While there are many theories for why the economic and technological slowdowns occurred started in the 1970s and beyond, I would suggest that at least one contributing factor, if not a major cause, is that complacency that comes from a world of abundance and moving higher up Maslov's Pyramid of Needs. We now want for very little, and yet no maladies like "adulting" are cropping up for us to complain about. Americans historically have been driven by a burning need. Exemplified by being short of a collective national enemy in a space race, seeing our space industry has dwindled. The Internet boom and subsequent bubble may have reignited, on a temporary basis at least, that hunger.
I see this in my job, working for a prime contractor with a golden contract. Most people put in their 40 and defend their personal life, and advocate for their need for flexible work arrangements. Do you think people at NASA in the 1960s were telling their bosses they wanted to work from home two or more days per week?
Some of that hybrid work entitlement came from the COVID-19 pandemic when companies rallied to provide work from home solutions and holding virtual meetings became the norm instead of an afterthought. And some of that is goodness - the lockdowns of COVID-19 helped people take a step back and consider what was most important to them. But the tainted view of corporate America and the advent of quiet quitting has further limited, if not stalled, our ability to innovate and bring to the world a brighter future.
There are a lot of factors, to be clear, that I'm brushing over here. Books and books have been written about how the sum of individually well meaning policies have led to a system that is so cumbersome it makes progress next to impossible and further degrades the trust people have in the government and large organizations to maneuver. Sort of a self-defeating flywheel of anti-progress. The book simply title "Abundance" is a good read if you want more specifics and examples of this.
What I want to write about is that, even with hybrid work arrangements and our basic needs being met, we can still find and harness that fire to drive our innovation. What we need is a new vision - a comprehensive version of the future that both excites us and feels attainable.
We recently had our annual ethics training at work, and one of the cases we watched included a foreign national using his new smart Reyban sunglasses to record details within a production site that was not authorized for him to see, let alone record. After the ethics training and discussions were over, one of the technicians in the class stayed around to chat and asked his manager about how common those recording sunglasses were. It got he and I both sharing some of the miniaturized and wearable technology that is not only widely available but nearly indistinguishable from normal accessories, such as the fitness tracking ring. This technician, while working on fifth generation aircraft, was unaware of such technologies, and wondered aloud what other technologies exist of which he may not be aware.
While he may be living under a rock to some extent, his voiced concern is still probably a real one. I think technology is splintering into so many niches that the mainstream may not be aware of even half of what's at the fringes. Historically, I imagine a Radio Shack ad in the newspaper or a product-specific commercial on TV would have informed potentially interested buyers. Now, we pay to remove ads and few people read a physical newspaper, and Radio Shack probably isn't prominently featured even there. So it raises the question, how do people find out about the latest technology if they are not explicitly searching it out? I mean, of course there will still be the technophiles that will subscribe to publications and podcasts from which they can learn about new things. Many tech enthusiasts will either be hobbyists in their fields of interest or will be employed in them.
Drones, for example, have a ton of followers, hobbyists and professionals, and the lines often blur. But if you're not into that field, you probably don't know much about them other than random headlines about shooting one down from time to time or the sci-fi-to-reality concept of Amazon delivering via drone. For the most part, you're either into drones and know all sorts of cool stuff that's going on, or you're not, and its just a buzzword that crosses your feed from time to time. What if there was something in the drone space that would actually be specifically applicable and helpful to you, but you aren't aware it exists so you're not actively searching for it?
My partner provides another good case study in this belief of mine. He idly expresses interest in "getting into AI," and while on previous occasions on different topics, he has criticized me for not actively seeking out answers to questions that come up in conversation, he hasn't seemed to pursue this interest despite having said it many times over the course of at least half a year or more. He is even aware that I'm taking an AI certificate coursework program and I've shared with him recommendations on how he could get started with no monetary investment. Of course, it is a huge time investment, so maybe that's what differentiates his criticism of not googling something real quick and his lack of action towards learning AI.
And having gotten through 5 of the 16 courses in my AI certificate program, I can attest it's not easy. I fortunately had a little prior Python experience, which has helped since it uses Python pretty heavily. But even with my small leg up, I find it daunting and mentally taxing. So to expect people less motivated and engineering-minded as me to "get into AI" or understand how to use it does seem a bit far-fetched in all fairness. Yet, everyone has this heavy sense that it is the future and it is important to understand it.
I often say that where AI fails the hardest is humor - it cannot make a good joke no matter how you instruct it or how many examples you provide for it to mimic - at least in my experience. It just can't seem to grasp what would be funny to people. To that end, sometimes the creativity is a little too canned. So when people freak out about AI replacing people in the future, I have a hard time seeing it from my informed position. I think monotonous or organized tasks will be taken over by AI, absolutely, but that the entirety of what people do for work will be amended by AI, not replaced entirely. Although I'll caveat this belief that perhaps I'm falling into the "history repeats itself" thinking - people feared tech-driven job loss before and were wrong, so surely it can't happen this time. There are schools of thought that say this time is different. But I'm not convinced. Different, yes, but replacing human work and creativity? Nah, I just don't see it yet. Even if AI is doing the heavy lifting, people have to prompt it, and prompt engineering is now a thing. By the way, that's one no-programming way to get into AI, is to learn how to deliver the best prompts for the best AI results.
Alright, so let me try to get to my point here soon. In the same way that given too many menu choices at a restaurant (think Cheesecake Factory versus In-n-Out) can lead to decision paralysis, I believe people hearing that "AI can do anything" is too broad a brushstroke to act upon. Instead, parallels and analogies have long been useful in learning and creating in all sorts of ways. So, showing people specific examples of what AI can do can open those brain pathways to wonder if it could do something similar, and growth can happen. Perhaps I'm calling for a crowd-sourced library of use cases, something like what Thingiverse did for 3D printing. I am reminded of one of my favorite quotes from the book "The Long Tail" which says, "It is when the tools of production become transparent that we are inspired to create." Simply saying AI can do anything makes it somehow more opaque, not more transparent. We need to carve in-roads into specific use cases from which people can build and splinter off into increasingly more branches.
To start, though, since I am not prepared to build and market a crowd-sourced library, I want to provide some specific use cases as part of a comprehensive model for a futurist, technology-driven life that is both cheaper and less burdensome and also more fulfilling.
One such element I've been noodling on gets its roots from a cool gadget I installed in my Palmdale house. My boyfriend at the time was a stickler for having curtains closed at night, even in the back of the house, or maybe especially in the back of the house, because he was worried about ill-intended people being able to see in at us, illuminate by the TV and whatever lights were on, while they could go undetected in the dark. So he would close the curtains every night. But I love the sunshine and loved the view of my pool and the backyard with its palm trees and golf course views beyond. Being a morning person, I'd wake up long before him and would open the curtains back up every morning.
At the risk of sounding like too much of a first world princess, I am going to admit that this little task annoyed me. For one, I had to climb onto my couch to reach one or two of them, and stretching would sometimes irritate my scoliosis just a touch. Sure, it's only a minute or two of effort. But a 1 minute task every day for let's say a healthy 70 years of adulthood equates to over 425 hours or 17 days of effort. And this is just one task. Everyone has 24 hours in a day, so if you fill your day up with meaningless tasks, what we call "adulting" or even less significant activities could consume a majority of your waking hours. My obsession with optimizing and automating even the most slight of activities probably is what drew me into Industrial Engineering, the father of which was known to time himself buttoning his short from the bottom and from the top to see which was faster.
But I want to take it even further. Cooling the house in the hot, humid summers of Texas, taxes my AC system and sometimes seems like a struggle even when its running endlessly for hours. I fully recognize that having my windows open all the time as I do right now means I'm letting sun in even when I'm not in that room or at home at all to appreciate it. So, borrowing from a concept Bill Gates introduced in a CD-ROM video from his book "The Road Ahead", I envision sensors of some sort that know when you're home and/or utilizing a specific room, to have the blinds opened when you're in there or expected to be in there, but to close them when the sun is pouring in during the summer and the views are not being seen. It's not just that I want them open when the sun is up, or just shut when I'm not in there, I want the house to optimize for efficiency and my enjoyment. Keep the house cool while maximizing my view of the outdoors. In the winter, then, it would open the blinds all the time during the day because the sunlight will help warm the house. And if it's raining, why not give me the views so I can enjoy the lightning and see whatever critters might be out and about in it (it is fascinating the diversity of wildlife in my suburban backyard, even during a rainstorm).
Going further still, could we put something on the outside of the windows to shield the sun from even coming in and hitting the curtains? Certainly, this would be more efficient from a cooling perspective. If I do end up building in Florida, can these be sturdy, automated hurricane shutters that can enclose my house quickly and safely in the case of a storm, even if I'm traveling and away from home.
My brother-in-law is an architect and one of the things he introduced to me is how he angled his exterior roofline and window coverings to maximize shade in the summer but minimize it in the winter. He also built his windows for a cross-breeze that would enable natural cooling during certain times of the year. Integrating the technology and AI-enabled optimization of the technology with the architecture is a really intriguing marriage of new and old ideas that ultimately increases comfort and reduces energy expenditures.
This is the stuff that excites me. Superficially (although not so, in my mind), it makes life a little bit easier. In case of emergencies (like hurricanes) or even if a potential burglar is spotted, it could rapidly increase security. It will make living just a little cheaper in the long run. All of that is goodness, but the daily bit of a joy I think is actually the best part for me. Does it excite you? What ideas are you dreaming up that could be empowered by technology, automation and AI?
