phriot t1_is9ek52 wrote on October 14, 2022 at 7:10 AM

Reply to comment by AdditionalPizza in What's your 10 year / pre-AGI predictions? by AdditionalPizza

I'm slightly more conservative, because I'm not convinced that AGI is coming like tomorrow. I also subscribe to the thinking that we tend to overestimate near term progress, while underestimating the longer term future. 10 years hits kind of that boundary between near and far future enough to be pretty fuzzy.

I also don't remember how obvious it was at the time, but there's a pretty clear progression from PDAs through early smartphones like BlackBerries and Palm Treos. The idea that people would want to combine their PDA, phone, and camera into a single device seems like an inevitable one waiting for processing power and memory to catch up. But if social media and video on the internet didn't happen the way it did? Maybe we stayed with those physical keyboard devices for people that email or texted a lot and dumb phones plus iPods with great cameras for everyone else.

I think AR glasses do a similar consolidation of devices. Done right, and with enough cycles of Moore's Law, they can replace your smartphone, your laptop, desktop if you still have one, and many of the screens that exist in your life. (I've been dreaming of having a single computing device ever since Canonical's failed Ubuntu Edge crowdfunding campaign, the same year I got my first smartphone.) But yes, a small, durable slate in your pocket may be more convenient than carrying glasses. People deal with sunglasses, though. At the very least, AR glasses are better for privacy without people being able to look over your shoulder to see what you're doing. That alone might be their "killer app."

I think we're looking at 2024-2026 for AR glasses to really start being a thing. I'm basing this on the idea that Apple will get their initial product (their glasses, not their headset) "right" enough to start mass adoption ramping up. I'm not an Apple fan boy. I just think they're the most willing to wait on releasing until they have a product their users want.

I think we'll land a person on Mars in the mid to late 2030s. I'm basing this on there being ~5 launch windows between now and 2032, and we haven't made it back to the moon, yet, even. 2032 just sounds early for a human mission, unless a space billionaire decides to YOLO it.

AdditionalPizza OP t1_is9yvbr wrote on October 14, 2022 at 11:41 AM

>10 years hits kind of that boundary between near and far future enough to be pretty fuzzy.

That was my exact thinking behind the original post. Each passing year seems to make it more difficult to gauge where the next decade will go, which is exciting. But I don't know if we'll hit any life altering tech in that time. I look at each passing 5 year span as a set up for the next 5 years. I'm hoping the AR we have now comes to consumers in the next 5 years.

Do you think all devices with screens now, will be screen-less when AR is ubiquitous (if that's less than 10 years)? I think phones will be the processor and main hub for other devices. Watches will remain and get much better sensors, perhaps other sensors can be worn elsewhere to compliment them. And AR glasses will start out as a HUD device with the ability to "cast" screens. I'm not so sure I see AR glasses as a replacement to all devices, simply because of how vain humans are. Selfies would be impossible barring the use of some kind of avatar. Smart watches or bands would work great as a physical controller for AR, or gyroscopic control. Eye tracking will be important to reach that "killer app" scenario, unless brainwave reading gets super advanced quickly. I think we need some pretty significant battery advancements as well. I'll admit though, I haven't kept up with AR as much as I should, so I'm not sure exactly where we're at today.

Do you think AR is this decades most/only truly revolutionary tech? I think chat bots will hit the general public by surprise soon. Virtual assistants will be upgraded when we solve the unpredictable nature of them so they're safe to use. Safe referring to needing a disclaimer that says don't trust what it says. I think when our virtual assistants are capable to converse with and do things for us, it will really feel like the future is here.

I do think narrow AI will make big waves by 2025/6. I think that's when employment issues will start to crop up, before being a crises shortly after.

phriot t1_isa8088 wrote on October 14, 2022 at 1:02 PM

>Do you think AR is this decades most/only truly revolutionary tech

It's definitely the one I'm most certain about. My feeling is probably because it's the smallest leap in technology for adoption among the types of innovation discussed here.

>I'm not so sure I see AR glasses as a replacement to all devices, simply because of how vain humans are. Selfies would be impossible barring the use of some kind of avatar.

Yeah, I agree that smartphones are likely to be a personal area network hub for a while, including the early 2030s. That said, just like I usually reach for my phone before my laptop or a tablet, I think people will just use their AR glasses more and more. The arbitrary "screen" size is what does it for me. For example, I bring a Kindle on my commute, because I like to read on a larger screen than my phone. With AR glasses, I can leave that at home. If the glasses hardware ever equals the smartphone, I can leave that at home, too. At that point, maybe I can carry a little selfie drone, or something, if I really feel the need.

>I do think narrow AI will make big waves by 2025/6. I think that's when employment issues will start to crop up, before being a crises shortly after.

My feeling is that the next decade will be one where AI augments some workers and deskills others. Maybe some industries will be virtually eliminated. (I can see everyday journalism being taken completely over by AI writing stories based on data from oracles by 2030.) But I'm open to being wrong. A lot of the most common jobs are still centered around retail or food (salespersons, cashiers, etc.), which can be eliminated if we get comfortable with stores like Amazon Go, or management, which can probably be supplanted by software. Two other of the most common jobs are personal care assistants and registered nurses. I think these are more likely augmented than eliminated.

AdditionalPizza OP t1_isb2jbm wrote on October 14, 2022 at 4:33 PM

>maybe I can carry a little selfie drone

That would be pretty awesome, I have to admit. Just fire off a little thumb drive sized drone. and you can see the viewfinder through your AR glasses. I agree though, with any size screen it will definitely make a lot of current stuff useless for a lot of people. Outside of gamers or people that need a powerful CPU/GPU, there would be no point in tablets, laptops, eventually cell phones. Still wonder how they will get people to wear them all the time, but maybe by the time they become mainstream it will use a different tech. Like a projector of sorts on a thin arm that fires the image into your eye instead of looking through glasses.

>My feeling is that the next decade will be one where AI augments some workers and deskills others. Maybe some industries will be virtually eliminated.

It will definitely be a while until every job is eliminated, but I do think deskilling jobs and making each employee much more effective will leave a ton of people unemployed. People always refer to the industrial revolution and say people will retrain for new jobs. But I really don't see how that will apply here. Sure, some people will be able to get highly specialized skilled jobs, and manual labor will last for a while too. But there just won't be enough work when a lot of things just require an AI "operator" to conduct more work than a single human could on their own. It only takes like 10% (or even less) unemployment to cause a crises.

It's not like a journalist will be able to retrain to be a nanobot engineer or whatever example you want to use. I personally think this will happen quicker than people are comfortable admitting. It doesn't require 100% or even 50% of jobs to be automated, it only requires a few key sectors to lay off a lot of employees because they aren't essential for operation anymore.

Retail for example, yes there will still need to be people there in the near future, but a simple kiosk that takes an order for a pair of jeans. It can drop it through a chute in front of the customer, and they can tap to pay for it or go try it on. Yes we need the employees that stock the inventory and to help customers that need it, but that could be an easy 75% reduction in staff. That's possible today. The infrastructure isn't worth it yet, but when questions can be posed to an AI about inventory or ask for style tips from a fashion AI or can gauge your size perfectly?

The moment people prefer to deal with AI instead of a human is when this takes off.