Lugh

joined 2 years ago
MODERATOR OF
 

This article gives details on the many shortcomings that make the 'golden dome' idea unworkable. These objections have been around since Ronald Reagan proposed the idea in the 1980's, and they are even more true today. The 'golden dome' proposal deals with ICBM-type missiles, but they are already out of date. The 'golden dome' proposal has even less chance against hypersonic missiles that travel at Mach 20.

Ask yourself a question - The $175 billion 'golden dome' idea requires 36,000 satellites. Is there a certain South African at the center of the US government who might be pushing this idea, because he's the man who'll get a lot of that $175 billion to supply & launch them?

 

"The new analysis for Carbon Brief shows that China’s emissions were down 1.6% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2025 and by 1% in the latest 12 months."

It's possible that this is a blip, and a rise could continue. China is still using plenty of fossil fuels and recently deployed a fleet of autonomous electric mining trucks at the Yimin open-pit coal mine in Inner Mongolia. Also, China is still behind on the 2030 C02 emissions targets it pledged under the Paris Agreement.

Still, renewables growth keeps making massive gains in China. In the first quarter of 2025, China installed a total of 74.33 GW of new wind and solar capacity, bringing the cumulative installed capacity for these two sources to 1,482 GW. That is greater than the total US electricity capacity from all sources, which is at 1,324 GW.

 

Guess what AI workers never need? High wages, health care, pension contributions, breaks or vacations.

Once corporations start seeing AI and humans as interchangeable workers - no surprises for which type they'll be trying to get rid of as soon as possible.

I hope we're going to see massive deflation in drug prices from all the cost savings, and bumper profits this will give them.

Why Moderna Merged Its Tech and HR Departments

archive.ph version of WSJ article

 

"According to the New York Federal Reserve, labor conditions for recent college graduates have “deteriorated noticeably” in the past few months, and the unemployment rate now stands at an unusually high 5.8 percent. Even newly minted M.B.A.s from elite programs are struggling to find work."

The NYFR says it doesn't know what is causing the decline, but many wonder if it's AI. In particular as AI is so good at doing the entry-level tasks college grads would be employed to do.

Humans are terrible about dealing with disaster, until the very last minute (Covid in March 2020 was a good illustration of this). However, they are often surprisingly good at 'keeping calm, and carrying on' when they are forced to act. March 2020 also illustrates this.

So far AI/robotics and job replacement is a topic our political class (and their inept economic advisors) have ignored - but for how much longer?

 

The 'Big 7' prop up the U.S. stock market, accounting for a third of its value. Their sky-high valuations rely on a 'growth' narrative—if that fades, their stocks could crash.

Google deliberately worsened search results to keep users viewing more ads, as recent research revealed. A WSJ investigation found Meta knowingly lets criminal advertisers flourish, fearing a stock drop if it cracks down.

Now, AI firms are the market's new darlings. Under similar pressure to deceive, what happens when they wield the most powerful tech ever?

[–] Lugh 4 points 7 months ago

As with everything European there's a bewildering number of acronyms, national, and pan-national agencies involved. The French space agency CNES is leading this, though all ESA member states pool resources, and the Ariane rockets.

Confusingly, there is another ESA reusable rocket initiative centered around building a brand new rocket with a new type of engine, though it doesn't start launch testing until 2026.

Europe is behind the US and China on reusable rockets, but its space program will benefit from the world's move towards protectionist economic policies. It has always been helped by the 'buy European' policies of European governments, & geo-political changes make this approach likely to become stronger.

[–] Lugh 8 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

The American Big Tech companies are sowing the seeds of their own downfall by embracing the current US administration's Orwellian agenda. Much of the world will turn against them and their technology - Europe already explicitly is - and at home when times change, they will be remembered as Vichy-like collaborators for their betrayal of democracy.

[–] Lugh 9 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I agree, in a sea of bad news, this is some very good news.

I hope it continues and robs Musk, Thiel and the other Big Tech hobgoblins of the power they were dreaming AI would give them.

[–] Lugh 20 points 7 months ago

Yes, but GPT-4 was at 7% and regarded as world best only months ago.

The true significance here, is that they've replicated the industry leader so easily and so quickly.

[–] Lugh 5 points 7 months ago

And it's a great idea to pump another $500 billion into these people, why? ...

[–] Lugh 6 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Why not just put the money into Mistral?

Because they are not, as Silicon Valley/American thinking would have it, trying to "win" some AI Arms Race measured in stock market valuations.

This is so European governments & their civil service, educational institutions, the EU itself has an AI untainted by either American or Chinese values, and also independent of either of them.

[–] Lugh 4 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

The €60 million in funding isn't much, though ten times more than what DeepSeek said they needed.

I suspect we're on a path where more and more American AI, as it embraces Orwellian police state/autocratic tendencies at home, will be outlawed in Europe.

[–] Lugh 5 points 7 months ago

Western countries rejected the state having a large role in their economies in the 1980s and ushered in the era of neoliberal economics, where everything would be left to the market. That logic dictated it was cheaper to manufacture things where wages were low, and so tens of millions of manufacturing jobs disappeared in the West.

Fast-forward to the 2020s and the flaws in neoliberal economics seem all too apparent. Deindustrialization has made the Western working class poorer than their parents' generation. But another flaw has become increasingly apparent - by making China the world's manufacturing superpower, we seem to be making them the world's technological superpower too.

Furthermore, this seems to be setting up a self-reinforcing virtuous cycle. EVs, batteries, lidar, drones, robotics, smartphones, AI - China seems to be becoming the leader in them all, and the development of each is reinforcing the development of all the others.

Where does this leave the Western economic model - is it time it copies China's style of capitalism?

[–] Lugh 77 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

This is what is being banned.

  • AI used for social scoring (e.g., building risk profiles based on a person’s behavior).
  • AI that manipulates a person’s decisions subliminally or deceptively.
  • AI that exploits vulnerabilities like age, disability, or socioeconomic status.
  • AI that attempts to predict people committing crimes based on their appearance.
  • AI that uses biometrics to infer a person’s characteristics, like their sexual orientation.
  • AI that collects “real time” biometric data in public places for the purposes of law enforcement.
  • AI that tries to infer people’s emotions at work or school.
  • AI that creates — or expands — facial recognition databases by scraping images online or from security cameras.

Almost everything on this list is outlawing what an authoritarian regime would want. How long before the EU bans the American Big Tech AI, that it seems is toadying to Trump to enable it.

[–] Lugh 18 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

My guess is it will be the Chinese.

I know some people say the excellence of SpaceX's engineers is unaffected by him, but the anti-science dolts and frauds providing "leadership" to America, especially the one who owns SpaceX - has to drag their efforts down to some extent.

Even before the recent change in administration, China's Moon plans were more detailed and thought out than the US's.

view more: ‹ prev next ›