Our AI writing assistant, WriteUp, can assist you in easily writing any text. Click here to experience its capabilities.

Not even wrong: predicting tech

View Original View Raw

Summary

Wolfgang Pauli's quote, "That is not only not right; it is not even wrong," is used in the article to emphasize the difficulty of predicting which technologies will become important. The article compares the Wright Flier and the Bell Rocket Belt as examples of technologies that were initially dismissed as toys but had drastically different outcomes. The article argues that when making predictions about future technologies, it is important to have a theory as to why it will become successful or not and to ask what would have to change in order for it to work.

Q&As

What did Wolfgang Pauli mean when he said "that is not only not right, it is not even wrong"?
Wolfgang Pauli meant that statements that do not provide any insight into what will happen are not even wrong.

How did technologies such as aircraft, cars, telephones, mobile phones, and personal computers start out?
Technologies such as aircraft, cars, telephones, mobile phones, and personal computers started out looking like expensive, impractical toys.

What do we need in order to predict whether a technology will be successful or not?
We need a theory for why a technology will get better, or why it won’t, and for why people will change their behaviour, or for why they won’t in order to predict whether a technology will be successful or not.

What is the difference between the Wright Flier and the Bell Rocket Belt?
The Wright Flier could only fly 200 metres, and the Rocket Belt could only fly for 21 seconds. However, the Flier was a breakthrough of principle and there was a very clear and obvious path to make it better. Conversely, the Rocket Belt flew for 21 seconds because it used almost a litre of fuel per second, and there was no roadmap to make it better without changing the laws of physics.

What is the main thread that binds this article together?
The main thread that binds this article together is that we don’t know what will happen, but we do know what could happen - we don’t know the answer, but we can at least ask useful questions.

AI Comments

👍 Great article! This is a great article that really dives into the complexities of predicting tech trends. The comparison between the Wright Flier and the Bell Rocket Belt is a great example of how some technology can be revolutionary and other can remain as toys.

👎 This article is overly long and could be simplified. There is too much information being conveyed and it is hard to keep track of the main points.

AI Discussion

Me: It's about predicting tech and how it works. It talks about how many important technologies started out looking like toys and people laughed at them. It also talks about how there's no predictive value in saying "that doesn't work" or "that looks like a toy" and that instead you need a theory for why this will get better or why it won't, and why people will change their behaviour or why they won't.

Friend: Interesting. So, what are the implications of this article?

Me: I think the implications are that when it comes to predicting new technologies, you have to go beyond simply saying whether it works or not and instead look at the underlying theory. You need to ask questions like ‘what would have to change?’ and ‘could this happen, and if it did, would it work?’ You also need to look at whether you're proposing a change in human behaviour or a different way of expressing it. Only then can you get a better idea of whether a technology will be successful or not.

Action items

Research the history of other technologies that were initially dismissed as toys, such as aircraft, cars, telephones, mobile phones, and personal computers, to gain a better understanding of how they evolved and became successful.
Analyze current technologies that are dismissed as toys to determine if there is a roadmap to make them better.
Develop a theory of why people will or will not change their behavior in response to a new technology.

Technical terms

Wolfgang Pauli: Wolfgang Pauli was an Austrian-Swiss physicist and one of the pioneers of quantum physics. He is best known for his exclusion principle, which states that no two electrons can occupy the same quantum state simultaneously.
Moore's Law: Moore's Law is an observation made by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore in 1965. It states that the number of transistors on a chip doubles approximately every two years, leading to a doubling of computing power.
Internal Combustion Engine (ICE): An internal combustion engine is a type of engine that uses a fuel-air mixture to generate power. It is most commonly used in cars, trucks, and other motorized vehicles.
Autonomous Vehicles (AVs): Autonomous vehicles are vehicles that are capable of sensing their environment and navigating without human input. They use a combination of sensors, cameras, and artificial intelligence to make decisions about their environment.
Hiram Maxim: Hiram Maxim was an American inventor and engineer who is best known for his invention of the Maxim gun, the first portable, fully automatic machine gun. He also made significant contributions to the development of flight.