What fields or technologies are you excited about?

Don't laugh. I am really, really excited about Bash and vanilla PHP.

I landed myself in a shop that sells, essentially, tiny locally-networked systems of specialized Linux boxes. Yes, our core offering is running on the JVM, but all along the edges there is just so much Bash and PHP.

I don't think I'll ever work in a place again where I have this much opportunity to become a genuine old school shell and webshell wizard again. I want to master the Primordial Arts, their endless exceptions to exceptions, and come out the other side as a true master of something completely fucking ridiculous.

I did it once with Microsoft PowerShell. I can do it again.

Atomically precise manufacturing, that is tech for building structures atom by atom. This is starting to be done regularly in labs. Machines for making single atom transistors are a commercial product now[0]. Forming covalent bonds at desired locations through positional control of reactants has been demonstrated[1]. This is potentially more scalable than the aforementioned approach. ML seems to be enabling too[2].

[0]https://www.zyvexlabs.com/apm/products/zyvex-litho-1/

[1]https://www.nature.com/articles/s41557-021-00773-4

[2]https://www.nature.com/articles/s44160-024-00488-7

We're still barely scratching the surface of AI/LLM/ML. It's correctly getting plenty of attention because it is general purpose technology (steam engine, electricity, the Internet, etc.).

Lot of interesting things happening with NeRF, Gaussian splatting, and similar. We're close to be able to do full 3D video capture of locations and high-fidelity playback/exploration in VR.

In my opinion, for the vast majority of people, and hence for society, we are past the point of diminishing returns when it comes to truly improving the world with technology. We should now switch from unfettered development to trying to be more sustainable with the tools that we have.

Academia has become a game and tech development has become driven by pure consumerism in the race to replace human relationships with the experience of "The Product" so that we have to continually upgrade to maintain any semblance of social cohesion.

There is very little left in tech development that is good. We should think about being more sustainable instead.

People say that I'm cynical but wow this is just off the charts. It also makes me really optimistic that something big is right around the corner. When people start with the "it's all been done" and "nothing good or better will ever happen again" it just means they can't see how things will change. Because they're blind they won't see the next big thing creeping up behind them and when it finally does become apparent they'll exclaim, "Wow what a breakthrough" when the truth is more likely that it's been something that has been brewing for decades. I have some guesses about what the next ones are.

When I look a people older than myself, I see a pretty clear stratification of technologies that each age group "just doesn't get"[1], yet it is hard to predict what this technology will be for myself.

My best bet is medical tech and especially body modification and enhancement. While I have been excited and unafraid of all new inventions my whole life, this is a topic that makes me more uncomfortable than excited - a reaction I often observed in people older then me with other technologies. So I'd say invasive body enhancements and augmentation is a good candidate to be the next big thing.

[1] There are always exceptions, but the overall picture is pretty obvious.

[Almost] anything that mostly/only exists IRL

Software is an enabler - when it becomes the focus, I think something has gone massively awry

Space industry, particularly mining, raw material processing and construction.

A bit ago (7 months) I asked a related question, that may have ideas for fields or technologies to be excited about working on.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37473795 (Ask HN: Tech that seems to have vanished?, 189 comments)

Memristors, alcohol batteries, laptop frame heatpipes, flywheel energy, smart textiles, and several others were mentioned.

I'm a boomer, so I see things differently than younger generations. Nevertheless, I think that solid, heartfelt advice to young people looking to advance in this rapiy changing environment should consider the following:

1. Become an expert in using and augmenting AI tools to accomplish your work, whatever that may be. There is a difference between average and expert in the results that can be obtained. AI expertise will be important at least for the next 10 years.

2. Commit to lifelong learning and adaptation. The constant for the remainder of this century will be continuous, exponential change. When change has a slope near vertical, this should be apparent.

3. The closer you can be to hard science and technology in education and work, I believe the better chance you will have to make significant professional contributions. The CEO of Nvidia said as much in a recent interview.

4. Make a plan by looking at every professional career option and ask this question: "what is the likely result for this field when AGI becomes real and commonplace?" Then choose to examine more closely those fields where you believe you can thrive in the midst of change.

I hope this is helpful, and enjoy the journey!

I don't like playing prophet, so this is a very personal hunch: I believe we're at a social dead end. Whichever new trends we'll see in the next twenty years will come after some kind of mindset switch flipping.

If that sounds too abstract: less safetyism. We could see new kind of vehicles, sports and space exploration.

I really enjoy automation and ETL/ELT pipelines. I got an early taste of AI while studying data science and working with NLP. But I find the automation of tasks, writing tests, and creating tools to help people do their jobs faster, very fulfilling.

PROGCRYPTO (programmable crypto) The capabilities of multiparty computations, fully homomorphic encryption and zero knowledge proofs are super interesting and will allow for new ways of using the internet. In the same way it was hard to imagine what the consequences of asymmetric encryption was at the time when it was conceived, it think the same is true for MPC and FHE today. These technologies are only recently getting feasible. Example use-case: Look for relatives (think ancestry) based on your DNA sequence with cryptographic guarantees, that everyone's DNA stays secret.

Bioengineering artificial organs.

Space travel to Mars and space colonization/mining.

Brain-computer interfaces.

Space, EVTOLs, supersonic transport, robotics

Networking capabilities for WASM could make it the ultimate polyglot platform.

I think the obvious answer right now is anything related to AI. But I'm actually quite excited about the embrace of open-source applications that traditionally have not been, such as Cal.com and Mattermost.

I think that technology that will help people to save energy and other resources has a potential to become very useful and valuable. Maybe for single-family homes, but I think the savings could be even greater for multi-family units and commercial real estate. If we can use less energy then we don’t need to build as much solar/nuclear, or, instead use that energy for something else.

Technologies related to automated theorem proving.

> the software industry, and in particular SaaS, has seen immense growth and it's unlikely to see that kind of growth again

Inshallah. I hope you're right.

> interesting fields and industries that might see huge growth

The porn industry

Web apps, that thing that Apple killed recently.

I'm not really excited about any technologies since I'm sure anything new will be expensive, complex, break easily, be of marginal use, or come with privacy issues, etc.

I wouldn't look for a specific industry or anything interesting. It's all pretty much corporate BS. Take whatever job pays pretty well and isn't obscure tech so you'll be able to switch jobs. Finance, law, and institutionl sales (gov, schools, hospitals) aren't going anywhere anytime soon.

Neuro-Symbolic AI

Portable, a tool that runs anything anywhere

Whatever the kids are really passionate about.

AI is a personal tutor, amd the biggest change in education since the invention of writing.

I imagine a day when it is socially unacceptable to hire someone to do something for you. You have AI and Amazon, why not learn, order the parts, and do it yourself? Imagine a world where we all work a few hours a week but occupy ourselves learning new skills and applying those skills to improve our environments. This would also keep us ready to be useful at work.

I am reminded of a famous quote: "A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects." -Robert A. Heinlein