I think a crucial point is that AI does not need to face consequences for its actions the way humans do. I'm not even sure it can understand what consequences are.

Liked your post. I'd add a mention of the book Empire of AI by Karen Hao, which I just finished reading. It's a fascinating study of the rise of OpenAI and the impact of the needs of the AI industry for data and compute-power.

Sam Altman doesn't fare well in the book. He comes across as a duplicitous Napolean-fanboy, who nevertheless managed to develop a cult following amongst his employees. A following that has eroded over time but is still holding. Many ex-OpenAI employees have gone on to create rival companies, including Anthropic.

As for OpenAI ignoring specific areas of the market where AI can create revenue: they never really had that focus. They began as an altruistic effort to produce AGI for the human race, and bit by bit, their mission was compromised over time. They took on VC funds with some strings attached, and pleased their backers with some relevant products (see Copilot for example.) Now they have shed their altrusitic non-profit ambitions, but they continue to appear to be fixated on achieving AGI no matter what.

Copper oxidizes on both continents. All around the world, in fact. And the Statue of Liberty has an outer layer of (oxidized) copper. That's why she's green.

[I don't see an /s tag, though you have been modded Funny. I plead Poe's law.]

Any copper that is exposed to oxygen (even briefly) will oxidize. Presumably TFA is talking about ultra-pure copper that has not been contaminated by exposure to air.

It'll be a while before that has a chance of happening. Per TFA, the team at CERN transported 92 anti-protons. Ninety-two. If that many antiprotons annihilated with protons, they would produce an energy of 2.8 x 10^-8 J. Not enough energy to tickle a gnat.

Haven't seen that one in a while.

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.