I'll apply this to the media I mainly study as a historian. Cable TV increased the capacity for the production of television, but the advent of streaming services has led largely to the sort of creative straightjacketing TV endured in the network era. Meanwhile, recordings of music seem now to be second-class citizens in the biased eyes of the media in comparison to music streaming- where, even if the company itself is profitable, the actual musicians are not profiting.
Musicians mainly have to continuously play live gigs in order to earn a living, at least from what I can tell. Streaming is a very good example of this, too - radio was subsumed by over-the-air broadcasting, and once everyone got used to that, cable was at the ready. Then, streaming turned everything upside down. Some people are kind of still adjusting to the cable era, at least in terms of social ideas spreading and such.
Gone is the collective experience of a TV programme or series. You could discuss a TV programme at work, knowing that none of you knew the ending. 'Who shot JR' would not be the sensation nowadays that it was in 1980. Apparently the UK national grid had to put on more electric supply during the adverts of a popular programme - when people used the break to make a cup of tea!
We're living through a pretty massive cultural lag with AI right now. As Ethan Mollick constantly emphasizes, even if all AI progress abruptly stopped today, we have at least a decade's worth of societal change baked into the current models - it'll take a long time for all potential benefits to trickle down and get incorporated into products we use daily and you have the impact we might expect.
And that's if all progress stops entirely, which, as we've seen, is the opposite of what's happening so far.
We really are being set up to have two classes of people, but the line isn't necessarily going to be drawn on the basis of wealth. I find that very interesting and noteworthy.
Of course, wealth will be the ultimate equalizer, and in the end, I think those who choose to follow will (on average) become wealthy. I'm oversimplifying dramatically here, but I think it's noteworthy that following these trends in real time is incredibly important.
Waymo (self driving cars) are now common in San Francisco. A year ago there was hand wringing and people messing with them (they'd put orange cones on them which would effectively stun them). Now if you live in SF you don't bat an eye and people love them. They're clean and safe etc etc. I was down in the city stuffing my face with dumplings and one rolled by and I want to ride in one so BAD!
Well, I feel the same way! I also don't like driving - did more than my share of it so that I now consider it a chore and not a treat, so self-driving cars can't take over fast enough for me... but I also know it has to be a pretty measured rollout, and to an extent that's actually happening.
Then again, it probably looks that way because I've been following the space for nearly 20 years!
There are other examples of tech improving to a point where it’s easier for people to adapt to change. Another one I’ve written a fair bit about is natural language processing. If you could just converse with a computer (you called it an AI companion) that’s just easier and more natural than ASDFJKL;
Oh! That reminds me of something really interesting Sam Altman said a while back. I know, I know- ugh, eye roll, that Sam Altman, yes. But the thing was that AGI may not be truly disruptive due to the cost to compute. It makes sense- even if you could theoretically do a task better than a human could, it if was more expensive than a human would be, it wouldn't make sense to wholesale replace everyone all at once.
I was talking to a smart engineer friend who is getting her masters in energy and she shrugged about SMRs. Said it’s hard without economies of scale. In the spirit of the day I predict something new will come on the energy front and that’s one that can’t happen fast enough.
Really great insight. I work in women’s health from a largely preventive standpoint and what you’re saying rings true with the pace of life and how many fall behind on keeping life balanced. As they’re thrust into the future, advents alter what viable options they have to maintain a healthy lifestyle and every few years what was in vogue quickly becomes antiquated, leaving them in an almost constant search for social relevance, which takes a toll on life balance.
An excellent post. You make an important point that “no longer were there generations between paradigms where children could grow up learning this new way of life before passing it down to their own children.” This contributes to the issues that young people have, their elders are no longer able to guide them in a work environment that is so different from their own experiences.
A friend who works with charities in Africa, told me that even in the remotest regions, some people had mobile phones. They had leapfrogged over the telephone network phase.
Thanks, Kate! I love to see leapfrogging when it helps these developing nations to escape poverty, but then it's fascinating to observe all the issues this phenomenon raises. There is going to be such a crazy amount of change over the next decade! Nobody is really ready for it.
I'll apply this to the media I mainly study as a historian. Cable TV increased the capacity for the production of television, but the advent of streaming services has led largely to the sort of creative straightjacketing TV endured in the network era. Meanwhile, recordings of music seem now to be second-class citizens in the biased eyes of the media in comparison to music streaming- where, even if the company itself is profitable, the actual musicians are not profiting.
Musicians mainly have to continuously play live gigs in order to earn a living, at least from what I can tell. Streaming is a very good example of this, too - radio was subsumed by over-the-air broadcasting, and once everyone got used to that, cable was at the ready. Then, streaming turned everything upside down. Some people are kind of still adjusting to the cable era, at least in terms of social ideas spreading and such.
Gone is the collective experience of a TV programme or series. You could discuss a TV programme at work, knowing that none of you knew the ending. 'Who shot JR' would not be the sensation nowadays that it was in 1980. Apparently the UK national grid had to put on more electric supply during the adverts of a popular programme - when people used the break to make a cup of tea!
We're living through a pretty massive cultural lag with AI right now. As Ethan Mollick constantly emphasizes, even if all AI progress abruptly stopped today, we have at least a decade's worth of societal change baked into the current models - it'll take a long time for all potential benefits to trickle down and get incorporated into products we use daily and you have the impact we might expect.
And that's if all progress stops entirely, which, as we've seen, is the opposite of what's happening so far.
We really are being set up to have two classes of people, but the line isn't necessarily going to be drawn on the basis of wealth. I find that very interesting and noteworthy.
Of course, wealth will be the ultimate equalizer, and in the end, I think those who choose to follow will (on average) become wealthy. I'm oversimplifying dramatically here, but I think it's noteworthy that following these trends in real time is incredibly important.
Waymo (self driving cars) are now common in San Francisco. A year ago there was hand wringing and people messing with them (they'd put orange cones on them which would effectively stun them). Now if you live in SF you don't bat an eye and people love them. They're clean and safe etc etc. I was down in the city stuffing my face with dumplings and one rolled by and I want to ride in one so BAD!
Well, I feel the same way! I also don't like driving - did more than my share of it so that I now consider it a chore and not a treat, so self-driving cars can't take over fast enough for me... but I also know it has to be a pretty measured rollout, and to an extent that's actually happening.
Then again, it probably looks that way because I've been following the space for nearly 20 years!
There are other examples of tech improving to a point where it’s easier for people to adapt to change. Another one I’ve written a fair bit about is natural language processing. If you could just converse with a computer (you called it an AI companion) that’s just easier and more natural than ASDFJKL;
Oh! That reminds me of something really interesting Sam Altman said a while back. I know, I know- ugh, eye roll, that Sam Altman, yes. But the thing was that AGI may not be truly disruptive due to the cost to compute. It makes sense- even if you could theoretically do a task better than a human could, it if was more expensive than a human would be, it wouldn't make sense to wholesale replace everyone all at once.
Sam needs to talk to his buddy Elon and get going building that Dyson Sphere ;-)
I would settle for SMRs in the next decade.
I was talking to a smart engineer friend who is getting her masters in energy and she shrugged about SMRs. Said it’s hard without economies of scale. In the spirit of the day I predict something new will come on the energy front and that’s one that can’t happen fast enough.
While I see the advantages I worry that AI predictive text etc. will result in homogeneous dullness.
I hear you Kate; while AI sure ups the game on plagiarism I think the quantity of dullness will remain more or less the same because it’s just boring!
Funny enough, this is one of the first things I wrote about here on Substack, right as LLMs were becoming prominent:
https://goatfury.substack.com/p/the-new-alphabet-large-language-models
That's a good article but I like how your writing is more flowy now, less structured
Self driving cars will be a boon for the elderly, who will be able to have transport even when their physical capabilities reduce.
It's true. In a nation where we've basically flushed any good public transportation down the drain, this will be huge for folks unable to drive.
Really great insight. I work in women’s health from a largely preventive standpoint and what you’re saying rings true with the pace of life and how many fall behind on keeping life balanced. As they’re thrust into the future, advents alter what viable options they have to maintain a healthy lifestyle and every few years what was in vogue quickly becomes antiquated, leaving them in an almost constant search for social relevance, which takes a toll on life balance.
Well put, Joel. The more we recognize that this is a thing, the better we can deal with it! I'll keep ringing this bell.
I write about this issue some in my essay series, “Infinite Lock-In,” particularly in parts 6 - 8. Here’s a series overview:
singulardream.substack.com/p/infinite-lock-in
Nice! This is a very fruitful area for sci-fi. We need to wrap our collective heads around this, stat.
An excellent post. You make an important point that “no longer were there generations between paradigms where children could grow up learning this new way of life before passing it down to their own children.” This contributes to the issues that young people have, their elders are no longer able to guide them in a work environment that is so different from their own experiences.
A friend who works with charities in Africa, told me that even in the remotest regions, some people had mobile phones. They had leapfrogged over the telephone network phase.
Thanks, Kate! I love to see leapfrogging when it helps these developing nations to escape poverty, but then it's fascinating to observe all the issues this phenomenon raises. There is going to be such a crazy amount of change over the next decade! Nobody is really ready for it.