I think the lesson is that we are terrible at predicting the future, not so much that technological progress doesn't exist.

Some technologies can't be derailed by human stupidity and selfishness, I'm not so sure driverless cars qualify as one of them.

20 years ago I was arguing with strangers on the internet over a dial-up modem. It's not so very different. Moore's law hs been quite magical but the real changes have been qualitative, like smartphones.

It was sci fi 50 years ago. By the time of the Newton (25 years ago) and iPhone was a predictable evolution of existing technology. So was the Star Trek voice command interface. The question is: are self deiving cars iPhones (where the technological curve played out as expected) or voice recognition (which never really got as good as people expected it would be).

For me, Star Trek future is mix of politics, technology and physics.

In terms of politics, I see just deterioration in my region. We get technology we want (smartphones), but not what we need (carbon sequestration, better food sources). Our current tech is ruining the planet.

And as a developer, I see a lot of new and different, but little better. But that might be also connected to my world view already.