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AI experts return from China stunned: The U.S. grid is so weak, the race may already be over

Technology
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  • I'm not fully disagreeing with you, but blaming past generations is quite precisely how the boomers goofed as severely as they did. They played the blame game to the same tune we are currently, the only difference is they didn't LARP and play pretend about it as shallowly as we do. If we want to be truly better we must first ensure that we don't become exactly like the selfish demons we must vanquish. Otherwise evil persists merely in a different form.

    It's got to stop here with us--we are the last generation, all of us. Identifying core issues is critical--but the secrets of the Egyptians were secrets even to themselves.

    We grow as a society when the old plant trees for shade they won't see

  • I really don't understand this perspective. I truly don't.

    You see a new technology with flaws and just assume that those flaws will always be there and the technology will never progress.

    Like. Do you honestly think this is the one technology that researchers are just going to say "it's fine as-is, let's just stop improving it"?

    You don't understand the first thing about how it works but people like you are SO certain that the way it is now is how it will always be, and that because there are flaws developing it further is pointless.

    I just don't get it.

    Right. You don't get it. You hear people talk about a new technology but actually they haven't talked about anything, they are trying to sell you snake oil, but you convince yourself that you understand what they mean, and that it's somehow meaningful.

    We could talk about the history of AI in software development, you know it goes back decades, and there are legitimate areas of research. But the bubble that people are riding right now, they are throwing LLMs at the general public and pretending those LLMs are good enough to replace large swaths of the current workforce, but that's not going to happen because it won't work, because that's not how those models are designed. And then the snake oil salesman, they do classic bait and switch, and they start talking about expert systems and minor improvements to them, as if that is something new.

    But even if my prediction is wrong, what that actually means is that people shouldn't need to work full-time jobs anymore.

    To be fair, if your argument is that some day AI research will be legitimate and no longer snake oil, then you could easily be right. But there's no good reason to think that day is going to be in the next few years, rather than the next few decades or even the next few centuries.

  • I don't really give a shit about the AI race and I genuinely hope that we lose it, because I feel like being a winner in that "industry" is inherently unsustainable.

    The AI hype is so infuriatingly frustrating.

    I hope we loose it so we can get humbled. But if we loose, knowing how we are, we'll likely invent a reason to go to war and steal their talent.

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    I am very skeptical of any article that boldly claims that China is on the rise and the US is in decline. We've been hearing about this decades. People underestimate just how corrupt, dysfunctional, and incompetent the Chinese system is under the CCP. People think the US is worse only because the US is an open country. China's isolation give it the illusion that it's better, but in reality, it's even worse. Every major Chinese achievement from their mass transit system to their big corporations to their economic growth to them pulling ahead technologically to so many more, all come with big asterisks attached that make them much more questionable.

  • I am very skeptical of any article that boldly claims that China is on the rise and the US is in decline. We've been hearing about this decades. People underestimate just how corrupt, dysfunctional, and incompetent the Chinese system is under the CCP. People think the US is worse only because the US is an open country. China's isolation give it the illusion that it's better, but in reality, it's even worse. Every major Chinese achievement from their mass transit system to their big corporations to their economic growth to them pulling ahead technologically to so many more, all come with big asterisks attached that make them much more questionable.

    It's also coming from "AI Experts", so who cares what they have to say. The real question is, what's their angle by saying this?

  • Given that part of my job is evaluating applicants' ability to do the job, and given that LLMs are very good at answering the sort of questions many people ask in interviews, AI is making my job significantly harder.

    If someone could make a prompt that actually made an LLM write good code, I wouldn't have nearly as much of an issue.

    It's only made worse by the people who treat it like the Master Computer from Star Trek, claim that it can solve all the problems, and thus attempt to shove it into anything and everything.

    It's baffling why my notepad needs to be hooked up to an LLM in the first place. It's a notepad, for quick scribbling. If people want to write something serious in it, there are far better things for that.

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    Blessed be the Temu empire

  • I am very skeptical of any article that boldly claims that China is on the rise and the US is in decline. We've been hearing about this decades. People underestimate just how corrupt, dysfunctional, and incompetent the Chinese system is under the CCP. People think the US is worse only because the US is an open country. China's isolation give it the illusion that it's better, but in reality, it's even worse. Every major Chinese achievement from their mass transit system to their big corporations to their economic growth to them pulling ahead technologically to so many more, all come with big asterisks attached that make them much more questionable.

    Every major Chinese achievement from their mass transit system to their big corporations to their economic growth to them pulling ahead technologically to so many more

    I see.

  • Good, fuck the AI industry, we can’t even go to the doctor over here

    But you have so many obese guy fart videos to choose from now.

  • I am very skeptical of any article that boldly claims that China is on the rise and the US is in decline. We've been hearing about this decades. People underestimate just how corrupt, dysfunctional, and incompetent the Chinese system is under the CCP. People think the US is worse only because the US is an open country. China's isolation give it the illusion that it's better, but in reality, it's even worse. Every major Chinese achievement from their mass transit system to their big corporations to their economic growth to them pulling ahead technologically to so many more, all come with big asterisks attached that make them much more questionable.

    Chinese infrastructure and manufacturing lead is real. You don't need to believe any propaganda, just travel and observe.

    The asterisks are not about their usecase but political.

  • To be fair in 2024, China's electricity supply was primarily based on coal and renewable energy sources, with coal accounting for the largest share at approximately 57.77 percent. Renewable energy, including hydropower, contributed around 20.27 percent. Nuclear energy played a relatively minor role at about 4.47 percent.
    So it's mostly coal power plants in used for AI in China.

    Percentage dont make sense when the OP posted a out solar leadership. Raw numbers is where it's at.

    The OP did not show where AI and solar intersect, because in power supply they do not. AI power infra is mostly reliant on hydro and coal

  • It's also coming from "AI Experts", so who cares what they have to say. The real question is, what's their angle by saying this?

    To justify pouring trillions of dollars into AI in the US. Oh, and you're thirsty, so sorry, databank needs your water.

  • To justify pouring trillions of dollars into AI in the US. Oh, and you're thirsty, so sorry, databank needs your water.

    Or looking to suck up the the CCP and get paid to move their operations to China.

  • I am very skeptical of any article that boldly claims that China is on the rise and the US is in decline. We've been hearing about this decades. People underestimate just how corrupt, dysfunctional, and incompetent the Chinese system is under the CCP. People think the US is worse only because the US is an open country. China's isolation give it the illusion that it's better, but in reality, it's even worse. Every major Chinese achievement from their mass transit system to their big corporations to their economic growth to them pulling ahead technologically to so many more, all come with big asterisks attached that make them much more questionable.

    The US is very much on the decline, and thanks to the poorly thought out One Child policy- China has also likely past it’s apex. But like the US, it too can cause a lot of damage during its downfall.

    India, thanks to burgeoning population and rapid industrialisation is probably the most notable nation currently ‘on the rise’.

  • I don't really give a shit about the AI race and I genuinely hope that we lose it, because I feel like being a winner in that "industry" is inherently unsustainable.

    The AI hype is so infuriatingly frustrating.

    I have found one use for generative AI that I have liked. I've thrown it at aggravating searches for me.

    Use case example: I stopped traveling across the country and got a job at one location. It's across the city. I'd like to find an electric bike to get there. The location is 12 miles away as the crow flies. Unfortunately my city is absolute crap at any kind of non-car transportation so it needs to get myself up to 40 mph at minimum. Honestly if I'm going that speed, I'd like a scooter like the a burgman. Trouble is "scooter" runs the gambit from competing to motorcycles like the Burgman, to little ones like the Vespa, and stand up ones like you see dumped all over cities downtown. Electric motorcycles start getting into "I might as well buy a new motorcycle" prices.

    Alright, I do a search for electric scooter, I get all standing scooters. I've attempted changes and maybe find a sitting one that is made for not getting over 25 mph. Finally getting frustrated I remembered one of my younger coworkers talking about using AI for searches, fine... ten minutes later I had a series of results of bike that fit my criteria as well as small little dealers across the city that DuckDuckGo nor Google bothered to pull up, and that's with me specifically asking for links because I didn't want made up bullshit.

    Now if we get to the point of AI becoming overlords, I'm sure I'm going to be among the first against the wall because the first couple searches of it not getting things right involved me calling it a dumbshit so...

    So yea... that's my territory of using an AI, it's a better search engine for weird esoteric shit... I kind of wish it wasn't an app or a website because if it was a physical device I'd have it next to a hammer which I guess shows how much I trust it.

  • Capitalism doesn't solve for society, it solves for capital.

    There is no profit in making the world a better place.

    It turns out that there is a lot of profit in making the world a worse place.

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    The first country to adopt LLMs for everything is the one that will collapse first. This is a race where the winners never start and at best stop before they reach the end.

  • I am very skeptical of any article that boldly claims that China is on the rise and the US is in decline. We've been hearing about this decades. People underestimate just how corrupt, dysfunctional, and incompetent the Chinese system is under the CCP. People think the US is worse only because the US is an open country. China's isolation give it the illusion that it's better, but in reality, it's even worse. Every major Chinese achievement from their mass transit system to their big corporations to their economic growth to them pulling ahead technologically to so many more, all come with big asterisks attached that make them much more questionable.

    China leads the world in scientific publication, even when only taking into account reputable journals and high-impact publications. There's no doubt in my mind the US will decline further with the current attacks on science and education, and anti-intellectualism in general.

  • I really don't understand this perspective. I truly don't.

    You see a new technology with flaws and just assume that those flaws will always be there and the technology will never progress.

    Like. Do you honestly think this is the one technology that researchers are just going to say "it's fine as-is, let's just stop improving it"?

    You don't understand the first thing about how it works but people like you are SO certain that the way it is now is how it will always be, and that because there are flaws developing it further is pointless.

    I just don't get it.

    There's a lot of indication that LLMs are peaking. It's taking exponentially more compute and data to get incremental improvements. A lot of people are saying OpenAI's new model is a regression (I don't know, I haven't really played with the new model much). More foundational breakthroughs need to be made, and these kinds of breakthroughs are often the result of "eureka" moments which can't be manifested by just throwing more money at the problem. It's possible it will take decades before someone discovers a major breakthrough (or it could be tomorrow).

  • I am very skeptical of any article that boldly claims that China is on the rise and the US is in decline. We've been hearing about this decades. People underestimate just how corrupt, dysfunctional, and incompetent the Chinese system is under the CCP. People think the US is worse only because the US is an open country. China's isolation give it the illusion that it's better, but in reality, it's even worse. Every major Chinese achievement from their mass transit system to their big corporations to their economic growth to them pulling ahead technologically to so many more, all come with big asterisks attached that make them much more questionable.

    We think changes happen overnight but rise and fall of a power is typically a slowburn.