At any given moment in their history, AI companies have tried to get AI to do what it can do in its current state. These ideas may or may not appear to be "stupid" but they are waypoints in the development of the technology.

They have gone from games (chess, etc.) to machine-learning applications (autonomous planetary probes and online recommendation engines) to deep-learning applications (jeopardy, go, voice-recognition, image-analysis) to our current collection of human-like technologies (chatbots, LLMs, and autonomous street-vehicles).

And right now, AI might be able to close sales for retailers. At least that's what OpenAI and Walmart tried here. It wasn't "stupid" to try. It would have been stupid not to.

You raise some valid points about VC risks. However, Trevor Milton didn't just talk big and fail a lot. He engaged in out-and-out fraud, for which he was convicted and was facing jail time before he was pardoned.

A pardon may make his conviction go away, but it doesn't erase history. There may be different kinds of invstors, but any who still trust this guy are better known as fools.

There are other reasons to have energy-storage besides supporting diurnal or sporadic sources such as solar and wind. See my response below to Dragonslicer.

TL/DR: storage can be used as a buffer to handle momentary demands that exceed a system's current output, even if that system isn't powered by renewable sources. And all sources produce excess from time to time, so why not store it when you can?

And I'm confused about the "keep up" snark. I think you're better than that.

What other sources? Like I said, any other sources. They can (and must) all produce excess.

The load on a generating station goes up and down, as people turn their lights on and off. At any moment, a station will be producing excess in order to handle unexpected spikes in demand. The unused excess at any moment can be directed to storage.

Sure, you can anticipate daily demand-patterns and adjust what stations are online appropriately. But even with such planning, you'll still have -- in fact you'll need -- excess production to avoid brownouts when demand rises unexpectedly. In fact, storage could be used as a buffer in those very situations.

Excess energy stored in batteries could come from any source, not just solar or wind. The difference is that solar and wind need storage in order to be viable as a 24/7 source of energy.

Trading is not gambling, even with derivatives such as options and futures. They're more like insurance policies than gambling bets. You can get in or out by opening or closing your position whenever you want. Not so with gambling: you're committed once you place your bet. Well, wait ... Polymarket does in fact allow people to open or close positions before the deciding event occurs, so maybe Polymarket isn't gambling?

As for borrowed money (i.e., margin), brokerage houses limit how much you can trade with it: typically from 25% to 30% of your positions in tax-unsheltered accounts can be margined at most. Only about 10% of retail investors use margin, and institutional investors tend to use options to leverage positions, not borrowed funds. So, it's not nothing, but not huge either. Outlawing trading on borrowed funds wouldn't "shut stock and futures markets down in a heartbeat."

Only two renewables need storage to be viable as a sole source: solar and wind, because they aren't available 24/7. Hydro, geothermal, biomass, and (maybe) tidal energy do not depend on storage.

rsilvergun (again, whom I respect) didn't mention storage in his post, although he did highlight solar and wind. I'm not fond of Ol Olsoc's flaming, but I think he has a point regarding rsilvergun's drama in this post. IMHO, rsilvergun is the one who has gone off-topic. But I do like his posts in general.

Usually I find myself in agreement with rsilvergun and not Ol Olsoc, but not this time. The subject in TFS is energy storage, not energy production. It is the former, not the latter, who has "wandered off-topic."

Good point. Thanks for the improvement.

The people's elected representatives can do good things, and silly things.

If they do silly things, there are more ways to address it than trying to unconvince them of what they did. One of those ways is in court, which is where the synthetic-protein lobby is now. Another is to mount a political campaign to promote candidates for the next election who will repeal the ban.

There are more arguments to make in court besides a violation of civil rights. And the legislature may -- or may not -- have the power to do this. In any case, the legislature or the courts (on constitutional grounds) can undo what the legislature has done. We'll see what happens.

From TFS: "It's plain cowboy logic that we must safeguard our real, authentic meat industry from synthetic alternatives." [emphasis mine] And that tells you everything you need to know.

This, in spades.

You're fond of Merriam-Webster, so let's continue:

fake:
(adjective) not true, real, or genuine : counterfeit, sham
(noun) one that is not what it purports to be: such as
a: a worthless imitation passed off as genuine

"Fake" implies an intent to deceive. The creators of AI systems are not trying to pass them off as anything but AI, so they're not trying to deceive anyone. And I think your position would be that AI is incapable of deception, so AI itself is not the source of any fakery.

In short, something can be artificial without being fake.

The Planck length is about 1.616 x 10^-35 m. The circumference of the known universe is about 2.77 x 10^27 m. The ratio is about 5.834 x 10^-63.

So, calculating the circumference of the universe to the precision of the planck length would require about 64 digits of pi. We knew pi to that many digits by 1706, when 100 digits were known.

You'll never achieve that by calculating a finite number of digits of pi, no matter how many. The fact that pi is irrational was settled long ago, by deductive reasoning, not calculating.

I'd say the point of calculating pi to this degree was to demonstrate the computational system, and to achieve bragging rights, even if only briefly. Someone else will calculate more digits soon enough.

Whoops, make that log(10)/log(256), per the post from 'Sloppy' below.