[hyperpallium]

First, the negatives:

   Another AI winter
   Another VR winter
   Another hype-cycle of home automation
   Another hype-cycle of growing teeth

There will be tech progress, but behind the scenes, doing the same things as before, just better. As prosaic as more modular manufactured goods, in the sense of prefab home construction, automobile components, FPGA's for electronic goods. Some may revolutionize the value-chain in an industry - but you won't see it unless you're in it.

Fundamentally new tech takes 20-30 years to come to market - especially if it really does change things (government regulatory regimes, infrastructure, how we live).

Now Moore's Law isn't giving us shallow victories any more, there is opportunity for deeper changes, that properly absorb and apply its past advances.

Right now, we are undergoing a re-orientation of our political systems, in the sense of how democracy operates without a traditional press; the continuing march of multi-nationals being more powerful than sovereign states; the hyper-concentration of wealth (due to the means of production no longer being land, nor labour, but technology). Social systems are a kind of "technology".

The central question of this technological change will be: why do the hyper-wealthy need people?

The most surprising technology will be new mathematics - not TB machine proofs, but quite simple and basic ones, akin to the positional number system, algebra, calculus. They will analyse complex systems, like Navier-Stokes fluid dynamics; the operation of deep learning networks; internet and traffic congestion; and cortical organization. They won't give magical results, but they will offer a new point of view, that some will experience as magical.

[bsenftner]

> The central question of this technological change will be: why do the hyper-wealthy need people?

This is what concerns me. They already apply their wealth and organizations to treating the general public as a farm they cultivate. They shape the educational, tax, media, and legal structure in their favor quite successfully today. With the technological advancements in media development and their hold over education policy, tomorrow has a terrifying forecast unless some educational miracle of critical thought occurs.