Funding for NASA also dropped off a cliff and no government really cared about going to space anymore, and there was zero company out there with the funds and motivation to go to space.
Now we have countless companies and several countries all competing and building off each other's work in the AI space. So long as people don't get bored or the global economy doesn't collapse, progress should keep chugging along. Another key difference is that it's basically free to get into. Anyone out there can download data sets, existing algorithms, and get to work on tweaking things. There's a strong foundation for any motivated person to build off of.
> despite vast efforts put in.
I disagree with that part. Things slowed dramatically because we stopped putting extreme amounts of effort in, largely because there wasn't enough market demand for aviation or space flight beyond 1970s technology... for a while.
The worldwide market for aviation and space launches is far larger now than in the 1970s.
Re:My AI Timelines Have Sped Up
by jjoonathan on Wednesday August 26, 2020 @11:30AM
(#24283338)
> there wasn't enough market demand for aviation or space flight beyond 1970s technology
We've lived through enormous computing advances, but it's been fairly obvious for some time that hardware improvements are slowing.
I'm sure there will be amazing advancements in the next 50 years, but I expect a lot of the progress to be in fields that are either currently unknown, or seem unimportant today. Those new fields will see better return on investment.