Futurology

Is there finally about to be a Brexit dividend? The EU & US are placing tariffs on Chinese EVs, but Britain isn't. So British drivers will soon have a welcome choice. Cheap well-made Chinese EVs whose EV charging means they travel 100 kilometres for a third of the price an average combustion engine car does.

Yet another death knell for fossil fuels and combustion engine cars.

How China made electric vehicles mainstream

BYD Dolphin Surf Review

Renewables’ intermittency—sometimes too much energy, sometimes too little—could be an advantage. Use excess solar/wind to produce synthetic oil, gas, and coal, enabling a 99% renewable grid and cutting fossil fuels in industry and transport.

The fossil fuel industry may resist, but economics and geopolitics favor this shift. Renewables+storage keep getting cheaper, and nations like China—leading the tech—gain energy independence.

To Conquer the Primary Energy Consumption Layer of Our Entire Civilization

Space is really spread out, and we will forever lack the means to get around it fast. Space also happens to be highly inhospitable to human life. For these reasons, I submit that no human will ever go farther than Mars.

"China extends its lead over Europe and the US as it is the only country where EVs are on average cheaper to buy than comparable ICE vehicles."

An interesting snippet from this report. Do you know why EV's aren't cheaper than combustion engine cars in Europe & America? Because they are taxed with tariffs to make them artificially more expensive.

All of this is helping China in the long-run. Not only will they dominate in global transport manufacturing. They'll also set the technology standards in 21st energy and transport. Oh, and added bonus. With cheaper EV transport, all their other costs are cheaper & more competitive too.

Meanwhile with regional war looking more likely in the Middle East and gasoline prices probably due to steeply rise. Those cheap Chinese EVs are going to start looking even more attractive to global consumers.

Global Electric Vehicle Sales Set for Record-Breaking Year, Even as US Market Slows Sharply, BloombergNEF Finds

Ukraine's recent Spiderweb operation pointed to how decisive drones can be in modern warfare. Now here's another indication. With commonly available materials they can be built by amateurs.

20th century mass-warfare was defined by a nation's industrial might. But it seems you don't need that to build drones. They're following another 21st century trend - working from home. In traditional warfare, bombing industrial centers got results - what will it mean with drones when there doesn't have to be a 'center' - as they can be made anywhere and everywhere?

I made a 3D printed VTOL that can fly 130 miles (as a CAD beginner)

MORE INFO ABOUT THE BUILDER

Open Source AI seems to be setting Silicon Valley up to fail. While they pour hundreds of billions into closed AI systems in the hope they'll get a 'Unicorn' that will dominate the market, at every step Open Source AI equals or exceeds them. If this goes on long enough, eventually the Venture Capitalists are going to lose.

Is the same about to happen with robotics? This announcement is not the first time a Chinese group has open-sourced a robotics model. The US is desperate to slow Chinese technological advancement. Is this all part of Chinese counter-measures? If it isn't, is it just a coincidence it will severely hamper how Silicon Valley functions?

The Beijing Academy of Artificial Intelligence (BAAI), a prominent non-profit research institute, has unveiled RoboBrain 2.0—an open-source AI model engineered to serve as the cognitive core for China’s next generation of humanoid robots.

By 2035 I'd expect humanoid robots will also be making a significant impact in healthcare. In particular, doing a lot of basic nursing assistant/healthcare assistant tasks.

When people worry about the burden of an aging population in the 2030s & 40s, I rarely see them factor in how much robots will reduce the need for human workers to do this.

This isn't going to shave much weight off of EV's. Typically the engine weight is only 2-5% of the total weight. But it may have a much larger effect on battery efficiency and range.

Internal combustion engine cars are now in their decline phase. We won't see any more technological innovation from them. From now on all the tech innovation is going to be in EVs, which will keep getting better and better than the old gas cars.

Core-sheath composite electric cables with highly conductive self-assembled carbon nanotube wires and flexible macroscale insulating polymers for lightweight, metal-free motors

Interesting that they are going the subscription route and not selling these outright. It works because the comparison with the cost of a human looks so favorable. I'd expect to see this with humanoid robots too as they take over more and more human jobs.

XRobotics’ countertop robots are cooking up 25,000 pizzas a month

People in Britain have historically been quite averse to ID systems; the country is one of the few in Europe without national ID cards. Something that is standard in many other European countries.

Will they take to Worldcoin? It seems to combine everything that is rapidly going out of fashion. It's touting itself as a solution to AI slop, the same problem its founder is creating. It's crypto-backed, words that mean 'red flag' and 'scam artist' to many people. Finally, it's all about putting all your trust in American Big Tech. An idea in steep decline globally, and at home in America.

Still, the investor billions are still flowing. Palantir, with similar ambitions, is now valued at $328 billion, 220 times more than its earnings.

Financial Times Article

The recent brouhaha about Apple saying AGI is not so imminent after all, disguises a more significant reality. Even without AGI, current AI is continuing along a revolutionary path that will utterly transform society.

Figure Robotics illustrates this. Its Helix humanoid robots are getting nearer and nearer human human-level dexterity in carrying out some common factory tasks.

We won't need AGI to develop humanoid robots capable of doing most unskilled and semi-skilled work.

Are the people obsessing over AGI, missing the revolution happening on their doorstep?

Scaling Helix: a New State of the Art in Humanoid Logistics