Other than AI, what technology are you excited about?

lab meat will be the norm for future generations

Anything decentralized and open source.

I'm really excited at the improvements made to gnome-mobile.

Regrowing teeth

Reversible Computing

In theory, we could make computers consume orders of magnitude less power, enabling extreme miniaturization of systems.

RISC-V and getting even more low power+max performance

Not sure if anyone here would say AI regardless of the title, but for me it would have to be nuclear fusion

Realistic Batteries. It's holding back a LOT of things. A lot of technologies are solved, but just require power.

Semi-Realistic Room Temperature Super-Conductor.

If that can be solved, the power density and efficiencies would just be astronomical.... It would absolutely destroy multi-billion industries overnight.

Way-Out-There-Stuff If they ever prove out an actual functional EmDrive-like thruster, that would absolutely open up space travel to our species.

Fusion. I think it’s our only hope of making it through climate change without massive losses.

Nuclear Fission, it's amazing how far the technology has come.

Regrowing / regenerating certain body parts.

This could theoretically be done with stemcell stuff, but it's not there yet. However, when we finally reach the point where we can infinitely regenerate our body cells, we'll become effectively "ammortal"; unable to die due to natural causes (such as illness), but we will still die from other people (for example, a bullet to the head)

Besides that, I think nuclear fusion would be an incredible development if we can finally harness it to power our homes.

Reusable rocketry, specifically SpaceX Starship. If it pans out it's going to completely change our access to space and make many of those old dreams from the 1970s plausible.

RNA vaccines for basically everything, including customized vaccines for cancer. There's also actual progress happening in general cures for autoimmune diseases.

Is robotics too close to AI? There are multiple companies working on general-purpose humanoid robots intended for mass production with price targets in the ten to twenty thousand dollar range, we may be getting within sight of actual robot butlers.

Computing at the edge.

Reduces the need to send everything to the cloud and maintains privacy.

Internal alpha-therapy. Imagine attaching a radioactive atom to an antibody that would fix to a cancer, then as alpha radiation do a lot of damage, at a very short range destroy the cancer without doing much damage to the rest of the body

See that documentary for example
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DkhSFS0FY4

The democratization of embedded programming and the capacities it offers. Coupled with 3D printing you can build your own robots or machines with minimal knowledge and money.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/EVTOL

3D printed homes

Nothing. I've learned that anything capitalist media gets excited about is always going to fucking suck for everyone the instant it comes out.

I know that's a cop-out answer so i'll point out that sodium ion batteries are rolling out and it's causing prices to drop, which is great.

more single use plastics and pesticides, personally

whatever linux + rust + unified architecture chips is going to be in 10 years

Longevity research, it has really taken off in the last ten years, hopefully we're on some cusp for multiple breakthrough in the next ten years.

Atomically Precise Manufacturing but it's hard to find information about it.

I always find stories about carbon emissions exciting. The reason why a Malthusian view of things hasn't panned out in recent centuries is because of technology. I am always interested in if humans can find a breakthrough technology that basically does something with carbon emissions that could eventually be done on a scale to reduce climate change. Unlikely, but fun to imagine.

Here's an example: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/01/240111113214.htm.

I believe I have also seen efforts to convert carbon emissions to hydrogen.

Stuff around making clean water from bad water sources is also pretty cool.

Efficient apps, everywhere. For example the COSMIC desktop is modern AND fast.

COSMIC desktop environment.

Maybe not as spectacular as quantum computing or things like that, but personally I can't wait for it.

Nuclear fusion. The Starship rockets. If they ever cure cancer.

I tried the Meta Quest 2 and felt it was pretty awesome but I felt sick within minutes of using it.

So something like that without the sick would be revolutionary.

Zero knowledge and multi-party computation, and technologies that allow, like TLS Notary and proof of email

Who's excited for ai???

Unlocking any energy conversion techniques for gravitons (not virtual gravitons, but those associated with gravitational waves). If we could produce them artificially, it would be a whole new ball game.

Excited and scared for quantum computing

The steady improvement in computer speed and efficiency (unfortunately brought down by bloated software, but in some areas you feel it in absolute terms), storage and memory size, and EV technology. I hope in 2040 there will be cheap powerful e-scooters and e-motorcycles.

Differentiable programming. Differentiable ray tracers for example can be used to reconstruct the geometry of something you took a picture off.

Fusion? That would be big. The continual role out of green energy which can push the price down. The McRib coming back. Normal things.

That one day they will harvest my brain and let it live a vat of dopamine

Quantum safe cryptography ciphers already exist

Holographic displays

E and S band fibre data transmission. 300+ terabit speeds using fibre already in use

Regenerative agriculture

It's very far thou, like 2040 type of boom technology

I have a few.

Interaction net parallel computing (see HVM by HigherOrderCo)

Nuclear power reactors built after the 1970's. New generation (5?, 6?) for baseload. Mox, msr, lead moderated... Renewables can bicker over the transient loads while reactors provide the 'always on, always needed' bulk of power load.

Fuel reprocessing to close the loop would be the grail at this point.

Turbomuffins

JWST and what's coming next