Lugh

joined 2 years ago
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The US export controls aimed at limiting Chinese AI development are struggling. China's latest AI reasoning models perform well on older, domestically produced GPU chips, with scale being more critical than chip advancement. China is also progressing toward parity in advanced chip production.

These controls have driven Chinese innovation, leading to models like Deepseek, now considered among the world's best. A significant shift is China's embrace of open-source AI models, expanding its talent pool and offering a strategic edge. In contrast, US efforts rely heavily on private investment, betting on future tech "unicorns" to generate massive profits.

In early 2025 another profound global shift favors Open-Source over US tech. As the US disengages from NATO to side with Russia, Europeans are left scrambling to replace reliance on US technology. They, and much of the rest of the world, are now much less likely to adopt new US technology, as it will be seen as adversarial and a security threat.

A couple of years ago the story of Open-Source AI was just a curiosity to be remarked on, perhaps it is about to take the main stage.

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submitted 6 months ago by Lugh to c/futurology
 

As the US pivots to aligning itself with Russia, and threatening two NATO members with invasion, the NATO alliance seems all but dead. Russia is openly threatening the Baltic states and Moldova, not to mention the hybrid war it has been attacking Europe with for years.

All this has forced action. The EU has announced an €800 billion fund to urgently rearm Europe. Separately the Germans are planning to spend €1 trillion on a military and infrastructure build-up. Meanwhile, the owner of SpaceX and Starlink is coming to be seen as a public enemy in Europe. Twitter/X may be banned, and alternatives to Starlink are being sought for Ukraine.

Europe has been taking a leisurely pace to develop a reusable rocket. ESA has two separate plans in development, but neither with urgent deadlines. Will this soon change? Germany recently announced ambitious plans for a spaceplane that can take off from regular runways. Its 2028 delivery date seemed very ambitious. If it is part of a new German military, might it happen on time?

[–] Lugh 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Although I'm using AI more and more for writing related tasks, I still find it constantly making simple rudimentary errors of logic. If it is advancing as this research paper claims, why are we still seeing so many of these types of hallucination errors?

[–] Lugh 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

I've corrected that. I assume their soon to be announcement about robo taxis will involve some upgrade to what can be considered level 4. Then again, it could just be some bullshit from the eternal bullshitter that is Elon Musk.

[–] Lugh 3 points 11 months ago

Quite apart from the issue of Google as a monopoly, i've really noticed a lot of their services going downhill in the last 18 months or so. Search gets steadily worse. But their AI voice transcription services, and grammar and spell checks, are nowhere near as good as free open source alternatives. Not only that, but bizarrely they've actually got worse than they used to be, where everywhere else in these fields it's constant improvement.

[–] Lugh 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

I'm trying to keep an open mind about these kind of efforts, though I have suspicions about some of them being green washing. However if solar power becomes ultra cheap in the 2030s, and can power efforts like this, it is possible they may make a significant difference.

[–] Lugh 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (3 children)

Tesla ~~is at~~ may soon be at level 4 autonomous driving. It seems to me a taxi business could easily be made out of cars that can do that. Level 4 means they can drive fixed routes, that they know well and have mapped. When you think of a city and it's top 100 destinations, most taxi journeys are some combination of going between those. Going from the airport to downtown, and so on. Am I missing something? It seems if level 4 driving could handle those journeys, then perhaps it can handle most urban taxi journeys.

Even a taxi service that could just go to the top 50 destinations in a city from the airport, if rolled out across the world, could make serious money.

[–] Lugh 3 points 11 months ago

I should have been more specific, I was just referring to the storm surge flooded areas.

[–] Lugh 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

AR/VR always seems on the cusp of taking off, yet never seems to actually do so.

[–] Lugh 9 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (4 children)

I'm surprised there isn't more movement to just completely ban building in these areas. Getting everyone else to cover the cost of their predictable destruction seems very unfair.

[–] Lugh 14 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (6 children)

I am aware that they have a state insurer in Florida. They are going to need it. I can't see a single private insurance company wanting to touch anything to do with rebuilding in areas affected by this. They know climate change is getting worse, and this is only going to happen soon again.

[–] Lugh 7 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

You circumvented their TOS, by using an alt account to evade a ban on a subreddit. That's why they banned you from Reddit itself.

[–] Lugh 1 points 11 months ago

There are a few other new heavy lift rockets in development around the world. Some people think Spacex's Starship will make them obsolete, but it doesn't seem like it will be ready anytime soon.

[–] Lugh 2 points 11 months ago

If someone can build robotic systems that are entirely made up of 3D printed components, that seems very possible.

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