Lugh

There are some interesting lessons to be learned here. It seems having lots of near-empty space is driving this. Solar is being built in poorer rural areas with low planning and permitting requirements. More densely populated places can't always take such an approach easily, but it points to the fact that planning authorization may be placing a bottleneck on reducing climate change damage.

The AI Investor hype bubble always seemed ultimately doomed. AI will be profoundly deflationary, and will likely lead us to end up dominated by a very different economic system than today, with a far smaller role for capitalism, stock markets, and investors.

This article is interesting as it neatly illustrates the schizophrenia at the heart of the AI investor worldview. On the one hand, it berates people who made claims that 300 million jobs would be automated - because they've failed to live up to that "promise" to AI investors fast enough.

What you never see is anyone joining the dots, and asking what sort of economic model society will evolve to when job automation is at that scale. (Hint: It probably won't have much room for high stock market or property prices, or prosperous investors).

I'm fascinated by people's tendencies to anthropomorphize AI & robotics; it's hard to see how this is truly analogous to the human mind and depression.

Yes. I don't think enough people realise the significances of this fact. Unlike us, AI will never peak; it will always relentlessly get better.

One of the difficulties with ending the fossil fuel age is transitioning workers and economic activity. Geothermal energy like Fervo, apart from all its other benefits, might help solve that problem. There's a large cross-over in terms of skills between them and the oil and gas industry. They even sometimes use sites of former fossil fuel extraction for geothermal plants. Now they seem to have successfully demonstrated proof-of-concept it's frustrating things aren't moving faster with this energy source.

It makes sense China dominates manufacturing standards; it's the world's biggest manufacturer. It seems an odd thing for the article writer to get worked up over.

Robots-as-a-Service (RaaS) is very similar to human contractors getting paid by the hour.

As this allows for clearer image resolution of smaller planets around the nearest stars, I wonder will it do the same for their atmospheric composition? It seems that will be the key to first detecting alien life elsewhere in the universe. I've a sneaking suspicion that if any life (or its remains) are found on Mars or Europa, it will have been seeded from Earth, and not have arisen independently.

The usual caveats apply to results from testing in mice; it might not be safe in humans, and it's generally years of clinical trials before any human treatment becomes available.

That said, I wonder why humanity doesn't put much more effort into research like this. The birth rate is rapidly diminishing in most Western countries. The 21st century will be, for the first time in human history, the century of the old. Historically that has meant burden, but it needn't be if research like this leads to the results it promises.

It's important to note that the only people arguing that solar energy and food production are incompatible are involved in disinformation campaigns against renewable energy. I see it being used a lot in talking points to muddy issues.

There are some interesting ideas in this essay, but I'm struck by how much it underestimates the effects of technology, and their implications on the economy.

Does it have to drop packages from 3 meters off the ground? I'd rather it landed and gently deposit them. Even so, this won't suit all users - what if you're not in, or in an apartment? Guess it works for people with fenced back gardens. Still, its the future of delivery. These things can get work arounds.