Very limited thinking about challenges that are derivative to this time in history.
These used to be hard things that the author listed, and a potential next evolution from 1 minute of abstract thinking on my own:
1. "Building a financial model to compare recent S-1 filings?" - Build a bigger model to do a larger and hopefully more accurate/conclusive model.
2. "Photoshopping recent presidents onto Mount Rushmore?" - Make a physical model of recent presidents on mt Rushmore.
3. "Turning this essay into a song in the style of 2000's Hip Hop?" - Make a song that people actually give a shit about.
Like cmon folks, none of these seemingly hard things were actually all that useful for humanity, but rather just a task that was put in front of us because of the environment we were/are in.
Pre and post ai-boom; most software I interact with is dog shit. Not much has changed there other than speed.
These companies build this tech in SF and Seattle, cities with some of the gnarliest public safety problems in the country, then turn around and sell it to smaller towns where it does more harm than good.
Most places in America don't have problems that surveillance solves. They have problems they already know about and won't act on. Cameras don't fix homelessness or addiction or underfunded services. They just make life harder for regular people.
But that's the whole appeal for bureaucrats. Buying a product looks like doing something without having to do any of the actual work.