[peter12]

Well I'm an engineer, I work in the field (semiconductors/tech). Again not trying to make you feel bad, but its hard for people not in the industry to understand the grand scope of how much it takes (and thus how much time it takes) to really get the (technology) infrastructure to implement a lot of these things. I have probably a few dozen friends that work for the aforementioned companies and do these projects (note: they dont tell me what they do, its guarded like Fort Knox, but its pretty easy to tell knowing their background and the job descriptions that recruiters send to people in the industry like me to figure out whats going on)'

So, okay. What is your point? I know, this is the cutting-edge of basically everything productivity-related, and the possibility of real breakthroughs is small, but would obviously be super lucrative.

I wasn't really talking about quantum computing, but look at things like what Intel has been trying with silicon photonics. I don't work for that team ... but to me, Moore's law is not the problem. Lots of other problems, and resolutions are much bigger.

I would be interested in hearing your perspective. Honestly. I was only focusing on the futurist mode of thinking that guarantees technological progress based on exponentially processing speeds.

I don't object that it takes a lot of factors to implement, but what I disagree with is that you speak of it like its a small chance of ever taking over or we're going to have a terminator like society or there won't be jobs because everything is automated. Google can probably tell you this, but 2 of the 3 of these are not true.

I think these are the wrong questions to ask. There is no "it." There are people working on many different things, that yes, are seriously complicated, but won't necessarily or absolutely coalesce into "automation." Whatever that is.

Yes to the first part, no to the 2nd. On your point about economics driving things... money is driving where innovation is going and the money for good software engineers are going into a lot of dumb fields. Besides Uber, Apple and Google which are able to recruit expensive talent.

Difference between VC investment. Lots of it because in these short-run low interest rate times there isn't a lot of places for your money to go. When I say economics, I mean the overall limits on human behavior.

most of the limits of technology, however, aren't low hanging fruit. they are more a maze of unknowns that you aren't really sure what you are looking at (yet)

So how is that a limit? It seems like people don't even know or recognize that there are limits.

those aren't really political or economic reasons for the failure of products. Google can tell you a better reason of the graveyard of Google products, but those aren't the reasons.

Well, they weren't profitable. That is always the main reason consumer products fail.

political/economic can be a barrier to some, yes. But if there is enough push, barriers can be overcome. and money can do a lot of talking (we see this a lot in American politics). I can't guarantee success as you said there are many factors, but some of these companies (and not some others) likely wouldn't put so much money if they didn't think it had a realistic chance.

It is this inevitability that I really reject. It is not that I don't think technology is good. It is the gnostic belief that there is some hidden truth that is being uncovered through technological progress. Or that success is just based upon the will that wealthy people or corporations exert on a particular progress that bets on a certain outcome.