Universal translator

A better battery would be nice.

Perhaps the main use for technology is increasing the amount of inequality society can tolerate without collapse. I can't fix inequality -- that just seems to be what the humans want.

However by investing in surveillance technology, computer vision, and AI I could perhaps help our society to bear unbounded amounts of inequality indefinitely, without collapse. Social collapse is a less-than-zero-sum game, whereas an unequal society is still generally more-than-zero-sum. So I posit that the latter is objectively better.

Especially if you plan to survive long enough to get off this stinking rock -- you're going to need to concentrate resources, because the public sector only seems to be able to succeed at space travel under a very specific set of hard-to-replicate circumstances. Whereas greed, inflated egos, and concentrated power are easy to replicate.

Your objections will be noted.