I also asked ChatGPT, here are the six best ideas that it had (excluding electric bikes, as it was already my idea ;P) (cherry picked by me over 21):
Online education: Online education platforms like Coursera and Khan Academy were mature, widely available, intuitive, and cost no money for basic usage. They also had no regulatory barriers or moral issues and could be used by mutual agreement among one or a few people. Online education also saved a lot of time and played relatively well with the existing format of learning and education.
Digital wallets: Digital wallet technologies like Apple Pay and Google Pay were mature, widely available, intuitive, and cost no money for basic usage. They also had no regulatory barriers or moral issues and could be used by mutual agreement among one or a few people. Digital wallets also saved a lot of time and played relatively well with the existing format of financial transactions and management.
Wearable health monitoring devices: These devices, such as Fitbit and Apple Watch, are mature, widely available, intuitive, and cost no money for basic usage. They also have no regulatory barriers or moral issues and can be used by mutual agreement among one or a few people. They save time and money by allowing users to track their health metrics and stay motivated to maintain a healthy lifestyle.
Online language learning platforms: Platforms like Duolingo and Rosetta Stone are mature, widely available, intuitive, and cost no money for basic usage. They have no regulatory barriers or moral issues and can be used by mutual agreement among one or a few people. They save time and money by providing an accessible and effective way to learn a new language.
Home energy management systems: Devices like Nest Thermostat and Sense Home Energy Monitor are mature, widely available, intuitive, and cost no money for basic usage. They have no regulatory barriers or moral issues and can be used by mutual agreement among one or a few people. They save money and energy by providing users with insights into their home energy usage and allowing them to make informed decisions about energy conservation.
Collaborative writing and editing tools: Platforms like Google Docs and Microsoft Teams are mature, widely available, intuitive, and cost no money for basic usage. They have no regulatory barriers or moral issues and can be used by mutual agreement among one or a few people. They save time and make collaboration more efficient and effective, whether for school projects, business proposals, or creative writing.
Both of them are very reasonable, online education is accessible, almost free, and makes it possible to study even while holding a full time job, from a quick glance a great deal of your requirements are satisfied.
Digital wallets I am less sure about, I never used one, but they look really convenient and easy to use, but I would need more info on how secure they are before starting to use them.
Overall, I think all of these ideas kind of fit your point.
This is a nice use case for ChatGPT! In most of these cases, I think that where they don’t quite meet my criteria is in terms of the cost-benefit issue or the neglectedness part.
Online education is pretty widely used by individuals, exactly as we would hope. It’s neglected as a way to signal educational attainment, but that’s a problem that can only be handled at the level of corporate or university governance by recognizing Coursera certificates on CVs or building a university around online offerings. Digital wallets seem to have taken off pretty much in step with awareness and size of the user base. Wearable health and home energy management systems don’t seem neglected and they face cost-benefit questions. Collaborative writing and editing are already widely used, as are online language learning platforms.
I’ll throw in another $1 for creative brainstorming for a total of $4 awarded and $6 to go, but I want to save the rest for ideas more stringently meeting my criteria if any can be found.
In my opinion Wearable health is highly neglected because older people are less tech savy than young people, so they use it less than younger people, but they would also benefit much more from the technology. If a 20 year old wears a smart watch that measures and records heart-rate it is almost only for fun, if a 60 year old does it, it could prevent and inform about important issues, but the 20 year old is much more likely to actually use it than the 60 year old.
I think that’s a pretty good point, and it tracks with Steven Byrnes’ insight about bedwetting alarms.
Zoom costs no money, but the most it saves is time and annoyance. It might save lives occasionally, but there’s potential for wearable health to save lots of lives and prevent many disabilities. The cost-benefit ratio might be better than zoom’s, and yet people may neglect it excessively because it’s socially weird to do things like monitor your heartrate—or, when it’s available, your blood glucose—routinely using consumer electronics. As with the bedwetting alarm, we have this idea that we should only be using “interventions” like these when there’s already a clear problem, rather than as a way to prevent a problem or hasten a solution, and that seems to stem from social norms (“is this really such an emergency?”) rather than a rational judgment about costs and benefits.
That said, one of my criteria was “Had an immediate payoff,” and I think that neither the bedwetting alarm nor wearable healthy typically do have an immediate payoff (unless you were replacing an existing invasive glucose monitor with an Apple Watch noninvasive monitor, once that tech becomes available).
With zoom, all people were missing was the suggestion “why don’t we have this meeting on zoom” and the perception that “if we do, it will be seen as normal by all participants.” With wearable health, you have the added component of “I’m not even sure all this fuss and self-monitoring will even pay off in the long run in terms of better health outcomes, but I have to pay the money and attention costs right now.”
The delayed and uncertain cost-benefit analysis in individual cases is the reason that wearable health doesn’t meet my higher “stringency bar” for being comparable to zoom, even though I agree with you that there are probably a lot of users who’d benefit from it and who are neglecting it primarily for the reason that it’s not normalized.
I also asked ChatGPT, here are the six best ideas that it had (excluding electric bikes, as it was already my idea ;P) (cherry picked by me over 21):
Both of them are very reasonable, online education is accessible, almost free, and makes it possible to study even while holding a full time job, from a quick glance a great deal of your requirements are satisfied.
Digital wallets I am less sure about, I never used one, but they look really convenient and easy to use, but I would need more info on how secure they are before starting to use them.
Overall, I think all of these ideas kind of fit your point.
This is a nice use case for ChatGPT! In most of these cases, I think that where they don’t quite meet my criteria is in terms of the cost-benefit issue or the neglectedness part.
Online education is pretty widely used by individuals, exactly as we would hope. It’s neglected as a way to signal educational attainment, but that’s a problem that can only be handled at the level of corporate or university governance by recognizing Coursera certificates on CVs or building a university around online offerings. Digital wallets seem to have taken off pretty much in step with awareness and size of the user base. Wearable health and home energy management systems don’t seem neglected and they face cost-benefit questions. Collaborative writing and editing are already widely used, as are online language learning platforms.
I’ll throw in another $1 for creative brainstorming for a total of $4 awarded and $6 to go, but I want to save the rest for ideas more stringently meeting my criteria if any can be found.
In my opinion Wearable health is highly neglected because older people are less tech savy than young people, so they use it less than younger people, but they would also benefit much more from the technology. If a 20 year old wears a smart watch that measures and records heart-rate it is almost only for fun, if a 60 year old does it, it could prevent and inform about important issues, but the 20 year old is much more likely to actually use it than the 60 year old.
I think that’s a pretty good point, and it tracks with Steven Byrnes’ insight about bedwetting alarms.
Zoom costs no money, but the most it saves is time and annoyance. It might save lives occasionally, but there’s potential for wearable health to save lots of lives and prevent many disabilities. The cost-benefit ratio might be better than zoom’s, and yet people may neglect it excessively because it’s socially weird to do things like monitor your heartrate—or, when it’s available, your blood glucose—routinely using consumer electronics. As with the bedwetting alarm, we have this idea that we should only be using “interventions” like these when there’s already a clear problem, rather than as a way to prevent a problem or hasten a solution, and that seems to stem from social norms (“is this really such an emergency?”) rather than a rational judgment about costs and benefits.
That said, one of my criteria was “Had an immediate payoff,” and I think that neither the bedwetting alarm nor wearable healthy typically do have an immediate payoff (unless you were replacing an existing invasive glucose monitor with an Apple Watch noninvasive monitor, once that tech becomes available).
With zoom, all people were missing was the suggestion “why don’t we have this meeting on zoom” and the perception that “if we do, it will be seen as normal by all participants.” With wearable health, you have the added component of “I’m not even sure all this fuss and self-monitoring will even pay off in the long run in terms of better health outcomes, but I have to pay the money and attention costs right now.”
The delayed and uncertain cost-benefit analysis in individual cases is the reason that wearable health doesn’t meet my higher “stringency bar” for being comparable to zoom, even though I agree with you that there are probably a lot of users who’d benefit from it and who are neglecting it primarily for the reason that it’s not normalized.