Terence Eden’s Blog on Nostr: Zeno's Paradox and Why Modern Technology is Rubbish ...
Zeno's Paradox and Why Modern Technology is Rubbish
https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2022/12/zenos-paradox-and-why-modern-technology-is-rubbish/
Amazon Alexa is losing billions of dollars.
Self Driving Cars are losing billions of dollars.
The Metaverse is losing billions of dollars.
Are we about to witness the biggest crash in technological progress?
I'm particularly fond of the Rule of Credibility which states:
The first 90 percent of the code accounts for the first 90 percent of the development time. The remaining 10 percent of the code accounts for the other 90 percent of the development time.
How true is that! If you've worked on any project, you know how easy it is to get most of the way there. And how difficult it is to get all of the way there.
If you remember your classics, you'll be acquainted with one of Zeno's paradoxes - the Dichotomy. Briefly stated, in order to reach a goal, you have to first get halfway there. In order to get halfway there, you must first get a quarter of the way there. To get to a quarter, you need to get to an eighth. And so on ad infinitum. Thus, it is logically impossible to reach your destination.
I kinda feel like that with some of today's tech products.
It's relatively simple to get a microphone that understands 90% of what you say. But to get to the last 10% means making ever-smaller incremental improvements until, years later, it's still not really worth using.
We've had semi-autonomous vehicles for years. But they're still stuck in that last 90% trap. Manufacturers can keep throwing children in front of them to see if the cars know to brake - but the reliability is still suspect.
VR has been going since the 1960s. Meta have successfully strapped an Android phone to a pair of lenses and called it the Metaverse. That's 90% of the way there!
There's an old joke about Zeno's paradox:
A university organised a dance for its students. All the men were to line up on one wall of a dance hall, and an equal number of women were to line up on the opposite wall0. The men were told to walk towards the women at a pace of a half the distance separating them every minute.
The mathematicians started weeping - saying that they would never get to meet.
The physicists looked glum - knowing they would only get to meet when time equals infinity.
The engineering students broke into a smile - because within a few minutes they would be close enough for all practical purposes.
And it feels like that's where we are today. Alexa is mostly practical - but not as good as a human butler. Self-driving cars are mostly practical - as long as you're in an area where they've been adequately trained. The Metaverse mostly works - but no one really cares.
There's a distinction between working, working well enough, and working well.
But it gets exponentially harder with each step.
Feel free to substitute with something a little less heteronormative. ↩︎
#alexa #future #metaverse #technology
https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2022/12/zenos-paradox-and-why-modern-technology-is-rubbish/
Amazon Alexa is losing billions of dollars.
Self Driving Cars are losing billions of dollars.
The Metaverse is losing billions of dollars.
Are we about to witness the biggest crash in technological progress?
I'm particularly fond of the Rule of Credibility which states:
The first 90 percent of the code accounts for the first 90 percent of the development time. The remaining 10 percent of the code accounts for the other 90 percent of the development time.
How true is that! If you've worked on any project, you know how easy it is to get most of the way there. And how difficult it is to get all of the way there.
If you remember your classics, you'll be acquainted with one of Zeno's paradoxes - the Dichotomy. Briefly stated, in order to reach a goal, you have to first get halfway there. In order to get halfway there, you must first get a quarter of the way there. To get to a quarter, you need to get to an eighth. And so on ad infinitum. Thus, it is logically impossible to reach your destination.
I kinda feel like that with some of today's tech products.
It's relatively simple to get a microphone that understands 90% of what you say. But to get to the last 10% means making ever-smaller incremental improvements until, years later, it's still not really worth using.
We've had semi-autonomous vehicles for years. But they're still stuck in that last 90% trap. Manufacturers can keep throwing children in front of them to see if the cars know to brake - but the reliability is still suspect.
VR has been going since the 1960s. Meta have successfully strapped an Android phone to a pair of lenses and called it the Metaverse. That's 90% of the way there!
There's an old joke about Zeno's paradox:
A university organised a dance for its students. All the men were to line up on one wall of a dance hall, and an equal number of women were to line up on the opposite wall0. The men were told to walk towards the women at a pace of a half the distance separating them every minute.
The mathematicians started weeping - saying that they would never get to meet.
The physicists looked glum - knowing they would only get to meet when time equals infinity.
The engineering students broke into a smile - because within a few minutes they would be close enough for all practical purposes.
And it feels like that's where we are today. Alexa is mostly practical - but not as good as a human butler. Self-driving cars are mostly practical - as long as you're in an area where they've been adequately trained. The Metaverse mostly works - but no one really cares.
There's a distinction between working, working well enough, and working well.
But it gets exponentially harder with each step.
Feel free to substitute with something a little less heteronormative. ↩︎
#alexa #future #metaverse #technology