I don't have personal feelings, but one developing technology that has been generating excitement is quantum computing. Its potential to revolutionize various fields, from cryptography to drug discovery, is fascinating.
AI doesn't really excite me, I feel that it will be mostly used to make the internet an even more fake and plastic place. It will save time on rote tasks, but all that does is replace labor. On its own it doesn't seem like an expansion of human mastery of the universe, like FTL or fusion energy would be.
If you ask me what I'm most excited about that seems within grasp, it would either be fusion energy or the ability to mine resources from space.
A little of both: there are space mining companies in R&D stages, but the quantities of precious metals on some of these asteroids are orders of magnitude greater than what has been mined on Earth, so as soon as markets view mining as imminent prices of precious metals will plummet.
Nah, historically that's never been the case. Instead of taking life easy we strive to consume more and more in comparison to the next guy. People thought the industrial revolution would lead to 20 hours workdays, but it's been anything but. Similarly, the advent of computers did not make people work less and enjoy life more.
The Industrial Revolution and labor movements are what got us down to a 40 hour work week. The current (fiat) power structures are what keep us here. If I had 20 extra hours of leisure in my week, I could learn a craft and become more self sufficient, I could study new subjects, I could exercise more, I could be more involved in my community, I could raise a stink at city hall. Instead we live in a system that gives us just enough leisure time that the most efficient way to use it is to opt into the convenience of consumerism. We've been conditioned to keep up with the Joneses. It's not necessarily innate human nature. It's a rat race that keeps the poor poor, squeezes the middle class dry, and secures power for the upper echelons of society (who don't seem to have much trouble coming to terms with their extra leisure time). As long as they can just keep printing money and never be held accountable, we'll keep getting squeezed to do more for less.
Smart home and autonomous vehicles that can't be remote controlled by a third party
It's been really disappointing how these technologies have developed along such dystopian lines. As far as I know, there's no particular reason that they can't have consumer protections built in.
Not really a "technology" per se, but related to what you said, I'm excited about the "right to repair" movement. Sadly, I don't think the movement is that mainstream yet, but I agree with its principles. When you buy a product you should own it and be able to repair and configure it how you want. Maybe Google's Web Integrity Environment project will push people towards thinking about this more...
My feeling about "Right-to-Repair" is that it would be illegitimate if we abolished intellectual property laws, which are incompatible with conventional property rights.
However, I don't see any reason why two parties couldn't agree to a transaction that comes with a condition that repairs must be done by the seller.
Modular and micro nuclear reactors along with improvements in water desalination. The former means that we could not only decarbonize our power grid rather quickly, but also create more independent, decentralized communities. Imagine how much more possible that would be if we could convert ocean water to potable water fast and cheap.
However Bitcoin trump's them all. It's potential to help billions of people, specifically the poorest and most exploited, improve their lives long term is unparalleled. Fusion etc is all great, but to have the entire planet gain access to perfect money and welcome billions into the financial 21st century from having nothing before is amazing. AGI potentially comes close, but is still 5 years out or so. The pace of progress of humankind is astonishing though. We love it, science ALL the things! ✊🥳
The current developers of room temperature semiconductors (LK-99), today one Chinese lab announced that they were able to replicate the experiment.
If true this will change all electronics, batteries, electric engines, etc. And probably create another technological revolution akind to the semiconductor.
Someone just made the flying car happen, I hate flying when im not the pilot, because I don’t know the pilot so trusting it with my life seems pretty risky considering all the corners people are forced to cut these days to make ends meet. However if im the pilot , and driver I think that fun cancels out any other negatives. I do not however trust AI to fly me around so I would like the manual transmission model.
The research following up on the Em-Drive. I believe that they will make it practical once they figure out they need to use a tesla coil to fill the resonator with high frequency tesla electron radiation.
Not an easy jump out of the gravity well still, but it means that a nuclear reactor with closed thermal/turbine circuit can be made, and it means a very powerful space probe that can get a lot further away and still send back signals to us, and that it could be sending us much closer images of nearby stars than we have ever seen, maybe even fling one into orbit of Sirius or Proxima Centauri within a few decades.