Journey
Random Observation/Comment #878: I’ve carefully considered what I’ve outsourced to Clembot and the process of writing lists is definitely not fully one of them. I don’t want to stop exercising the part of my brain that does hard things.