Re:The dream of driverless cars is dying
by api on Sunday July 15, 2018 @10:37AM
(#17535409)
I think the quote is along the lines of people tending to overestimate progress in the next 5 years but underestimate it in the next 25.
However they also get it wrong. It's hard to predict. Others in the thread have pointed out Asimov's stories that featured FTL warp drives and computers that fit in only one room.
One thing I've noted from observing 20th century progress is that progress is much, much faster for things that are less capital intensive per iteration. It's one reason I've been predicting that solar power will eat the world. Nuclear power is capital intensive per iteration (per power plant or research reactor), so even if it's superior in some ways it has a longer iteration time and so it will lose the race. I think this neatly explains why space tech stagnated and computer tech zoomed way ahead. So today we still have chemical rockets and still get most of our electricity globally from burning coal and gas (100+ year old tech), but we have supercomputers in our pockets.
However they also get it wrong. It's hard to predict. Others in the thread have pointed out Asimov's stories that featured FTL warp drives and computers that fit in only one room.
One thing I've noted from observing 20th century progress is that progress is much, much faster for things that are less capital intensive per iteration. It's one reason I've been predicting that solar power will eat the world. Nuclear power is capital intensive per iteration (per power plant or research reactor), so even if it's superior in some ways it has a longer iteration time and so it will lose the race. I think this neatly explains why space tech stagnated and computer tech zoomed way ahead. So today we still have chemical rockets and still get most of our electricity globally from burning coal and gas (100+ year old tech), but we have supercomputers in our pockets.