I feel the same frustration, seen from another angle : I think we can use current ML techniques to solve 3 or 4 hard problems in 3D reconstruction, and doing so would unlock a vast amount of value - we could turn lidar scans and photos of buildings and industrial plants into accurate 3D models automatically.
BUT I think the bottleneck is _funding_ of small early risky startups to do the needed engineering work.
LLMs, GPU datacenters attract all the big money, and the med and small VCs seem to be leaving their money in the bank earning high interest rates, unless there is a slam dunk opportunity with guaranteed traction and MRR growth.
We seem to be betting that only the large companies will innovate, when historically this has not been the case - Deepseek is a recent counterexample.
BUT I think the bottleneck is _funding_ of small early risky startups to do the needed engineering work.
My notes on this : https://quantblog.wordpress.com/2025/10/29/digital-twins-the...
LLMs, GPU datacenters attract all the big money, and the med and small VCs seem to be leaving their money in the bank earning high interest rates, unless there is a slam dunk opportunity with guaranteed traction and MRR growth.
We seem to be betting that only the large companies will innovate, when historically this has not been the case - Deepseek is a recent counterexample.