Artificial intelligence is one of the most promising technologies that has been developed in the past few years, and is set to completely change the world of tech.
However, I realized an interesting thing about technology while looking for inspiration for my next post — all technology becomes boring as time passes.
Let’s start from the beginning.
Oogluk was a smart caveman, he would always look for better solutions to their problems — sharper spearheads were better at killing animals, fire kept animals away, and he reasoned that the tribe won’t have to move around so much if they just planted seeds in one place.
The problem with moving around so often was that his tribe had to carry so much stuff. Oogluk just couldn’t stand having to carry all that weight. So instead, he came up with a revolutionary idea. A piece of wood cut in a circular pattern and attached on either side of a plank would make moving weight so much easier.
Thus, the wheel was born, and its invention paved the way for trade, and therefore, civilization to take place.
Let’s skip to 1765. James Watt was a Scottish inventor trying to improve a primitive version of the steam engine.
The problem with it was that it was extremely inefficient, and wasted so much steam. James Watt came up with the idea of a separate condenser to reduce the waste of energy.
This invention greatly improved the performance of the steam engine and thus, was one of the sparks that triggered the industrial revolution.
Finally, it’s 2007, and a revolutionary new product has just been released. Steve Jobs has just unveiled the iPhone, a product that will change the world as we know it, leading to companies like Uber, Instagram, and Snapchat, and making the internet more accessible than ever.
Today, when we look at a wheel, we don’t see a civilisation changing tool. When we hear about steam engines, we don’t think about a globalisation enabling invention. And when we scroll on our phones every single day, we don’t consider the impact it has had on the world around us.
This is the curse of technological normality. We get so used to new inventions that we take them completely for granted and forget a time when we didn’t rely on them very quickly.
I believe the same thing will happen with Artificial Intelligence, Augmented and Virtual Reality, and perhaps even blockchain. We will get so used to it that it will seem normal, and perhaps, even boring.
Children of the future will think of an antiquated time when people had to drive cars, and when video games were two-dimensional.
Right now, machine learning and artificial intelligence seem very exciting. How long will that last?
Thanks for reading,
Sarvasv
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