Re:The AI Misinformation Epidemic
by soundwave106 on Tuesday March 28, 2017 @11:26AM
(#13977384)
One era (early 20th) is the industrial revolution; one era (approx. 1960-now) is the information revolution. It is true that the industrial revolution has slowed down and mostly focused on incremental improvements, but it seems strange to discount the information revolution gains completely. There's been a lot of information revolution gains.
That said, I would argue that medicine too has made some pretty significant advances in the 2nd half of the 20th century... mostly in surgery techniques (transplants are 2nd half 20th century), scanning techniques (NMR and CT both were 2nd half 20th century), and pharmaceuticals. Significant vaccines (polio, measles, mumps) were 2nd half of the 20th century developments. Genetic science has made huge gains as of late. Etc.
Re:The AI Misinformation Epidemic
by notahacker on Tuesday March 28, 2017 @03:00PM
(#13979558)
But half of the "world of atoms" things the grandparent listed were also market efficiencies or better engineering. Trading average speed for vast improvements in energy efficiency in aircraft in order to make flight accessible to the masses certainly involved vastly more progress of a technical and scientific nature in the late twentieth century than the cited early twentieth century example of wider replication of well-understood principles of plumbing to give the masses indoor toilets.
"Market efficiencies and/or better engineering" are often enabled by technological breakthroughs.
Consider the efficiencies generated by Amazon's highly automated warehouses; their level of automation wouldn't have been feasible in, say, the 60's. Substantial technological progress on multiple fronts has been required.
No, it's just a clear indication of market efficiencies and/or better engineering.
It doesn't say anything about what the grandparent asked for: the rate and magnitude of new scientific/technologic discoveries.