If you could reroute all the money spent globally on Generative AI right now to another single technological endeavor, what would it be?
If you could reroute all the money spent globally on Generative AI right now to another single technological endeavor, what would it be?
Energy storage. We could already produce all the power we need and more using solar power, the problem is that we can't store it in an efficient energy dense form. The word efficient there is doing some heavy lifting. It needs be comparable or better than our methods today in terms of cost, safety, energy density, climate impact. If we could solve energy storage, it'd change society and technology dramatically.
Climate change
Kind of a two-fer right there. Without "AI" sucking up so much power, we'd already be better off climate-wise.
True, but still only marginally.
I think concrete is still king.
I would specifically pick Fusion research.
That's not a single endeavor, like, at all.
Just fund all the open source projects. Like, all of them.
It's amazing the amount of ressources that are spent on creating an environment/platform that locks users in.
Like, shit, if we spent like 10% on that efforts into open source stuff we'd be living in a utopia right now or something.
In everything that has a realistic chance to stop or reverse climate change
Nuclear Fusion.
Get the plastic out of living organisms for fuck's sake
I'm sure you'll get a bunch of respectable answers, but keep in mind that secretly, everyone is actually thinking sex robots.
And if they were not, they should have been.
Which is an application that generative AI is important for, ironically.
Who wants an intelligent sex bot? You could as well do regular dating.
Really? Cause I was thinking climate solving, fusion powered sex robots.
The smart phone doesn’t do one thing, why shouldn’t my robot?
Who said anything about one thing? My robot is capable of performing 370 different sex acts! And before you ask, yes, even THAT one.
Speak for yourself, I want a hug bot.
That costs extra.
I'm not sure what technology I would choose, but surely it would be related to the climate change.
Nuclear fusion, right? That's got to be the big one.
I'd rather a free and powerful energy source that'll benefit humanity not have a logo and pricetag slapped on it so that only the ones who can afford it are allowed to use it.
Any energy source is going to be able to have a price tag and a logo slapped on it as long as energy generation requires infrastructure and capitalism is a thing. Wind, solar, and tidal are great; we desperately need more of them as part of our energy strategy. But they can also have a price tag and a logo. In fact, home solar has become quite a lucrative...well, not exactly scam, but "bad deal" in my area.
And fusion will have to be here, too, to fill the gaps that wind, solar, and tidal leave; at least for now. There's no "forever" answer here, only some that'll last longer than others.
how about pocket computers with the power of a smartphone but the common sense usability of a goddamn graphing calculator? i'm sitting on a magic rectangle with more computing power than the apollo mission and it doesn't even let me blink the LED without installing an app?? these things should legally have to come with a scripting environment.
As someone who never managed to work with a graphing calculator, you made me want this.
the closest thing on android right now is an app called Termux, it simulates a linux scripting environment with several languages (including C, python, and javascript), and it can be programmed to do anything an app can do (including blink the LED).
but c'mon, that should be standard. also phones should come rooted.
As someone who has used a graphing calculator in high school, uhhhhhh I must have been using a different brand because it was always a struggle.
Steam Deck is a step in the right direction but a bit too big
Clean nuclear energy
cure for tinnitus
Cultured Meat. Without relying on any major breakthroughs, a price competitive with "traditional" meat is feasible with a few rather reasonable and conservative assumptions and developments. Dropping cows as meat source globally alone might be sufficient to slow down further climate change significantly.
The problem is that we can't make an immune system and don't even know where to begin on that problem
Healthcare, food, and housing for the poor.
The Internet Archive - long term storage of as many books/films/music/journals/games as possible.
Love this answer! I wish the EU could move it in as an EU agency.
room temp superconductors
I would say "High Temperatur Superconductor". If they can be made cheaply, they solve our Energy Problems in almost every way. Turbines will become more effective, Transport of Energy cheap and lossless and storage crazy effective. They will also revolitionize meassurement of magnetic fields witch will have a huge impact on medicin and other fields.
Wow, that must be the best answer yet, at least from my ignorant point of view about the feasibility. I am extremely fascinated by material science. Are there any promising lines of research for this?
Yes. Every now and then we get a paper claiming that they found a HTSC. It always is a big deal because they are considered the holy grail of solid state physics. Later we find that it's a mistake.
We are pretty good though. Records are in the area of −135 °C (138K, -211°F) but the phenomenon was thought to be at a few Kelvin max in the last century.
The big BUT is that it's science. Meaning that it is not granted that such a material (superconducting at ambient temperature and pressure) even exists
Fusion power or cures for diseases.
Fusion power, should it work, would solve a lot of problems. Environmentally, in particular, but if we could get a decent distribution of reactors around the planet we’d alleviate food problems, water problems, and a whole bunch of suffering of one kind or another. Cheap power would help a lot.
Otherwise, anything to help cure diseases. Genetic, auto-immune, cancers, misfortune, whatever. Alleviate more suffering, let people live and work again.
Trains.
I like trains!
Yes!
Public education.
Reverse osmosis and water filtration technology solutions
UPDATE: Also, why not focus on stopping money going towards cryptocurrency instead of AI. Sure, AI is not the greatest for some, but cryto is a scam every day of the week
Finding new and unique ways to make parabolic mirrors more efficiently and inexpensively
Imagine being into generative AI when the moon is literally red as I type this. You could be looking at the Orion Nebula right now instead of staring at a screen playing charades with a soulless marionette dancing under the hands of billionaires who you're giving a direct line straight into your brain, bypassing all critical thought
Android catgirl maid robots
Moshi moshi, AI techbros? Yes, I found the next big thing
my god
Education.
Probably the only one that would really change the entire world for the better.
Software that is both ridiculously easy to use and able to bypass any and all DRM schemes past, present, and future. As a firm believer that any form of computer (not including game consoles because I don't care about them) software that severely limits when, where, and how you can use your legally purchased games, movies, e-books, etcetera, should be outright illegal, this is my answer.
Cheap powerful graphics cards for all
Easily the education system at least here in America cuz it's dog shit. I honestly think there should be another year for high school just one more because kids are coming out of school completely unprepared for anything and I don't just mean common sense I mean jobs entry level jobs kids can't do because school didn't teach them the basics
Edit: I sat down now so I want to elaborate.
I really think schools should focus more on life skills cooking, home improvement, changing your tire and brakes. Everyday stuff you'll run into but a lot of people don't know how to do. Just doing it once or twice gives people the confidence that they can do it and can maybe do more. That's my two cents, that I don't have
it's called 'online deliberation' Here is a paper on what it might include: https://deliberation.stanford.edu/tools-and-resources/online-deliberation-platform
Here is my idea on how to implement it: https://www.theconsensusengine.com/ (I'd start on page 25 at the example section)
It's a way to get people to work together by finding common ground and making the internet a friendly place not a hateful one of conflict
It can reduce loneliness by bringing people together based on shared values and interests, as well as location, so you can find a community of people who like the same things, and find a community in your own community to make our localities stronger and more united.
it can be a way to stop and greatly reduce misinformation and the idea that it takes much more work to refuse lies than to make them, but keeping an list of arguments on both sides and letting the consensus based on evidence emerge
it can advance science and the knowledge base of all humans by creating a chain of trust with links, so reproducible things and empirical facts are are stronger and more impactful. This will help find answers in currently unknown directions while also reducing or eliminating the publish or perish model of science. If someone is found to have lied then all their contributions going backwards are effected so that the emergent consensus always works towards truth
it can force hypocrites like almost all republicans and religiousnuts to be faced with their own judgements on their own actions, based on how other people interpret their statements and evidence. This can show delusional people not only that they are wrong, but where they went wrong so they can be aware and try and correct it.
With a huge amount of money to create it and also to give away we can make people want to contribute and use the system because they stand to benifit from it
and it can act as an agora and planning department for all human kind on a multigeneration level where decisions are based on evidence and desire. this along may allow something like this idea to take ahold and be the source of progress for society into the future, because what we are doing now is not working.
Very interesting, thank you. Keep Lemmy updated on developments!
You know what? Fuck it. Let's finally build Edward Teller's Doomsday Machine.
Teller, the 'father of the hydrogen bomb,' wanted to build something even more mad, Project Sundial, a true Doomsday Device. It relies on the principle that there really is no upper limit to how big a thermonuclear weapon can get. As long as you're willing to keep chaining stages, you can make them arbitrarily large. However, you do eventually hit a limit where the bomb is too big to deliver to a target.
However, for Project Sundial, this wasn't a problem. The idea is you would build a single nuclear device so comically powerful that it doesn't matter where on Earth you set it off. You build the thing in bunker, under a mountain, in the heart of your most closely guarded territory. It can be the size of a large building if need be; it doesn't have to be movable. In extreme form, imagine a nuclear bomb the size of a stadium.
Once you push the button on this thing, it's over. No matter where on Earth you set it off, the explosion would be so large that it would launch enough dust and debris into the atmosphere to block substantial sunlight and cool the planet. Instant nuclear winter from a single device that cannot be intercepted or shot down. And you can built it in a bunker buried so deep that no regular nuclear weapon can reach it.
It is the apotheosis of mutually assured destruction. If you threaten our existence, we retain the power to destroy everything. The entire species would be reset to c. 1500 or earlier at the press of a single button.
They did actually design the thing, though it was never built. And the details are still classified as all hell. But it is entirely possible to actually, in the real world, build a Doomsday Machine worthy of any comic book mad scientist. It is possible to build a single device that can destroy the entire world at the press of a button.
Or hell, for all we know, it's possible someone has already built one...
I was hoping someone would quote this. Bravo!
I'm fairly certain that we could actually fully automate food production, and might even be able to automate each step from farm to distribution with a little additional effort. The major obstacle that I can tell seems to be the upfront cost of the precision machines necessary to handle harvesting, automating the planting and care has already been accomplished.
Photonics.
We are so close it's killing me.
Can you expand on the technology and use cases?
I don't want to jinx it.
Recycling and right to repair. If we could reclaim ~100% of raw materials in a useful way and avoid unnecessary waste it would have a big climate impact.
I mean, it's not like we don't know how to do that. But selling you a whole new thing every year or two is much more profitable than selling you one thing that lasts you a lifetime.
Anti- fascist tech.
who is Anit and why do you support their fascist tech?
Degenerative AI.
A new web browser engine that is not Google or Mozilla (like Servo) and a browser using this new engine.
We really need this. I am following Ladybird closely.
I want a machine that works me out while I sleep. I'm talking full body ripped (to my desired levels) all while I get my sleep for the night.
Just electrically stimulate my muscles constantly while keeping me in a deep sleep for 8 hours straight please.
I wanna wake up every morning feeling like I just left the gym after a solid full body work out.
You can get electric muscle zappers already. Just add ketamine for the z's and you're good!
Solar + Batteries
My thoughts exactly. If we could make solar panels more effective and cheaper in addition to having a way to store and quickly discharge that energy safely, we could power houses, cars, etc all without emission. Would love it if the batteries didn't have short lives as well.
Theres some cool solid state battery tech on the horizon, but it always seems to be on the horizon and never actually showing up.
Cryptocurrency.
Kidding! Sorry, I couldn't help myself. I'm sure that will ruffle someone's feathers for a fraction of a second.
Does vegan based meat/milk alternatives count as a technology sector? The moment we figure out a way to actually seriously imitate high quality steaks and 2% cow milk with it being indistinguishable and half the price I think that will hurt factory farming which is a bit of a domino effect that would lead to less co2 and methane produced, less agricultural effort wasted on feeding animals, that kind of thing.
Medicine (i.e. research into cures for illnesses we can't cure yet) seems like just about the only thing that's worthwhile. Most of our modern issues aren't really about not having the right technologies, but about billionaires being greedy.
Not counting it as a single endeavor.
More complete alternatives to Apple and Google for telecoms devices.
Fusion
System for default radical transparency by governments.
Tech Debt. So many of these companies investing in AI are doing so at the expense of out dated, broken shit that AI will never address.
AI to run companies in sustainably profitable ways that benefits their workers instead of rich greedy sociopaths.
Give money to the artists the AI stole art fr.... I mean sex robots
Sex robots
Thermonuclear reactors
Thorium, in particular.
Probably thinking too small, but if I were rich, I'd give a bunch of money to OpenStreetMap.
I would make Star Citizen AAAAAAAA... game.
You forgot the H's.
Probably some type of gene therapy or cancer research.
Atmospheric carbon sequestration
Collective human intelligence augmentation = Computer-aided collaboration = Crowd thinking.
https://www.quora.com/Who-invented-the-modern-computer-look-and-feel/answer/Harri-K-Hiltunen