Our society isnt really structured to do things that require many years of research so were either making things incrementally better or just going after low hanging fruit. We need different incentives than profit.
I can’t say there has been any new tech that has made me excited or changed my life. Best I can come up with is turning on/off my lights with my phone, but even that is old AF already
Think about the old meme that the smartest people are focused on increasing ad click through rates. Imagine a world where they could instead be focused on something useful.