What is the next major advancement in computer science?
To know where we’re going, we want to start with understanding where we’ve been. When we can see where we are and where we’ve come from, then we just connect those dots and make our best guess about the future by drawing a line projecting forward, right?
Not so much. Thomas Kuhn argues in his book The Nature of Scientific Revolutions, which coined the term ‘paradigm-shift’, that advancement isn’t a gradual progression of accumulation, but rather is more like water building up behind a dam, first cracks begin to emerge, then small leaks, but then suddenly a total breakthrough. Once the dam is broken, things aren’t like they were before. No one knows where the next dam is, when it will break or what the world will look like post-break. For further reading you can find a great synopsis about Kuhn’s book here: https://www.simplypsychology.org/Kuhn-Paradigm.html)
Taking into account Kuhn’s model, it makes sense that we see time and again how the world's leading experts totally fail to predict the future. They were working from a mental-model of the world from before the dam broke. When they make a simple linear projection forward from an outdated model, it just doesn’t work. For example, consider Thomas Watson who led IBM into the behemoth it became from 1914 to 1950s.
> In 1943 Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, said, "I think there's a world market for maybe five computers."
(from https://www.uh.edu/engines/epi1059.htm)
For fun real quick, let’s use the classic approach and draws lines forward.
Let’s begin with computers, since computer science requires computers, it’s domain is necessarily limited by things it can address, access and manipulate.
First there were mainframes
Then there were desktops
Then there were laptops
Then there were smart-phones
Now there are smart-cars
Now there are smart-homes with smart-appliances.
Now smart seems to be everywhere, but it’s really only just begun. We’ll continue to see an advancement of products with computing enabled.
If we look at where computers have not gone yet, we can have some ideas about near-term advancements. Let’s look a little further. What happens when the best computer automation is available to every consumer? That could easily disrupt a multitude of industries and make new ones possible.
What happens when DNA becomes controllable with software. Sounds like a paradigm shift. We can ask a lot of questions based upon the assumption this becomes possible.
Lorenzo Pieri argues that a revolution in low-cost robotics is coming soon. What happens when the best industrial automation is available to anyone for $20/mo? That could have a huge impact on a whole range of industries, especially manufacturing.
I think the big picture is that Marc Andreeson was right when he argued that Software is eating the world
So to answer this question, I would say this, the future of computer science is the continued growth of the reach of things controllable and accessible by software. This will enable discontinuous spurts of growth when existing modus-operandi and destroyed by paradigms shifts when what was previously impossible becomes possible. So look at what is impossible now and imagine. The future is full of things we haven’t yet imagined, it should be exciting to see where we go.
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