Future tech and unabashed sincerity
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How do you think about the next 50 years in technology?
Do you think about it? I had a couple conversations with friends this week about technology, AI, capitalism, democracy, and how all of these things seem to react with each other. I personally believe that in many ways the “hardware” of our lives will remain mostly unchanged for a relatively long amount of time. Here’s my evidence to support this claim:
Smartphones have amassed ubiquity akin to historical adoption of radio, television, and the internet. What I believe sets this piece of hardware apart is that it has truly collapsed all of our known contexts for productivity, entertainment, and communication into one thing small enough to carry around. The “next thing” will have to build on an inherent shortcoming of smartphones, which I don’t think is as easy a hardware problem to crack as previous developments in productivity, entertainment, and communication technology. Plus, this ubiquity ingrains behavior in us, and humans are not exactly known for our ability to break ingrained habits.
Whereas in the years between 1995 and 2015 the processing power, battery life, and onboard storage of portable handheld devices had to keep up with changes in the tech ecosystem, now the tech can outpace the typical consumer use cases for it. Basically, what I mean is that phones are more powerful relative to the consumer’s needs than they were before. Consumer needs may not be advancing as quickly as they did in the last, say, 30 years.
Batteries. We need a dramatic breakthrough in portable battery technology. There is some promising research being done in this line of work, but for the foreseeable future we are stuck with our Lithium Ion battery cells. If handheld devices want to make “the next jump” in their capabilities, they will need to have even more powerful chips on board. But if you put a laptop processor in a smartphone, it will drain the battery incredibly quickly. For our electric vehicle hopes and any dream of even smarter smartphones, we have to deal with this problem. And it is not one of willpower or even genius innovation; it is a problem of physics.
What do you think? What do you think technology will look like in 50 years? Even if you feel like you don’t have the knowledge to tell, just imagine. I am curious how people think about this.
arachne music corner
This week I wanted to feature an album I think is incredibly under appreciated. Surf by Nico Segal, Chance the Rapper, and The Social Experiment.
Nico Segal, formerly known as Donnie Trumpet, is a longtime collaborator of Chance’s out of Chicago. He is known for his rich production and orchestration for live instruments, most notably for the trumpet. What I think makes his production on this album (and on Chance’s Coloring Book) so special is the way it creates a sonic atmosphere of joy, invention, and contemplation. The music succeeds so well in our postmodern hellscape because of it’s unabashed sincerity. Postmodernism thrives in ironic, detached skepticism for the traditional, the often reckless smashing of new and old. This can create tension and isolation from the present moment. But in this space, where the sonic atmosphere is reminiscent of big band and 70s pop we have self effacing raps about maturing and family.
Surf trades in many of the norms and expectations of a rap album for its own unashamed environment of head and ass shaking. There’s a damn three and a half minute horn interlude on this album, and it is my favorite song.
Listen below: