Did Software Really Change the World?

Not long ago, as I was about to head out to a restaurant for dinner, I realized my smartphone battery was at 3%. I hurried back home, plugged in my phone charger, and left with just my card. The feeling of having both hands free felt strangely unfamiliar. The space I saw every day suddenly felt alien, and I felt overwhelmed by it.

It was a primal fear of being unable to do anything without a smartphone. The world looked different just because I was missing one smartphone. And then I felt skeptical about software development. Did software really change the world? What else did it bring besides convenience?

At least in the visible physical space, there hasn’t been much change from the past. Cars are over 100-year-old technology, and trains are 200-year-old technology. There hasn’t been a paradigm shift in the spaces we live in. Innovation in the market is accelerating only in software, while other fields are rather regressing.

I believe software needs to expand into other fields. The world is a physical space, and software has yet to occupy it. More delivery robots and self-driving cars should be roaming around, and humanoids with physical AI should be walking the streets.

Personally, I think table ordering is a good example. Initially, it was rare to see restaurants with it, but now it’s everywhere. It’s a field where software and hardware combined to create great synergy.

In a few years, when general-purpose humanoids become widespread, I believe they will be preemptively applied in areas requiring human labor, from delivery to food preparation. Once a certain level of stability and trust is secured, they will expand into manufacturing and be applied to fields where humans were involved, such as construction, shipbuilding, civil engineering, and steel, which are part of the secondary industry.

We are now in an era where it’s difficult to create value with software alone. The app development trend has long faded, and AI is just beginning. I predict the next field will be robotics. And when the era comes where software is more involved in physical reality, I think we can truly change the face of the world.