The age-old question in my field is, “Where are we in a given hype cycle?”
Fortunately, the dominance of the cryptocurrency news cycle has now died, largely due to its own self-destructive tendencies.
FTX has apparently served as the most prominent recent example of what happens when the tech community believes its own hype.
You want the concept to succeed so badly that you lose the thread.
Sprinkle in the legitimately bad actors and platforms that allow such actions to flourish, and you have a recipe for a catastrophic implosion.
Of course, none of this means that the end of a particular hype cycle always represents the end of the associated technology.
Crypto, in most of its myriad iterations, is, for better or worse, still around.
I’m a veteran of the big consumer 3D printing wars, as an Engadget editor a few years ago.
The technology certainly still exists, but the industry has shrunk, interests have shifted to industrial applications, and a certain pragmatism has taken hold.
Nor does it prescribe the emergence of another potential hype cycle. Take VR. This one seems to emerge every year like clockwork.
The technology has advanced considerably over the years, but broad questions about cost, market and content remain.
Last month at CES, I tried out the latest headsets from Meta, HTC, Magic Leap and Sony.
All of these demos were impressive, but I think we’re all (rightly) wary of exactly what that means for the category.
Bad early experiences go a long way to deterring people in the long run. This, at least in part, affects the richness of the metaverse.
To paraphrase the great Chuck D, don’t believe it – or at least temper your expectations.
Any doubts that artificial intelligence will be the next to fill this cryptocurrency-shaped hole in tech news have been put to rest this week by back-to-back events by Microsoft and Google in Seattle and Paris. Understandably, people were already excited about the arrival of DALL-E, ChatGPT and the like. The results are impressive in many cases – and even more so when these tools are suddenly available to the public.
The benefit of this is that some of these ideas are entering mainstream consciousness and people are legitimately engaging in philosophical and ethical debates.
Important questions have been raised about the nature of art and plagiarism, and sites like CNET have understandably been put to the test of implementing “robot journalists.”
I have no doubt that in my lifetime it will be possible to automate large parts of my work.
But the site’s self-proclaimed “experiment” has landed the company in hot water for bugs introduced in the process.
Bottom line, in an era of rampant disinformation and disinformation, it’s probably not the best idea to “experiment” in a public forum on a well-regarded news platform.
Meanwhile, Google’s Bard platform shared some of its own mistakes in an ad preview.
We’re not talking FTX levels of disbelief here – and I’ll be the first to admit that I, a human reporter, am far from perfect – but these are the things that cause problems.
And as a human reporter, a big part of my — and our — job is to set realistic expectations. We certainly cannot rely on companies to be outwardly pragmatic about their own products.
However, I believe that we are complex beings with evolved brains who are capable of being both excited and realistic about technology.
Robotics coverage presents a similar problem. I’ve written in the past about the ways fictional depictions have set unrealistic expectations about technology both positive and negative.
As someone who tries to approach this thing through a lens, calibrating expectations is part of the job. This also explains the positive and negative consequences.
There are a lot of great cheerleaders in the industry, but breathless reporting is not my function in all of this.
Nor is technology unnecessarily hoarded for the sake of getting clicks (as people whose job it is to track traffic might disagree).
Then again, as a sentient cluster of 30 trillion cells, I always fail. Robotics is certainly not immune to these hype cycles.
While interest in investment has increased dramatically, the fact that most real-world applications are industrial has probably led to an adjustment in some consumer expectations.
Boston Dynamics’ extremely savvy social marketing is probably the closest we’ve ever come to eliciting a public response.
Tesla has tried, but so far it’s only shown Optimus in small doses – and probably for very good reason.
One valuable element of Boston Dynamics’ recent Atlas video is the inclusion of behind-the-scenes footage.
Even if it ends up being only a fraction of the coverage, it’s important to give stakeholders access to content that tells more of the story.
This has the dual benefit of emphasizing how much work has gone into the polished product you’re seeing, while also setting a somewhat more realistic vision of what these products can and can’t do.
Last week we started highlighting robotics companies that are still hiring and the response has been overwhelming.
Fingers crossed that the recent US employment report is favorable to positive economic outcomes.
Past TC Sessions: Robotics panelist Marty Walsh has reportedly decided to go for the top, apparently leaving his role as labor secretary and heading to the NHL Players Association.
The former mayor of Boston certainly has a strong labor background.
We don’t want to get ahead of ourselves in predicting market fluctuations.
The fact is, it’s still tough out there – especially in today’s technological world, so I’m happy to see things continue for the foreseeable future as long as there’s interest.
If you’d like to be included in next week’s Actuator, drop me a line with your company name and the number of roles you’re currently hiring for.
Source: Techcrunch