I think it’s an allocation of resources problem.
Pre 80s a lot of the best and brightest worked in engineering.
Post 80s they went into finance and then tech. The latter a mixed bag - brought us Google maps etc but sadly mostly focused on selling ads.
That’s the risk I see. We either need to change incentives or change culture to get back to a focus on progress / exploration rather than exploitation.
We simply have a lot more best and brightest in everything. There's so much talent it's unreal. There's not enough money to hire everyone, or technology to equip them in engineering.
It's kind of like art (pictures, movies, music, anything) - there's so much of it, so high quality these days that there really isn't anything that will stand out on its own. Same for celebrities, for that matter. Actors/singers/presidents? Meh, go to Instagram and OnlyFans and take your pick.
The only reason people 100 years from now will show something as an example of early 00's is marketing and survival.
Those people still live and survive - they're just optimising ad spend instead of working on engineering problems or medical research, etc.
>Post 80s they went into finance and then tech. The latter a mixed bag - brought us Google maps etc but sadly mostly focused on selling ads.
So you havent been able to tell if search engines make or break a company, product or service with the results it delivers?
As weapons go, controlling the economy of other countries through search engine results would be novel and advantageous to the US military!