Peak tech

jsmoke

jsmoke

jsmoke

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17 Jun 2012
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Are we going to reach peak tech in the near future and if so what happens then. I was just reading a review on the galaxy S9 plus and the conclusion is that it's much the same as the S8. Microsoft have also said they will never release another full OS just update windows 10 with whatever ever new features they can think up. 8k monitors will be peak resolution as the eye cannot distinguish anything more detailed apparently. I would imagine digital cameras will be similar and plenty of other tech. So will new tech keep coming along for decades to come and if not surely there will be some kind of major depression in the job market. Millions of programmers for example. What are your predictions, when is it all going to come crashing down, can't just keep going on forever.
 
Tech is accelerating faster than it ever has done in the past. AI is also helping to accelerate it faster than humans can. I think we are far from peak tech.
 
My Dell laptop has had a few things go wrong with it. Its 4 years old and battery life fell through the floor, power connector failed, fan broke. I never even considered an upgrade as it does all I need and is still fast. I simply opened it and replaced the parts for £150. I agree with phones, I only change if there is no other option as most phones have been good enough for a while. I look at a galaxy S6 and still see it as an excellent phone.
 
I think besides battery life, we probably have reached 'peak phone'. At the end of the day a phone has to be pocket-able, so the displays are only going to get so big, so there's no point having 8k resolution, or games with such a high resolution. With that limit we've probably nearly reached graphics as good as they need to be etc. I just wish they'd sort battery life out.

Says the man still using his Oneplus One... :o
 
Scam said:
I think besides battery life, we probably have reached 'peak phone'. At the end of the day a phone has to be pocket-able, so the displays are only going to get so big, so there's no point having 8k resolution, or games with such a high resolution. With that limit we've probably nearly reached graphics as good as they need to be etc. I just wish they'd sort battery life out.

Says the man still using his Oneplus One... :o
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Actually when it comes to graphics there is apparently still a good bit to go using full path tracing to render the images. All the algos are know just no where near enough CPU/GPU power available to do so. You will be looking at full HD video quality graphics.
 
I think it's going to go through a period of refining. Better power source, engines or batterys. Bigger/faster everything but nothing unique new things.
 
this is a bit like someone back in the 60s saying, ah well camera lenses are about as good as we're going to get and with this new Panavision 70mm film we've got about as good a quality image as the eye can ever see... therefore, because things are good in this one narrow area, we've reached peak tech

or perhaps in the 80s - oh we've got CDs now, they're a digital/lossless format and human ears can't tell the difference between them and higher quality storage formats, we've therefore reached peak tech

it is a bit of a dubious and rather flawed pov
 
delta0 said:
Tech is accelerating faster than it ever has done in the past. AI is also helping to accelerate it faster than humans can. I think we are far from peak tech.
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At some point I think we’ll reach a total runaway phase as AI becomes self improving. Human innovation will be replaced by AI driven innovation.
 
jsmoke said:
Are we going to reach peak tech in the near future and if so what happens then. I was just reading a review on the galaxy S9 plus and the conclusion is that it's much the same as the S8. Microsoft have also said they will never release another full OS just update windows 10 with whatever ever new features they can think up. 8k monitors will be peak resolution as the eye cannot distinguish anything more detailed apparently. I would imagine digital cameras will be similar and plenty of other tech. So will new tech keep coming along for decades to come and if not surely there will be some kind of major depression in the job market. Millions of programmers for example. What are your predictions, when is it all going to come crashing down, can't just keep going on forever.
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As far as Win 10 being the "last" version of windows, Apple did this with OSX (now just called MacOS) in 2001 and we've had that OS for 17 years now. It has improved year over year and barely resembles what it originally was. Win 10 will do the same. When Steve Jobs announced OSX he said it was setting Apple up for "the next 20 years" so perhaps in 2022 we will see OS11... who knows.
As for 8K displays, that's perhaps the highest res you can see, but I imagine that in the future the computer will interface directly with your visual cortex and beam images into your brain.
 
Peak tech will be reached when we start to batter up against hard limits of physics with no way to work around them. We are far from that.

Sure, we might have hit the limits of display tech for now, but what if we start augmenting our eyes with superior prosthetics? Back to increasing resolution, it is.
 
We need better batteries and better internet for any serious progress to be made. Then we'll get a big boom in electric cars and in-car entertainment & advertising.

We are at peak phone because everyone has one, and peak social media because people are getting sick of it. But it's a totally different story in Africa for example.

The current trend is 'internet of things' with all sorts of stuff being connected. That's going to turn out to be a big mistake. E.g. a connected thermostat is worse than a dumb one, a smart tv is worse than a dumb one, a smart meter is worse than a dumb one, etc. Because of issues of security, privacy, and support/lifespan.

As a software engineer I'm not worried about employment. Software lasts about 10 years, then it gets too difficult to work on and need to be rewritten. I don't see anything changing that.
 
Biometrics still have a long at to go I reckon, single readers etc are still pretty basic when you look at the size of a regular candy bar shaped smartphone.
 
When I can travel back in time and tell myself to ask Linda out or spend the rest of my life wondering what if, then we've reached peak tech.
 
Technology is constantly changing and evolving at various speeds. 2007 was a peak for graphics card, the progress from 1989 Prince of Persia to Half Life and from that to Crysis was huge. Crysis to AC:Origins, not much of a leap.

Smarphone tech has been booming since 2007, so smartphones are now miniature PCs.

There is no peak, just faster progress on certain tech branches than others.


Lol @ AI innovation replacing human innovation.
 
In one word no.
Tech is still increasing at a faster rate than ever before.
Next big thing for mobiles will be foldable screens, rumours is we might seem the first one this year on sale.

Also wearable health tech is about to explode in the next few years. People with diabetes can allready stick a sensor on which gives continue reading for a month compared to sticking a pin inthemself several times a day.
 
Far from peak tech. Perhaps a consolidation period in smart phones until the next thing comes along that gets integrated. If companies don't innovate then people will eventually vote with their wallets. Photography and video have a long way to go as light-field technology is still in its infancy. We can't make holographic video calls yet. Our kitchens can not cook for us yet. Form factors are going to change which I think will make physical displays dead in 10 years. In the meantime there will be microLED to replace OLED & QLED screens which are already old hat. Once you combine future technologies like VR, telecommunications, robotics and rockets then telepresence in space becomes a possibility.
 
Glaucus said:
Also wearable health tech is about to explode in the next few years. People with diabetes can allready stick a sensor on which gives continue reading for a month compared to sticking a pin inthemself several times a day.
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yup this is true... not to mention our phones/smart watches can basically become equivalent to single lead ECGs (and this is likely to improve too)... there are also apps out there using the camera to try and classify moles/skin cancer etc..

I think diagnostic/screening stuff is going to carry on increasing though I do wonder if perhaps one of the earlier effects of it is perhaps unfortunately to increase the burden on the NHS (initially that is) - all sorts of companies are offering things like genetic tests, scans etc.. if more and more people just decide to go in for all sorts of health screenings then you'll perhaps get rather a lot of people who now want to see a doctor when they wouldn't otherwise have gone

Farming could be an interesting one too, we've already got fish being farmed in enclosed areas of lochs and even in big vats in warehouses etc.. we could also see greater use of tech in innovative farming start ups - not just genetically modified food but companies that say make use of innovative methods of farming - high yield indoor farming etc.. whereby farms can be set up outside major cities etc.. with automation that sort of thing could turn out to be cost effective

the only peaks or plateaus we have are in the heads of people who lack imagination tbh...
 
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