ag315

12 ms·

1.
by ag315 4y ago
What on earth do you mean by 1kw of fuel rod? Your quantifications make no sense and cite no sources. You're going to need to be more specific than "read the latest reports"; this report ( https://www.irena.org&#x2F
2.
by ag315 4y ago
Solar panels aren't made of lithium, but they are made of a wide variety of other things that have to be mined (which, again, uses up space and has to be taken into consideration), and the batteries which will be necessary to make them
3.
by ag315 4y ago
"No longer needed once the panel is produced" The land used for the mining isn't land that we're just getting back--given the costs of making it useful again for anything else, space used for a lithium mine is in almost
4.
by ag315 4y ago
Strategic installation of solar panels certainly helps maximize efficiency, and is in general a great idea, especially in some areas. But to your point about the space taken up by uranium and coal mines, that's only a fair comparison i
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by ag315 4y ago
Happy to discuss the numbers of your numbers-based argument, but you didn't cite your sources.
6.
by ag315 4y ago
1370/sq km is at the atmospheric level. The amount that actually reaches the surface is significantly less.
7.
by ag315 4y ago
While I'm less optimistic than you on solar power, you're absolutely right about ethanol, which is easily one of the worst and most inefficient power sources we could have possibly chosen to invest in. It's a significant indi
8.
by ag315 4y ago
Correct--while the sun sends an enormous amount of free energy our way, it's maddeningly diffuse and requires enormous investments of energy and materials to capture it in a usable and reliable form. The Wynn in Vegas has a 160 acre so
9.
by ag315 4y ago
I agree with your perspective on this, but my hope is that it won't have a major negative externality at the end of the day--drum machines and drum software have really solid for well over a decade now, but plenty of people still learn
10.
by ag315 4y ago
This is a really excellent point, both in general and vis a vis the conflict in Ukraine. Something I see happening often is that some people are quick to confuse expertise-as-credential with expertise-as-substance, or to assume that anyone
11.
by ag315 4y ago
I think it's an oversimplification to argue that the mind as a whole is like a closet, but I do think memory specifically works a bit in this way--hence the well-established utility of memory palace methods. Giordano Bruno's memor
12.
by ag315 4y ago
I don't believe AGI needs to have actual consciousness in order to functionally be AGI, and I personally am not of the view that we will ever make a conscious computer. That said, intentionality could certainly impact the way it operat
13.
by ag315 4y ago
I agree with you that it could be dangerous, but I neither said nor implied at any point that I disagree with that--I don't think the original comment was implying that either. LLM could absolutely be dangerous depending on the capabil
14.
by ag315 4y ago
In most cases there are vastly more synapses than there are neurons, and beyond that the neurons and synapses are not highly rudimentary pieces but are themselves extremely complex. It's certainly true that nervous systems do quite a b
15.
by ag315 4y ago
My response to that would be to point out that these LLM models, complex and intricate as they are, are nowhere near as complex as, for example, the nervous system of a grasshopper. The nervous systems of grasshoppers, as far as we know, do
16.
by ag315 4y ago
This is spot on in my opinion and I wish more people would keep it in mind--it may well be that large language models can eventually become functionally very much like AGI in terms of what they can output, but they are not systems that have
17.
by ag315 4y ago
I can believe that they've been tracking it for awhile, but it is unlikely that they can easily shoot it down. We probably literally don't have the technical capacity to do so reliably at this time.
18.
by ag315 4y ago
Your analogy doesn't work and I suspect it's because you may fundamentally misunderstand what qualia actually are--this isn't about gaps; this relates much more to the logical impossibility of reducing qualia to something tha
19.
by ag315 4y ago
The quantifiable characteristics of the light spectrum are the same--the experience of the qualia are not necessarily the same. This is common with taste and smell; it could easily be the same story with the experience of color.
20.
by ag315 4y ago
Qualia are one of the more interesting subjects in the study of mind because they're inextricable from our perceptions and our experience of everything, but they can't be reduced or quantified in any meaningful way. (If anyone is
21.
by ag315 4y ago
The question you're responding to is (although of little if any practical importance) a more philosophical one than can be answered by cortex differentiation, which cannot tell us much at all about the experience of qualia.
22.
by ag315 4y ago
I don't think you can get good at doing calculations without practicing the calculations, but reading books that discuss the higher-level aspects of math and the philosophical underpinnings can help you look at it in a different way th
23.
by ag315 4y ago
Any updates on Havana syndrome and chronic Lyme's while we're at it?
24.
by ag315 4y ago
It's not just lithium that's the problem; copper is also a major component, and we don't have nearly enough of that either. A full transition to electric vehicles is not viable with current technologies. If we can make a big
25.
by ag315 4y ago
I've played both piano and guitar for many years now, and the distinction I'd make is that piano is easier to start out on than guitar, but harder to get good at--in the long run the difficulty of mastery is probably about the sam
26.
by ag315 4y ago
By 2030? Lol. Lmao, even. 2050 if we're lucky--we're still not even close to developing a reactor that can produce meaningful amounts of power for a sustained period. It'll take decades more to get to that point, and once all
27.
by ag315 4y ago
Cool technical achievement, but it has essentially no implications for economically or politically significant energy generation anytime soon.
28.
by ag315 4y ago
No, bobajeff is correct. The vast majority of language acquisition occurs through input and exposure to the language via reading and listening. Trying to speak when you have no grasp yet of the grammar and vocabulary is not an efficient use