Technologies I take for granted now but remember thinking were exciting and cool when they came out
Smart phones
Google Maps / Google Earth
Video calls
Facebook
DeepDream (whoa! This is like drug hallucinations… I wonder if they share a similar underlying mechanism? This is evidence that ANNs are more similar to brains than I thought!)
AlphaGo
AlphaStar (Whoa! AI can handle hidden information!)
OpenAI Five (Whoa! AI can work on a team!)
GPT-2 (Whoa! AI can write coherent, stylistically appropriate sentences about novel topics like unicorns in the andes!)
GPT-3
I’m sure there are a bunch more I’m missing, please comment and add some!
Oh yeah, cheap shipping! I grew up in a military family, all around the world, and I remember thinking it was so cool that my parents could go on “ebay” and order things and then they would be shipped to us! And then now look where we are—groceries delivered in ten minutes! Almost everything I buy, I buy online!
Heh. In my youth, home computers were somewhat rare, and modems even more so. I remember my excitement at upgrading to 2400bps, as it was about as fast as I could read the text coming across. My current pocket computer is about 4000 times faster, has 30,000 times as much RAM, has hundreds of times more pixels and colors, and has worldwide connectivity thousands of times faster. And I don’t even have to yell at my folks to stay off the phone while I’m using it!
I lived through the entire popularity cycle of fax machines.
My parents grew up with black-and-white CRTs based on vacuum tubes—the transistor was invented in 1947. They had just a few channels of broadcast TV and even audio recording media was somewhat uncommon (cassette tapes in the mid-60s, video tapes didn’t take off until the late 70s).
Technologies I take for granted now but remember thinking were exciting and cool when they came out
Smart phones
Google Maps / Google Earth
Video calls
Facebook
DeepDream (whoa! This is like drug hallucinations… I wonder if they share a similar underlying mechanism? This is evidence that ANNs are more similar to brains than I thought!)
AlphaGo
AlphaStar (Whoa! AI can handle hidden information!)
OpenAI Five (Whoa! AI can work on a team!)
GPT-2 (Whoa! AI can write coherent, stylistically appropriate sentences about novel topics like unicorns in the andes!)
GPT-3
I’m sure there are a bunch more I’m missing, please comment and add some!
Some of my own:
SSDs
laptops
CDs
digital cameras
modems
genome sequencing
automatic transmissions for cars that perform better than a moderately skilled human using a manual transmission can
cheap shipping
solar panels with reasonable power generation
breathable wrinkle free fabrics that you can put in the washing machine
bamboo textiles
good virtual keyboards for phones
scissor switches
USB
GPS
Oh yeah, cheap shipping! I grew up in a military family, all around the world, and I remember thinking it was so cool that my parents could go on “ebay” and order things and then they would be shipped to us! And then now look where we are—groceries delivered in ten minutes! Almost everything I buy, I buy online!
Heh. In my youth, home computers were somewhat rare, and modems even more so. I remember my excitement at upgrading to 2400bps, as it was about as fast as I could read the text coming across. My current pocket computer is about 4000 times faster, has 30,000 times as much RAM, has hundreds of times more pixels and colors, and has worldwide connectivity thousands of times faster. And I don’t even have to yell at my folks to stay off the phone while I’m using it!
I lived through the entire popularity cycle of fax machines.
My parents grew up with black-and-white CRTs based on vacuum tubes—the transistor was invented in 1947. They had just a few channels of broadcast TV and even audio recording media was somewhat uncommon (cassette tapes in the mid-60s, video tapes didn’t take off until the late 70s).