Asking the wrong questions (2017)

Frequency Illusion & “New” Ideas

• Several comments note the “frequency illusion” (Baader–Meinhof): once you learn about something (e.g., LLMs), you suddenly see it everywhere.
• Some argue this is both perception bias and a real social effect: as more people learn about a topic, they talk about it, creating a chain reaction.

AI, LLMs, and the “Wrong Questions”

• Debate over whether AI is a transformative platform like smartphones or just a fancy “fax machine” to be monetized with ads.
• Skeptics highlight LLMs as uncontrollable black boxes, poor foundations for durable businesses, and more like a UI component (capacitive touchscreen, Pentium) than a full platform.
• Others counter that “apps on top of search” already exist and that the real value may lie in better interfaces rather than direct chat.
• Some see current “what if AI is the next smartphone?” framing as exactly the kind of wrong question the article criticizes.

Work, Gender, and Utopian Futures

• Discussion around 1950s expectations that nobody would need to work vs. the reality of women seeking paid work.
• Some emphasize work as meaningful and socially necessary, especially compared to unpaid domestic labor without autonomy.
• Others point out that many rich people don’t need to work, and that the real issue is financial dependence and lack of options.

Science Fiction, Prediction, and Advertising

• Repeated theme: classic sci-fi extrapolated rockets and robots but usually preserved contemporary social norms (male pilots, paper tickets, physical newspapers, cash).
• Cyberpunk and certain dystopian works are praised for anticipating corporate power, surveillance, and tech-enabled inequality.
• Many note that computing as a branch of advertising and pervasive surveillance capitalism were underpredicted or missed entirely, though a few earlier works gestured at it.
• Overall consensus: sci-fi is more about present-day concerns and entertainment than accurate forecasting.

Infrastructure, Transport, and Urban Form

• Commenters contrast 1950s visions of rebuilt roads, flying cars, and easy space travel with today’s slow infrastructure change and physical limits.
• Discussion of self-driving-only highways quickly collapses into “that’s just trains/buses,” with arguments over density, public transit, e-bikes, and car-centric land use.
• Some see better transit and denser cities as a solved-but-unimplemented problem; others doubt “sufficiently dense urbanization” will arrive where they live.

Energy, Fusion, and Suppressed Tech

• One thread compares flying cars and fusion: energy and safety constraints make them unattractive versus solar.
• Another commenter asserts cold fusion was effectively solved decades ago and then suppressed; others do not engage, leaving this claim unexamined.

Tax Systems and Automation

• Clarification that “computerised taxation (except in the USA)” refers not to the IRS lacking computers, but to the US still requiring individuals to compile and file returns, often through third-party e-file services.

Time, Generations, and Change

• Side discussion on long generational spans (grandparents born in the 19th century) as a way to appreciate how much technological and social change a single lifetime can span.

Knowledge Access and Its Possible Decline

• Some worry the era of “pocket computers connected to all the world’s knowledge” may already be ebbing, citing declining search quality, threats to archival projects, and rising censorship.
• Napster is mentioned as an earlier, brief moment of seemingly total access (to music) that ended quickly.