Timescales

A reply I made on HN that is generally applicable (even devoid of context):

Apparently there's a quote attributed to Bill Gates: "people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in 10 years."

People overestimate the changes that could happen within a couple years, and totally underestimate the changes that would happen in decades.

Perhaps it's a consequence of change having some kind of exponential behavior. The first couple years might not feel like anything in absolute terms, but give it 10 or 20 years and you'll see a huge change in retrospect.

IMHO, I don't think anyone needs to panic now, changes happen fast these days but I don't think things are going to drastically change in these ~2-3 years. But the world is probably going to look very different in 20 years, and in retrospect it will be attributed to seeds planted in these couple years.

In short I think both camps are right, except on different timescales.