Other than AI ideally. I’ve long been fascinated by CRISPR.
Wanna hear about niche tech or anything y’all find fascinating
Maser drills: https://newatlas.com/energy/geothermal-energy-drilling-deepest-hole-quaise/
In a nutshell, it’s a economically brilliant idea: take hand-me-down microwave(ish) spectrum lasers from fusion research, drill holes deep into the crust (leaning on the fossil fuel industry), then hook up the resulting steam to existing coal plants, so you don’t have to build anything else. The coal plant gets free geothermal fuel, they move onto the next site: everyone wins.
It’s taking a worryingly long time though. I hope it gets enough funding.
Oh now THIS is the kimd of answer I was looking for. Great explanation and a great topic. Thanks for that
Good!
At risk of sounding like a shill, NewAtlas is a great source for exciting upcoming tech. I find myself reading it more these days.
Gonna go take a look
I am excited for the tooth regrowing tech coming up. I’ve got some awful dental work that would be much better replaced by a real tooth
Ain’t no way. Havent heard of this!
Likewise. I dread to think how expensive it’s going to be though.
I’ve been loosely following this for years. Great to see it getting close to the deployable state.
spoiler
Pun intended
Also the eventual stem cell treatment for replacing damaged Inner ear cells
I think you got autoincorrected from “deployable”
Nice catch! Autocorrect is a pain…
I used to be excited for ai, and, let’s just say, that excitement has dwindeled due to recent events.
I’m scared that the same happens to CRISPR honest
The issue with tech is the economic model its under. I can imagine a million dystopian changes to society.
The doctor in China for example.
Hey maybe China starts creating soldiers with four arms and the us does too and you have a new arms race.
I’m studying biology and CRISPR is a crucial tool for a ton of research. So it’s already really useful!
Which recent events, out of curiosity?
well i guess it’s not too recent, but the A.I. boom kinda killed my interests I’ve had 7 years ago. i wish it would go back to its research phase.
I’m old enough to remember when using computers daily went from a dorky interest to something the cool kids were doing (MySpace etc). Obviously, how the two groups approached computers was quite different. Even how they approached social spaces on the internet.
Idk, haven’t thought about it much but I remember being pretty depleted about being interested back then. The things I was learning with basic coding and stuff could now be done in a couple of clicks, the resources were now more scarce, and the space became filled with money-people interested in promoting their brand
Ah, for sure. That’s how I feel about cell phones. Haha
On the long-term, none. In the short-term, FOSS no-code tools are finally allowing grassroot organizations to have self-hosted, customizable internal tooling without having to rely on devs or sysadmins. This has a lot of potential to overcome the failures of the last decades of hackerist unadoptable software.
Any Foss no-code tools you’d recommend?
It’s AI but a specific use case of AI: an android at home to take care of the housework. Cleaning my dishes, doing the laundry, vaccuming and putting stuff away where it belongs are obvious use cases. But also:
- Let’s say you’re in the middle of playing a board game on your dinner table but need to put it away for the night. Ask the android to memorize everything and put it away. The next time your friends come around to play, it can place everything in exactly the same spot.
- Go through your fridge and throw away everything that has expired or gone bad.
- Take care of your cat while you’re away on vacation.
- It’s your personal fire fighter.
- It paints your house or does any kind of house maintenance.
Possibilities are endless.
That is anything but specific!
Internal alpha-therapy.
Imagine, attaching a radioactive atom to a biological marker that fixes to a tumour, and deliver radiation at the very right place, rather than having to cross healthy tissues with radiation.
Ok I’ve heard of this somewhere. It seems like theres a lot going on in medicine!
Nuclear Fusion
This is the key to so much. Worried about Nestlé monopolizing freshwater? With nuclear fusion we can just take any old seawater and remove the salt. Worried about the war with Russia? With nuclear fusion we can become independent of all gas from Russia. Lots of special materials are expensive because electricity is expensive - with nuclear fusion electricity is practically free. Over time we can get rid of any coal plants etc. that produce CO2.
Free, except for the amortized R&D and construction costs.
with nuclear fusion electricity is practically free.
Like that’ll ever happen under capitalism.
Manual typewriters. You did not precised the age of the technology in question!
Do you knew that there are an average of 1’800 parts in a typewriter? That it can print in two colors, with different margins, different interlinear space, tabulations and that some even have things like word count? It’s a marvelous and yet understandable piece of technology. Someone technically inclined can understand 100% of the working of a typewriter, nobody can understand 100% of a word processor.
No that’s good. Typewriter nerds are the nerdiest nerds I’ve ever met. Love it
California typewriter is a really neat documentary that scratches the surface.
Aptera. A solar panel on the roof of an electric vehicle. They’re slashing the power needed per mile by half. It would be nice if they integrated v2x technology so you could use it as a generator.
I’ve been burned before by these too good to be true products that never see the light of day, so I’ll believe it when I start seeing them on the road.
With home IPL (laser hair removal) being easily accessible now, I’d like to see other useful lasers developed for home use as I have a tattoo I’d like to remove.
I’m not particularly following this technology though, just moderately hopeful, which is as excited as I can get these days, that it’ll come along and be affordable before civilisation collapses.
(It’s not a tat of anything shameful, I just don’t like having to go outside or talk to people if I can possibly avoid it.)
3D printed buildings and neighbourhoods.
The design implications are endless and including modular rough-ins for water, power, and HVAC, which would make design accessible to all. Get an AI engineer to test the design and a human engineer to double-check the results, and you can get printing.
Hopefully, the type of concrete is getting less specialized and more sustainable. If we can jazz up the exteriors, that would also help.
I only just saw a yt video about a 3d printed neighbourhood
Fusion power and small modular reactors.
Big one!
I hear this wheel thing is pretty cool. Supposed to be, like, round. Rollin all day long.
Nothing bad could come from that, right? Right?!
Any technology is cool if you look at it in isolation. I just can’t get terribly excited because I generally doubt they will be used in a sensible/humane manner.
Med tech is looking cool. It’s one of the few unambiguously good uses of AI. AI systems for reading scans, detecting disease, etc. seem like they could be used to make medicine faster, easier, and more affordable, but I have doubts that the tech won’t just be used to increase profit margins and somehow mess things up to benefit insurance company executives.
CRISPR/synthBio looks like it could do amazing things, but I have to wonder how long until things hit the sweet spot, intersecting democratization of powerful tools and destructive ideology, and lead some lunatic or group of lunatics to develop a society destroying bioweapon.
It’s hard to get excited about the development of a new power when you look at who’s likely to hold it.
One of my favourite modern writers is Ted Chiang. He has argued that the horror in science fiction tends to come not from the technology but the system that it exists in.
You might appreciate this: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/tedchiang/the-real-danger-to-civilization-isnt-ai-its-runaway#.nq4zaYNr6
Oh man, that first sentence, already…
This summer, Elon Musk spoke to the National Governors Association and told them that “AI is a fundamental risk to the existence of human civilization.”
I’m really nerdy about camping gear. The shit coming out every season is just insane.
