Arthur C. Clark once said "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic". What technologies do we have today that would look like magic to people from the past? (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 year ago by BarrelAgedBoredom@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

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I think lasers are pretty wack when you think about them through this lens. A small, wand-like object in your hand can make light appear from seemingly nowhere. If it's powerful enough it can set things on fire or blind people. Not to mention larger ones like laser cutters or the LLD, used to destroy missiles midflight. Thats sure to blow some feudal peasant minds

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[-] PortableHotpocket@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago

The more time I've spent studying and researching new tech, the more I feel like, even to people today, our technology is magical.

I'm a medical diagnostic technologist. I understand how a CT and MRI machine work. They're still the stuff of magic imo. A lot of people take these technologies for granted because they're fairly prominent, but do you have any idea how a spinning magnet produces high quality, 3d images of the inside of your body? Very few people do. It's still freaking amazing and ingenious when you do understand it. Remodeling a CT scan into a 3d render is similarly impressive. The amount of calculations that take place within the space of seconds would take years for someone to do on paper, and we do 25-30 patients a day in our one machine at my location.

AI is making a big wave in my field too. Pretty soon we may only need radiologists to oversee AI rather than having to diagnose every exam themselves. AI on our consoles will be able to diagnose before we even send our images to a rad since they're so good at pattern recognition. Their readings have shown to be more accurate than a radiologist in some studies.

50 years ago we didn't even have consumer computers. Now our computers can diagnose and type a pneumothorax more accurately and faster than a doctor who has spent his whole life diagnosing xrays.

this post was submitted on 11 Jul 2023

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