Andreessen: 'In 20 years, every physical item will have a chip implanted in it' | Hacker News Reader

Andreessen: 'In 20 years, every physical item will have a chip implanted in it'

telegraph.co.uk

30 pointsadil_b48 comments

Andreessen is overhyped. He says these bombastic things which, as bombastic things usually do are either not original and/or usually not true. Say, one of the most famous of his is "software is eating the world" from 2011 but Alan Cooper (you know, the guy who invented Visual Basic) in his "The inmates are running the asylum" book from 1998 (that's 13 years earlier) already argued that everything already is or will become a computer with some peripherals. That's just one example, I am not saying Cooper is original but certainly Andreessen is not.

His examples include a modern, computerized warship which predictably crashed... When looking at his investment, sure, people will talk about Facebook but leave out Groupon and Zynga. The guy does not, at the end, shit gold.

> I am not saying Cooper is original but certainly Andreessen is not.

Same goes for Thiel and his "tech stagnation" theories. From Why celebrity “genius” Peter Thiel is grossly overrated [0]:

> Thiel arrived at this “contrarian contention … about 2008.” That’s odd. The thesis that the most recent wave of tech innovation was slowing, or would soon slow, was discussed in the 1990s by Neo-Schumpeterians like Carlota Perez, and more recently by economists Robert J. Gordon, Michael Mandel and Tyler Cowen, among many others.

0: http://www.salon.com/2014/09/11/meet_the_anti_gay_sexist_cel...

Tyler Cowen actually dedicated his book the Great Stagnation to Thiel. It's silly to claim that Thiel'shis ideas are sui generis, but Cowen seems to treat him as a peer at least. See also:

https://medium.com/conversations-with-tyler/peter-thiel-on-t...

Thiel is just one of many people listed in the acknowledgements of The Great Stagnation. I've previously watched the interview you linked, and was quite surprised by Cowen's acknowledgment of Thiel as "one of the greatest and most important public intellectuals of our entire time."

However, as the Salon article notes, Cowen himself was a latecomer to the debate (The Great Stagnation was published in 2011). Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital[0], by Carlota Perez, was published in 2003, while Robert J. Gordon has been writing about the topic since at least 2000[1].

During the early 2000s, Thiel and Clarium Capital were incorrectly fixated on peak oil, rather than on the real estate bubble (relevant in the short term) or general stagnation (relevant in the long term)[2]:

> [B]y February 2009 oil prices had temporarily fallen back to almost $40 again. And though Thiel had foreseen the real estate bubble, he still underestimated it. “We didn’t fully believe our own theories about how bad things were,” he admits.

This misunderstanding of the macro picture cost Thiel dearly, with Clarium shrinking 90% from 2008-2010[3], as investors withdrew their money from what was clearly a losing strategy.

0: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1843763311

1: http://www.nber.org/papers/w7833

2: http://fortune.com/2014/09/04/peter-thiels-contrarian-strate...

3: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2011-01-12/clarium-he...

He probably says things like this because the resulting media attention is a profitable strategy. Being in the media often confers a sense of legitimacy, making it easier to fundraise.

Just look at Donald Trump. He has mastered the art of getting free media attention by saying 'earthy' statements.

I am glad you mentioned trump as an example: In F.A. Hayek's "The Road to Serfdom," Chapter 10, 'Why the Worst Get on Top'

"...In the first instance, it is probably true that the higher education and intelligence of individuals become, the more their views and tastes are differentiated and the less likely they are to agree on a particular hierarchy of values."

[...]

"...It is, as it were, the lowest common denominator which unites the largest number of a numerous group is needed, strong enough to impose their views on the values of life on all the rest, it will never be those with highly differentiated and developed tastes it will be those who form the "mass" in the derogatory sense of the term, the least original and independent, who will be able to put the weight of their numbers behind their particular ideals. ..."

http://www.savageleft.com/poli/rts-ten.html

Originality is not required - being pointed in the right direction is.

This is sadly another one of these "HN does negativity" again (as opposed to nativity, which I would pay for tickets)

Andreessen is right in most of his (yes,bombastic) pronouncements - right in the direction of travel, right in the wave to catch.

Which is what is wanted. Society has a lot of challenges ahead and we need plenty of scouts out ahead warning of the danger and the opportunities. The more scouts who come back, and are right about the lay of the land, the better prepared we will be.

So, are his rationales for the future correct? Mostly. Are his investments based on those rationales profitable - less than previous, but that's only relevant if you are an investor in a16z

I hope he keeps calling them, and I look forward to robust discussions about the correctness of his calls - but don't expect that discussion to occur in mainstream papers - HN is where we should do that.

I think his word usage when describing any venture he is involved in is generally hyperbolic and a legal term called puffery:

In law, puffery is a promotional statement or claim that expresses subjective rather than objective views, which no "reasonable person" would take literally. Puffery serves to "puff up" an exaggerated image of what is being described and is especially featured in testimonials.

When RFID came out, investors and media argued that all products will have RFID embedded in just a few years.

Fast forward 10 years, we see RFID applied across logistics industry and some parts of finance/security, but it wasn't cut out for everyone everywhere. In the beginning, people argued that the distribution wasn't happening because RFID wasn't cheap enough, but with the recent production costs nearing cents, now it's evident that it's due to lack of clear use cases.

I do agree that the development of use cases requires more creativity and has a big room for innovation, but saying there's going to be a chip in every physical item sounds similar to "there's going to be Uber for everything."

I don't want to sound pessimistic, but I think as with all startups, you have to start with a clear problem (other than gaming/entertainment startups) and develop a customer value proposition compelling enough for an industry to emerge.

I'd bet more on VR having a broader implication in the next 10-20 years, and expect to see more digital items produced vs physical item ever created in the history of mankind.

There will be computers at every desks! Oh man, they were so wrong ;)

And internet too!

RFID is more recent and a closer comparison.

Walmart has been pouring money into RFID as a replacement for barcodes since the mid-90's. Analysts have said that by mid-2000's, every product package would have an RFID chip. Fast forward to 2015 and we aren't any closer. Andreessen is a fool who got lucky.

This is a stupid idea. I don't want a million "smart" devices in my house with crappy unreliable software running on them. Either they'll all be un-updateable with bugs and vulnerabilities lasting forever, or they'll constantly be pestering me for software updates that change their functionality and behavior, and I don't know which is worse.

In the future I want fewer smart devices than I have now. I want to replace all my smart devices with one robot servant. Why have an internet-connected doorknob or light switch or thermostat, with all the reliability and security concerns that come with that, when my robot servant can unlock the door and turn on the lights and heat when I get home? Why have ambient screens and displays on every surface shouting information at me constantly when my robot servant can just tell me relevant information when I need to know it? Why have a dishwasher when my robot servant can "hand" wash the dishes? Etc.

This. Exactly this.

A personal software agent will make a lot of "smart" devices and many apps irrelevant.

See Apple's vision from early ’90s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bjve67p33E

This is a good point - but from a robotics point of view it is really really hard to build a butler able to open a door and turn off a cooker. But if we make the door and the cooker "smart but slaved" then we can have one smart device (one you are probably reading this on) that tells everything else what to do, and those things are dumb and reliable.

So there are my phrases du jour - "smart slaves: reliable, dumb and listening" (I can see a joke about good husbands there)

A robot servant that actually obeys you, if I may add; one that won't decide it's smarter than you and do exactly the opposite of what you want, which is a problem a lot of "smart" devices seem to have.

> The end state is fairly obvious - every light, every doorknob will be connected to the internet.

Why does my doorknob need to be connected to the internet? Does my fork need to be connected to the internet as well? How about my shelf? Or my towel?

And if they are connected to the internet, who is collecting that data? Is it secure? What will it be used for?

> Why does my doorknob need to be connected to the internet?

Burglary perhaps.

> Or my towel?

Germs data collection perhaps.

> And if they are connected to the internet, who is collecting that data?

Whoever you authorize it to, perhaps.

> Is it secure?

I doubt it will be 100% secure.

It's likely that none of those "need" (by any definition) to have a chip or be connected to the internet, but that doesn't mean that they won't or that you won't find a lot of utility and/or joy in the fact that they do.

As to your questions - great questions, and the answers will be great opportunities to start/grow companies. "Who is collecting the data" and "is it secure" already are, "what will it be used for" will be in 5-10 years.

It's okay we'll have artisan "analog" doorknobs that we can pay 5x for.

I am reminded of this Thoreau quote:

"We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate."

Industrial grade condescension, sounds like Thoreau all right. He could have maybe found real wilderness at either of those places, but then mom wouldn't have been able to bring cookies and do laundry weekly.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/10/19/pond-scum

So I don't have to carry around keys all the time

Why does my doorknob need to be connected to the internet?

So you can pay to use it: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B9XFnbFIMAEj8rF.jpg

   There won't be a door knob. The sensor will be in the door which will slide open for you when you are near but stay locked for everyone else. 
   Some of these things are already being done by people later they will be common at least for the people that can afford them.

As a counter-prediction, I bet that non-Internet-enabled services will become a luxury/boutique item, e.g. doctors, dentists, and lawyers who keep paper medical records to ensure privacy on the part of their clients.

See, the problem I have with all the IoT startups that are getting this kind of funding (see also: Uptake, Helium) is that they have a distinctive vision for IoT, which is all well and good for the backend, but the frontend is where you can't get traction yet.

Even if you are making your own sensors (like Samsara and Helium), you still haven't convinced me to put this into my product design. Are you giving me the chips for free? No? Um, okay, are you second-sourcing the chip so if/when you implode I'm not hanging in the wind? No, can't do that either. Hmmm.

So the common denominiator becomes Bluetooth or WiFi. And, at that point, why do I really need you except for the backend? And why can't I just spin that myself if I really needed to?

Sounds like the mark of a beast, some religious text have prophesied ;-)

In all seriousness this is nothing new. RFI was an initial play and the tech is just maturing (getting smaller & better). But really will my toilet paper have a chip and communicate with my loo to tell me how my experience was.. I don't think so.

Will smartphones go away. I don't think so. They are the evolution of a PC. Being human we want control over things. This means a mobile interface, a remote control, with an intuitive interface. Whatever form smartphones will take I doubt the interface will disappear. But they will talk to all those chips integrated into our lives.

Doubt it. The utility of a chip attached to a thing is access to the thing's state - which is besides its location usually nothing. Even things where IoT would intuitively bring the most value, such as smart remote control lights, aren't getting that much traction. So I'd say IoT wil be much less widespread than some people believe or wish. (Although there's one use case where IoT might become popular - power consumption measurenment for home appliances - so you could see real-time or monthly chart for example.)

News Flash: Andreessen is in the business of hyperbole.

"In 10 years, he predicts mobile phones themselves could disappear" Oh wow crazy. I doubt it. People even say laptops and desktops will disappear too, but I doubt that too.

It seems like some day we'll live in a world where no one really owns anything, not even a phone... Just use some table phone at a cafe... Maybe use the chip in your arm to sign into the table phone app.

Somethings I think the future will be awesome with all this great tech, and other times I think the tech is going to destroy us or imprison us all in a prison without bars.

I'm building Playa - http://getplaya.com/ - I want to connect everything by providing an open service exchange for autonomous intelligent agents. If you're interested in this stuff, I'm looking for co-founders and people that want to help out on the project. I'm in Palo Alto and would love to connect. Cheers. :)

Also, please excuse the docs as I'm still in the middle of writing them.

Andreessen is in the business of hyperbole, obviously.

In another 20 years, I imagine those 'physical items' to include human beings too.

Or, on a more optimistic note, there wont be any computers by then. We will be left of humanity will live in caves and hunt giant mutant rabbits with bare hands and sharpened sticks.

This is fine, as long as not every physical item has a unique ID, readable without authentication from a distance.

I don't want to walk around covered in cookies.

Then again, in 20 years, AI will probably be able to ID us anyway.

When I read headlines like this, the first thought is "fuck off!" - luckily, it won't come true.

I often feel like I have a bunch of things to say about the Internet of Things, but every time I try to write it down all that comes out is "I don't want anymore crap."

And a digital currency will be needed to transfer value from chip to chip

Even chips?

chips all the way down, until you hit turtles.

Chips already have chips in them today.

See Intel's AMT, baseband processors in phones, controllers in disks, etc.

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