Submitted by basafish t3_zvjgc7 in Futurology
Buggy3D t1_j1pg96n wrote
Technologies will all reach a point of diminishing rates of improvement until new breakthroughs are discovered.
There could be a seemingly infinite number of breakthroughs, but we will likely reach a point sometime in the future where these breakthroughs happen less and less as we become more and more comfortable with existing technology, to a point where researching for new breakthroughs becomes unnecessary.
Nv1023 t1_j1tfj68 wrote
TVs have reached an incredible clarity point with 4K with some type of HDR and high refresh rate. I don’t see how much better they can get. We have reached seeing TV as clear as the human eye can see so what is next.
I know there is 8K etc but it’s well past the point of diminishing returns in my opinion. Or is there a bad effect for the human eye once resolution gets past what the eye can handle? Will 16K TVs in the future be a step back in a sense since it might be too sharp looking.
Tupcek t1_j1pvki1 wrote
it’s happening right now.
In the past, one genius was able to deliver several breakthroughs
now, if you don’t pour billions into something, there is almost no chance you achieve something big. Individual means nothing, thousands of people working in teams are needed to make any breakthrough possible.
And that is just the beginning. This was until now. Now it seems, that you not only need thousands of bright minds to get the breakthrough, but also decades of research. Like self driving cars that were announced 2005-2010 with huge investments from multiple companies, but it seems it will become reality in ~2030. Meanwhile, iPhone development started around 2002 and in 2010 smartphones were everywhere.
AI will also be the next big thing, but it’s also gonna be decades and billions before anything useful comes out of it.
We are only experiencing todays breakthroughs because billions are invested into the tech.
There will soon be a patent problems - if it took few years and few millions to develop new technology, nobody cares that you were copied two years later, as headstart was enough to get a good payoff. But if new technology takes decades of trial and error and billions of dollars, and after that you are copied in two years, investors will be hesitant to invest into long term projects
Surur t1_j1pwk4n wrote
As civilization grows richer, the amount of billions available to us also increases.
Tupcek t1_j1pwtj3 wrote
that’s true, but we already see rapidly increasing manpower and time requirements as well. It’s a question of economy how long can we keep up with ever increasing requirements, as there is not unlimited number of people on earth
Surur t1_j1pxg3v wrote
> as there is not unlimited number of people on earth
Which is where automation comes in.
Tupcek t1_j1pxjpg wrote
automation is here for decades and helping manufacturing tremendously, but so far research is taking more manpower to achieve breakthroughs even despite the automation
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