Five More Technologies I'd Love to See
I previously suggested Five Technologies I'd Love to See. But, on reflection, there are yet more potential technologies we all desperately need. As before, some are more fanciful (and serious) than others.
1. Adaptive Floor Surfaces. Carpets are very nice when it's cold, but they have a tendency to be irrevocably stained. So, let's compromise. We invent a material which is trained to become fluffy in the winter, but it becomes hard in the Summer (or right before you spill something on it).
2. Register Babel Fish. In The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the Babel Fish is a magical animal which, when placed in one's ear, can instantaneously translate between any two languages. This would be really cool, but it's almost here. Several computer programs offer nearly real - time translation, and I bet we'll get a real Babel Fish within my lifetime. But, I want something that can instantly translate between registers or idiolects. If a politician particularly annoys me, I want him to sound like a pop - culture caveman. I want hillbillies to address me in perfect Elizabethan prose. When a professor chews out my class, I want her "never in my thirty years of teaching" speech to be delivered by a very pissed off David Bentley Hart.
3. Historical LLMs. LLMs are trained on modern data, so they reflect modern knowledge and values. I think it would be cool to have LLMs that were exclusively trained on interwar data, or 16th century data, or data from the 1960s. I assume this is impossible -- if I remember correctly, there's only enough data to train LLMs now because of the internet. But maybe you could make synthetic data. It would probably be overkill for what is essentially a party trick, but it would still be cool. I'd like to ask a King James LLM various scientific questions and see how badly it fumbles them. That sounds like it would be a fun afternoon.
4. Real Cones of Silence. In Dune, they've got these things called cones of silence, and they keep the passers by from hearing a word you say. I think this is a great idea. Maybe we can modify one and put it on every artificially loud car. That way, car guys can go vroom at 3:00 AM without waking their neighbors.
5. Multiplayer Lucid Dreams. For me, lucid dreaming was cool the first few times. But then I did everything I wanted to do in a lucid dream, and it became somewhat stale -- like an SNES game you aren't hyperfixated on. But, I think it would be very cool if you could have other people in your dreams. Then you could all go flying together. It feels like it'd be a very cool alternative to a video - call (not to mention a very effective form of contraception!). Also, I think it'd be great if you could do some kind of Boring Repetitive Task in your dreams for money. Like, I ain't using that time for nothing -- most of my dreams are boring anyway. It'd be great to monetize them.