Asklemmy

There's quite a lot happening in 3d printing that is kind of life changing, and not getting any press coverage because no single obscenely wealthy person can use it to hype a pump and dump.

Weird specific stuff exists now, that never did before - like custom cases for weird sizes of batteries, and a pen-holder that looks exactly like the latest manga character to make a splash.

I wouldn’t say all “AI” was a grift. Machine learning is a useful tool, like a hammer, it’s just not a magic genie for everything. Always has been, always will be.

Same with blockchain, albeit in a much narrower niche. I do think it’s a terrible system for a widely-used currency, though.

Same with quantum computing. It’s a niche.

The pattern is that Tech Bros inflate something narrowly interesting into a “it’s going to ascend the human race if you give us enough money” FOMO thing.

…And, currently, the next target seems to be space travel.

Again, I emphasize. Very useful in certain niches, like science. Stupendously impractical outside of them.

I think Fire and Stick have a long future ahead of them still. Also a big fan of Wheel and Stardew Valley.

None of them really, they were all novel technology ideas snd advancements that every company and their mom adopted because it became the next silicon valley investment money printer.

Blockchain started out as a decentralized network concept that's still useful today.

AI started out as a tensor statistical concept that's still useful today.

People say QC is a grift because every silicon valley giant has invested heavily into it because they want to be the first if it becomes viable. It's just what they do. They throw money into everything and if they get something successful, they pump it as much as they can before it dumps.

Even FOSS software isn't invulnerable. Half of AWS's SaaS platforms are just automated FOSS software running on their cloud infrastructure without so much as a hint of donation or development into the project itself. They just want money, they don't care how they get it.

AI is not a grift but it is very much a dangerous rudderless ship right now.

Quantum computing is also not a grift.

Hell I feel dirty saying this but you could argue blockchain is not a grift either.

The problem in all these things is the people not the technology.

Why do folks think quantum computing is a grift? I haven't heard that yet.

Stuff made open source/without a profit motive.

If there's a profit motive, it's not looking to solve a problem or make things better. It's looking to make profit.

Most of Lemmy are idiots and poor people that hate everything. Don't listen to most the idiots here.

Quantum non-fungible tokens won't be a grift. Trust me.

(Hopefully this obvious sarcasm is obvious.)

Calling blockchain a pure grift ignores the serious enterprise-level work being done to solve real logistical problems. The technology behind NFTs isn't just for JPEGs it's used to create a unique and immutable digital identity for stuff like physical shipping containers and pallets as digital twins. In a global supply chain where a single shipment passes through dozens of untrusted parties like factories, freight forwarders, ports, customs, and warehouses a distributed blockchain ledger provides a single source of truth that replaces manual emails, scanned paper documents, and spreadsheets. Smart contracts can automate releases upon verified scans, directly reducing the demurrage and detention fees that cost millions of dollars. The big hurdle isn't that the tech doesn't work or is a grift, it's getting competing companies to agree on common standards and invest in the infrastructure. The speculation was a sideshow, but the underlying utility for tracking physical assets across trust boundaries is a real thing

None of these technologies are a grift per say, the economic system we use to develop them and the marketing needed to ensure funding under the aforementioned hellscape is a grfit.

+1 for stating that the technologies themselves are not the grifts.

LLMs are fantastic tools. Quantum Computing will have meaningful uses.

The grift is the marketing and the dumb C-Suites that fall for it.

To answer your real question though, I need an AI that will actually convert a basket of dirty laundry into a stack of neatly folded clean clothes. That shit will be revolutionary.

The renewable energy industry. The tech is good and getting better rapidly. Costs continue to drop, consumer grade solar is becoming widly accessible.

The problem is not that this technologies are or aren’t a grift, the problem is that they are used to grift (and that the 4th power that is supposed to protect us against this isn’t doing its job).

In that sense : every next technology will be a grift. Look at spaceX, he sold refueling booster as the next step in human ~~space exploration~~ evolution and finally its just another company used to mine our data. Grift

Capitalism is what makes them grifts. Llms could be neat. Theft at scale, environmental impact, and using it to kill little kids (anyone but jfc the kids killed wtf) is the problem. Its always the horrid companies and governments who look at any tech like "can i hurt people with this? I totally can..."

These technologies are not grifts.

The way they are often employed is absolutely a grift.

Blockchain is a very cool concept. Getting people to pay $1,000 for a picture of a cat and imply that it has value because it's on a blockchain is grift.

Ai is a cool technology. It has become a grift because the companies behind it are sucking up massive investor dollars, destroying the worldwide computing parts market, and persuading managers to axe jobs promising the AI can take their place.

If quantum computing actually starts to work some of it will be used for grift because many current encryption schemes could potentially be cracked using quantum computers.

People say quantum computing is a grift?

The other two are are only "grifts" because capitalism has shoved them into things that have no business involving them and breeds opportunistic get rich quick mindsets around the technologies. So any time you hear them mentioned it's more than likely to be a grift. They are fine in certain niches and very stupid everywhere else, like every other technology.

The technologies themselves aren’t grifts, but grifters are notoriously “first-adopters” of new technologies.

All technology from this point on will be a grift, because the grifters have all the power.

I don't see why put quantum computer in that group.

It's a scientific research topic. It is know what it does and what it doesn't do. And they are not selling you it's going to be the future.

It's just a developing technology which have potential to make some algorithms more efficient than binary computation.

They don't sell you quantum computation, they don't tell you to invest in it. It's just something being researched by computer scientists.

Let's not be that much anti-any-kind-of-progress, shall we?

Really without major social or political change all commercial technology will serve incumbent power.

Nah they're not inherently grifts; they're pushed by grifters making money off the back of them.

I think Lemmy users are more likely to call these grifters out for what they are, because the user base has proportionally more technically minded people who understand what the technology is. Lemmy users have to an extent self-selected themselves into the fediverse. On other social media the absolute number of technically minded people will be higher but the proportion of technically minded people is much lower, so the voices are drowned out by those who don't understand he technology and it's limitations. And of course the grifters target those platforms with a lot of propaganda, because ultimately it's about selling shares and inflating share prices.

Anyway to answer you question, CRISPR gene editing is revolutionary and will have major impact. Nuclear Fusion despite it's slow emergence will also be revolutionary. Immunotherapy is an ongoing revolution; it's not a quiet revolution but it's also not getting the general focus it probably should be as AI appears to dominate the current zeitgeist.

We are actually living through extraordinary times; AI is a part of it but AI seems to be the bit getting most of the attention because we're in the middle of a stock bubble driven by AI speculation.

Blockchain had potential in use cases beyond currency replacement and speculative assets. AI has actual use cases as a high quality chatbot. Instead these things were hyped and marketed as things beyond their actual capabilities.

Quantum as it is currently doesn’t seem like a grift, but is just a susceptible to being manipulated and marketed as one as soon as there’s a remotely market viable version of it.

The problem isn’t lemmings or luddites, the problem is lying capitalists hoping to sell something that doesn’t exist or isn’t stable.