Agreed. The "Tesla backed into objects, one into a pole or tree at 1 mph and another into a fixed object at 2 mph" stood out to me in specific. There is no way that any human driver is going to report backing into something at 1 or 2 mph.
While I was living in NYC I saw collisions of that nature all the time. People put a "bumper buddy" on their car because the street parallel parking is so tight and folks "bump" the car behind them while trying to get out.
My guess is that at least 3 of those "collisions" are things that would never be reported with a human driver.
People are acting like a space data centre would be running a traditional workload. No, it's probably running a military one, some sort of AI powered modern version of Dead Hand (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Hand). Autonomous warfare could get real dark, real fast.
My dark theory is that the goal is to run an AI overlord in space such that it is difficult to counter it from Earth.
If you assume that these people aren't completely stupid, then there is some reason why they want this workload running at great physical distance from all the people down on Earth. It's probably not to protect people on Earth. After all they'll happily deorbit satellites and other junk from orbit and let it rain down on us. And they will happily destroy the environment with all those rocket launches too. Therefore it must be to protect the workload from us.
What is a workload that is something that people would probably want to destroy, and which would also provide enough value to offset the expense to launch and run in space? The only thing that might make sense is a military AI platform. Think something that observes Earth, launches missiles, and controls terrestrial drone armies remotely, with relatively low latency.
It gets built and launched thanks to endless military budget, and once it is up there, running such an AI from space means that effectively the only people who can take it out are nation state level foes who can launch rockets into low earth orbit. And this thing is a satellite, probably part of a network that is watching the Earth all the time. Start building something that looks like a rocket launch site, and the AI will see, then you get hit by a missile or taken out by a drone first before you get a chance to attack the platform.
It sounds like sci-fi, but in the future, if we let it happen, there could absolutely be nearly invulnerable autonomous AI platforms in space overseeing everything, and making decisions, and issuing commands. Of course there could still be a massive solar flare event, or a Kessler syndrome event that releases us all from AI enforced servitude. Anyway, it's a not so fun thought experiment, and let's hope this stays sci-fi, so we can just enjoy a fun Hollywood film about this rather than experiencing it firsthand.
Downvotes are a tone. It’s the equivalent of yelling “shut up” and “stupid” at things that might require a little thought. That’s what makes the communities worse, not the odd comments that get dragged under by reflexive negativity.
So far in this thread the majority of Hacker News users have decided they don't like the tone of your comment, therefore they have downvoted your comment.
If you don't see the irony, let me point it out: this is a real time demonstration that your following statement is not an inevitable thing:
> eventually converges on the same thing in the end: a place to dump out ugly things
When a community has the tools for self governance, then it can resist influences that it does not appreciate. In the case of Bluesky in specific, you may not be familiar with how easy it is to subscribe to labelers and blocklists. This decentralized self governance model allows anyone to curate their Bluesky experience, and it allows sub communities to collectively govern in ways that filter the cesspool and remove the ugly things.
In short, the fact that you are complaining about downvotes while simultaneously saying that it is inevitable for communities to devolve into places to dump ugly things is highly ironic. One thing that you are complaining about, is the solution to the other thing that you are complaining about.
You’ve collapsed my comment into a crumpled up pile of ideas that you hate. Your description doesn’t resonate with me and describe what I had to say. And I notice the article itself is now flagged and dead, because of downvotes too.
You’re bringing a Reddit analogy to HN and they are not equivalents. On HN there is no downvote. Something unwelcome gets flagged for review. After sufficient flagging the content is removed not just buried. It’s not calling it “stupid” it’s saying “hey buddy maybe this isn’t the right place for this.”
You can’t seem to depolarize yourself from extremes. You call your original post “highly intelligent” and equate any disagreements as being shouted “stupid” at like those are the only two options here or something when they are not.
This is a real issue. If a robot is fully AI powered and doing what it does fully autonomously, then it has a very different risk profile compared to a teleoperated robot.
For example, you can be fairly certain that given the current state of AI tech, an AI powered robot has no innate desire to creep on your kids, while a teleoperated robot could very well be operated remotely by a pedophile who is watching your kids through the robot cameras, or attempting to interact with them in some way using the robot itself.
If you are allowing this robot device to exist in your home, around your valuables, and around the people you care for, then whether these robots operate fully autonomously, or whether a human operator is connecting via the robot is an extremely significant difference, that has very large safety consequences.
In case anyone else is wondering about practical ways to reproduce these effects, I did some quick searching:
Most chocolate / cocoa products are processed in a way that destroys 80%-90% of the flavanols. You either have to buy specialized high flavanol cocoa powder (what the study used), or you would have to be consuming multiple cups of matcha tea, or squares of dark chocolate ever day. You'd likely also want to add high flavanol foods like blueberries, blackberries, and cherries to your daily diet.
As someone who spends a lot of time sitting, and also has a family history of heart issues, it sounds promising. I'm planning to give it a try.
This is coming from Swiss Re, which is the world's largest insurance company for insurance companies.
Basically you pay an insurance company premium so that if you have a health emergency the insurance company will take on the cost of your emergency.
Insurance companies pay Swiss Re, so that if the insurance company faces a financial squeeze from unforeseen mass disaster, then Swiss Re takes on the cost.
Swiss Re is basically warning their clients (insurance companies) that Swiss Re is seeing an ongoing trend of excess deaths post Covid, though they expect it to trail off by 2033. They highly recommend their clients factor that in when they calculate what premium they need to charge to be profitable.
I'm more fascinated by the question of whether it scales up... imagine much smaller and more efficient electric engines for cruise liners and cargo ships.
Notably, it’s probably also not very efficient, and eventually they’ll likely upgrade with some of the improvements from these types of motors to save on fuel.
You'd be surprised how technical farming can be. Us software engineers often have a deep desire to make efficient systems, that function well, in a mostly automated fashion, so that we can observe these systems in action and optimize these systems over time.
A farm is just such a system that you can spend a lifetime working on and optimizing. The life you are supporting is "automated", but the process of farming involves an incredible amount of system level thinking. I get tremendous amounts of satisfaction from the technical process of composting, and improving the soil, and optimizing plant layouts and lifecycles to make the perfect syntropic farming setup. That's not even getting into the scientific aspects of balancing soil mixtures and moisture, and acidity, and nutrient levels, and cross pollinating, and seed collecting to find stronger variants with improved yields, etc. Of course the physical labor sucks, but I need the exercise. It's better than sitting at a desk all day long.
Anyway, maybe the farmers and shepherds also want to become software engineers. I just know I'm already well on the way to becoming a farmer (with a homelab setup as an added nerdy SWE bonus).
While I was living in NYC I saw collisions of that nature all the time. People put a "bumper buddy" on their car because the street parallel parking is so tight and folks "bump" the car behind them while trying to get out.
My guess is that at least 3 of those "collisions" are things that would never be reported with a human driver.
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