I am 74 years old, born in 1951.
Information/News was obtained by reading newspapers/magazines/TV news at 6pm.
I did read Toffler’s Future Shock in the early seventies. Meh, I thought. Technology and the pace of life was fairly slow and constant. Our house had no air conditioning. Really the only & biggest technological change I noticed was airlines changing from prop aircraft to jet. Airports used to have observation decks where you could watch passenger aircraft load and unload & take off and land. Pops would occasionally take my brother and myself to watch the planes.
Once I moved out of my parents’ house my various abodes always had air-conditioning. My cars, not so much, until the 1990’s.
I did buy a PC computer for gaming around 1990. And a microwave. And I still got my information from newspapers/magazines/ TV. Life was not much different for me from 1970 to 1995.
Then around 1997 I bought a better computer and the Netscape browser. POW! That really opened my horizons. I did obtain some news & investment information from the computer but maintained my newspaper/magazine/TV exposure. And slowly made airlines & motel reservations by 2000.
It wasn’t until 2005 that I got my first cellphone to aid my business. But it was a dumb phone. My first “smart” cellphone obtained around 2011 around my retirement.
As you can see I am a late adopter of technology. And technology has made my life easier and smooth. I really like that retailer websites allow you to zero in on where products are found in individual stories. Whip out the cell and go to the website.
I can only remember one time I was anxious about technology. I was driving to town to buy some food. Gasp! Oh MY Gawd! I forgot my cellphone! Sanity returned in a minute. “Wait a second. You lived decades without a cellphone. I believe you can make one trip to the grocery store without the cellphone!” LOL
There have been great advances in the medical field. Fortunately, I have had little need to utilize them. I still take no prescription drugs. I walk daily and exercise and do some physical therapy exercises for my bad back. I did have a radio frequency ablation procedure done on the nerves in my lower back. I am about 15 lbs too heavy. And have skin cancer from working outdoors without sunscreen mostly basal & 3 melanomas surgically excised.
OK. Now my thoughts on AI. And the belief AI will bring utopia to the masses. AI will make the economy more productive and produce revenue so most Americans will have a Universal Basic Income to live the good life of leisure.
Baloney! People don’t change even though technology does. Most people will sit at home stuffing their faces with cr*ppy food gaining weight. They will continue to conspicuously consume meaningless stuff and be poor with little cash reserves.
AI will require vast amounts of electricity and water to power it.
I personally believe many corporations will find that AI is NOT a panacea for huge profits.
Methinks excesses of capital and resources heedlessly thrown at AI in the frenzy of euphoria will crash the economy similar but larger & worse than the 2001 dot com crash. The unprecedented scale of malinvestment in data centers and misuse of massive amounts of electricity and water will have a domino effect throughout the economy as most corporations will have bought into the AI hype. And one reason it will be worse than 2001 is the concentration of business sectors to a few large corporations. And AI & other corporations will expect & lobby for a bailout. Because OMG you cannot let the whole economy collapse!
If you thought the 2008 bank bailout was bad, wait til you see the 2026 AI bailout
I has spoken. tj-Chicken Little/Cassandra