For many, many years, the U.S. has been considered to be the world’s technology and science research leader in all sorts of areas of science — medicine and computer science broadly are just two — it’s a long, long list. But increasingly observers are seeing signs that this is changing in a negative way and for a number of reasons, with potentially dramatic impacts on consumers and businesses.

One obvious issue is that so much tech spending is being poured into these often awful large language model generative AI systems including chatbots and the rest. And we’re not talking about all AI. There are many wonderful applications for AI machine learning in scanning medical test results and storm predictions, and a vast number more. But that kind of AI often gets confused with generative AI like the chatbots and the other generative AI applications that Big Tech is desperately trying to force us to use.

Because it seems that most people really aren’t interested in using that kind of AI and Big Tech has been pouring many billions of dollars into it, and is desperate to find a way to profit from it.

So it seems like other kinds of important research are often being left behind because generative AI has so much hype associated with it that it’s sucking up funding that could otherwise be used in research that could actually help people far more effectively. Much generative AI has become an excuse for firing your best workers and as automated cheating machines to drive teachers crazy.

Also we know there have been major cutbacks in a range of U.S. research efforts like the NSF — National Science Foundation — and major university research programs that have long been considered to be the crown jewels of the U.S.’ global science leadership in everything from medical research like cancer and Alzheimer and other disease research, to pretty much any other crucial science aspect one can name.

It’s certainly possible to find waste in some studies but when you suddenly cut funding to NSF by more than 50% there’s really no way you’re not going to cut into essential work and sometimes disrupt long term studies that might have brought real breakthroughs.

And a side effect of this is the brain drain. Other countries are using this situation to entice some of our best researchers to move their work to those countries. Then in many cases those countries will then have the commercial advantage of breakthroughs that otherwise could have been ours here, and that could mean the loss of billions and billions of dollars.

And something else just happened maybe for the first time ever that I can recall offhand. A major tech firm from another country — in this case DJI of China — who makes the drones widely used by law enforcement, search and rescue and other public safety organizations, farmers, utilities, and consumers — just introduced a new flagship drone that could be very useful in many ways including saving lives.

But DJI has decided not to market it in the U.S. at this time, and you really can’t blame them. The rest of the world where DJI does business can get this new drone, but you can’t officially buy it in the U.S. And this is apparently due to the lack of stability regarding U.S. tariffs, and various anti-drone legislation pushed by politicians here, even though police and those other public safety organizations, and other groups, keep explaining that they really don’t feel that they have affordable, practical substitutes with similar capabilities and support, that could replace those DJI drones.

Science and technology matter. And falling behind in these areas, whether due to funding for generative AI hype starving other projects of resources, or due to ideological disagreements unrelated to the actual science research projects themselves, or for any other reasons, could end up not only costing us financially, but directly impact us in terms of poorer health and lost lives, as wonderful breakthroughs that might otherwise have occurred slip away from us. And if we let that happen, future generations will probably not be looking back kindly on our behavior, and we couldn’t reasonably fault them for feeling that way.

–Lauren–