at least when it comes to consumer tech
like i can't even remember the last time i was excited for a new tech thing. maybe my second smart phone, i guess? that one was at least a big improvement from my first one. third was marginally better, and then the fourth, which i'm using now, i feel like i only got because of planned obsolescence (slow down/battery problems etc.)
it's such a stark contrast from growing up in the 90s/early 2000s
id argue if you think this the problem is looking in the same places. AI and robotics are getting better quite rapidly and impressively. computing isnt exploding in the same way it used to but lots of technologies settle into steadier, slower progress at some point. trains havent continually been improving at a breakneck pace since their introduction but they certainly had a period of phenomenal improvement back when they were introduced
and not to get moral relativist but the bloat and financialisation and all attached to current 'innovation' is a kind of progress. it doesnt serve social good, its awful for us as non-owners---but figuring out how to do it is a task and involves making technology more efficient at its purpose. some of which is probably useable in not-evil ways should the people get their hands on it
yea true, but then again I don't know much about AI/robotics so I can't judge. And actually, the reason I don't know much about them is exactly why I'm sort of right--most people will never use a robot, and almost never use an AI. So even if these things are improving at the breakneck pace of the 90s RAM/CPU/Graphics capabilities, basically nobody would notice
Nobody except capital that is, who will then use these AIs to make every website you've ever logged onto worse, and engineer ever-more-convoluted ways to kill poor and non-white people
Basically yea, if you had a value for "tech advances" and then multiplied it by a modifier of "social goodness" it would now be almost zero for the 1st world (although some raw amount of it is still being seen by the 3rd world simply because they were forced to be behind)
you might be using these things much sooner than you think. ive already been forced by some acquantinces to be in the same room as an alexa, we all had fun with that Dall-E shit and the private one is way way better. consumer-side drones have gone from fancy toys to a staple of filmmaking (and surveillance and killing people).
well i shouldnt say 'using' so much as 'be forced to interface with them through their invasions of public space & the workplace'
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