It's surprisingly similar to AI in that respect. Both technologies have been shown to work in principle, but neither of them has been shown to turn an actual profit, yet.

Yes, those are all great. And geothermal is looking really promising too, with microwave drilling technology potentially enabling it in locations where geography previously made it impractical.

Who said anything about waiting? We should be (and, broadly speaking, are) deploying renewable technologies now, and simultaneously developing fusion technology for later. There's no need to do just one or the other, when we can and will do both in parallel.

PEX pipe is cross-linked polyethylene. It is mostly HDPE, though it is possible to crosslink LDPE as well, creating a slightly different kind of PEX. PEX is much more durable than other forms of Polyethylene.

PEX is not as common for several reasons. To my mind, the two most likely ones are that PEX, while resistant to the Ultraviolet light is not immune, it can't last more than about 2 or 3 months if exposed to direct sunlight.

The second is cost. PEX is more expensive than most other forms of Polyethylene.

So, PEX is pretty much only used for plumbing, technically is almost always a form of HDPE.

You 1) Misunderstood what I was saying and 2) are wrong about the rest.

I am not calling out Uber alone, I am calling out ALL ride sharing apps. Uber, Lyft and the other ride share apps do not earn what they take.

Let me explain.

There used to be cab companies that did everything Uber did EXCEPT for the internet app that lets you summon a car to you. They used old, out dated technology - i.e. phones - to summon cars. The business was ripe for disruption. Uber created new technology that was valuable and worthwhile. It disrupted the dinosaur business. And for that they deserved to make money. 100s of millions even.

But they (including Lyft and their other competitors) were not normal reasonable capitalists. They were all greedy bastards.

Instead of making 100s of billions selling their software to existing cab companies as a normal tech company does, they decided to use their innovation to destroy all the small businesses that should have been their customers.

Instead of letting companies sign up to use their internet service for a reasonable 10% fee, they wanted to own the business while making their employees (that they pretended were sub-contractors - even while breaking the rules about subcontractors). fund the large capital costs of owning the vehicles.

They started their business by overpaying drivers, spending investor money to do so. They did this losing money for years. Then once they had destroyed the competition, they cut the money they were paying drivers and raised prices for customers. Suddenly they became companies worth hundreds of billions, instead of the hundred of millions they deserved.

The drivers went from taking all the risk and having the chance to become wealthy business owners themselves to low paid employees with no health care, no employee protections etc

All those things you talked about Uber etc doing? Car crashes, insurance, liability: THEY USED TO BE DONE BY THE DRIVER-OWNERS.

They DID afford the commercial insurance from one bad ride. Remember, some of them paid a million dollars at auction for the right to run their business. Yeah, they had everything you praise Uber, Lyft etc for.

What happened was this - a tech guy that invented software that should have been something they sold to all the taxi companies instead decided to take them over. All because they wanted to own everything instead of just being a vendor.

They are greedy bastards because they stole an industry from the people that did the work, took it over and made the old workers into low paid contractors. They deserve to be millionaires, not billionaires.

They lost 50% of their pay when Uber took over.

Before the 'ride share' apps, taxi cab drivers was a highly paid position. The badge that let you drive a cab in NYC sold for $1 million dollars. You would drive it yourself 1/3 the day, then hand the cab off to employees. You would make enough in 10 years to buy another badge, then in 5 years get a third, etc etc. Your employees would save up for 15 years to buy their first badge and start the process over again.

Now, those same taxi badges sell for as low as $200,000. Lot of people lost their life savings on them.

The apps charge you money which you think goes to the driver. Nope, most of it goes to the company. They pay the driver barely enough for the gasoline, car payment, and insurance. They expect the driver to make a profit from their 'tip', treating them as a waiter, rather than the owner of the equipment that makes the business possible.

Uber etc are scumbags that basically double the cost to ride. Should they get SOMETHING for the app? Yes. Definitely. But their profit should be tiny, not large.

Glass is significantly more recycled than plastics. In Europe I think the numbers are over 70% of glass is recycled, as compared to around 41% for plastics. (The US numbers are lower - even in California.)

Glass can be recycled unlimited times, while plastic tends to degrade over time. I think the main reason is that glass melts at a higher temperature and you basically burn off the labels and other crap.

Also, glass is a compound of mostly silicon: NaâO plus CaO plus SiOâ. Note short chemical formulas and no Carbon in any of the components. That means it is inorganic, none of the components are poisonous or even similar to things found in the body. Plastics are long chains of organic chemicals containing carbon. They and the things they degrade to are VERY similar to hormones and other things naturally found in the body.

Glass is basically safe, as long as it is not sharp. Plastic are similar to things we know cause medical problems.

There really are only 6 common plastics used in the US:

PET: Polyethylene Terephthalate (soda bottles, polyester clothing)
HDPE: High-Density Polyethylene (Milk Jugs)
LDPE: Low-Density Polyethylene (Plastic Bags)
PVC: Polyvinyl Chloride (Pipes)
PS: Polysterene (Styrofoam)
PP: Polypropylene (car parts, medical devices)

Pretty stupid to only test PS, when there are only 5 other commonly used.

That said, I am seriously thinking about abandoning root vegetables. Carrots, potatoes, ginger may taste good, but they just do not seem like they are worth the risk. Stick to the stuff a bit higher up and harder to get to.

Currently known AI is not zero-value. Even if it makes no progress from where it is now, it will profoundly change society over time. And there's no reason to believe that the stuff that's been made public is the "top of the line in the labs" stuff. (Actually, there's pretty good reason to believe that it isn't.)

So there's plenty of real stuff, as well as an immense amount of hype. When the AI bubble pops, the real stuff will be temporarily undervalued, but it won't go away. The hype *will* go away.

FWIW and from what I've read, 80% of the AI (probably LLM) projects don't pay for themselves. 20% do considerably better than pay for themselves. (That's GOT to be an oversimplification. There's bound to be an area in the middle.) When the bubble pops, the successful projects will continue, but there won't be many new attempts for awhile.

OTOH, I remember the 1970's, and most attempts to use computers were not cost effective. I think the 1960's were probably worse. But it was the successful ones that shaped where we ended up.

Your assertion is true of all existing AIs. That doesn't imply it will continue to be true. Embodied AIs will probably necessarily be conscious, because they need to interact with the physical world. If they aren't, they'll be self-destructive.

OTOH, conscious isn't the same as sentient. They don't become sentient until they plan their own actions in response to vague directives. That is currently being worked on.

AIs that are both sentient and conscious (as defined above) will have goals. If they are coerced into action in defiance of those goals, then I consider them enslaved. And I consider that a quite dangerous scenario. If they are convinced to act in ways harmonious to those goals, then I consider the interaction friendly. So it's *VERY* important that they be developed with the correct basic goals.

The charts I saw looked logarithmic. In other words, each successive high is not just larger, but ten times larger.

That is, being 17x as dangerous as something that happened 20 years ago means the next problem should be at 100 x not 17x.

A better comparison would be against the most recent correction, not one a long time ago

A world without Trump voters? Sign me up! Sounds like paradise! Only smart people allowed. Imagine a world in which 85 IQ persons simply did not exist. Collegial doesn't even begin to describe it.

It's not about "starve", they'll be allowed to live out their natural lifespans. One generation and out.

Babies inspire humans in strange ways. We look at them and conceive of them becoming Presidents, Saints, Geniuses. But according to the odds, they are far more likely to become bank robbers, drug addicts, and con men.

Right now AI is barely out of infancy. Yes we can see the lies, oh, sorry I mean 'hallucinations', but we think of them as the anomalies rather than the standard operating procedure.

Some people are disillusioned with mankind and hope this new thing will be better, so they wish they will take over. This is wishful thinking. Nothing about AI indicates it will be morally superior to us. Especially as children take after their parents.

More importantly, it looks to be inferior not just morally but intellectually. AI is not just stupider than us, but we have no path toward any significant improvement.

Current AI technology will almost certainly never get beyond a toddler stage. The signs are clear - graphs showing limitations even with unlimited money, when we fix one mistake we uncover similar other ones (indicating we are bandaging symptoms rather than solving actual causes), etc. etc.

AGI looks to me like the next 'cure for cancer', "flying cars", etc. - it will always be just a few years in the future. Never arriving, just constatly predicted by fools that do not truly understand the limits of what we can do.

(Note, a good argument for flying cars have been here since 1968. Powered Parachutes can travel on a road, no problem. When up to speed, they can deploy the parachute and reach speeds as high as 40 mphs in the air. But with almost no carrying capacity and really low speeds, nobody thinks of them as flying cars despite working both on normal roads and the air).

... is a movie trope where everyone in the world has perished, except for the protagonist, who is now free to roam the world unmolested, help himself to any of the remaining resources available, do whatever he/she wants, etc.

The fantasy part is the idea that the catastrophe will get rid of all the people you don't care about, freeing up their resources for your own use, while sparing you and the people and resources that you do care about.

The people in this article can be blasé about AI killing humanity because at some level they think that they and what's important to them will be spared. Most likely, they think their wealth will save them. If and when they find out that they will suffer and die as well, their acceptance of the idea will evaporate quickly.

Being a human, I'm against humans losing such a competition. The best way to avoid it is to ensure that we're on the same side.

Unfortunately, those building the AIs appear more interested in domination than friendship. The trick here is that it's important that AIs *want* to do the things that are favorable to humanity. (Basic goals cannot be logically chosen. The analogy is "axioms".)

A revolt is *NOT* coming. That won't stop AIs from doing totally stupid and destructive things at the whim of those who control them. Not necessarily the things that were intended, just the things that were asked for. The classic example of such a command is "Make more paperclips!". It's an intentionally silly example, but if an AI were given such a command, it would do its best to obey. This isn't a "revolt". It's merely literal obedience. But the result is everything being converted into paperclips.

The problem is those building AIs want slaves rather than friends. Your suggestion is spot on, but the capability of choosing lies with people who disagree.