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Lugh, lugh@futurology.today
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Posts and Comments by Lugh, lugh@futurology.today
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Comments by Lugh, lugh@futurology.today
This is entirely expected and a foreshadowing of a world to come. Prediction? When robo-taxis are everywhere they’ll be a target, too. Driving jobs are one of the last refuges in our economy to earn money when people are out of other options.
The French were smart to keep all their military tech home-produced, and not rely on anything American. All of Europe (& Canada & S American countries, too) needs to do the same.
Nothing wrong with making money off open-source if you are adding some value. What I question here is the investors pouring hundreds of billions into closed-source AI. If free open-source is almost as good - how do you expect to get your money back?
I don’t know how much China wants to be a global “leader”, but OP is correct, the opportunity is there for the taking.
It was foolish of Western countries to outsource their industrial bases to where wages were cheaper. That said, those jobs are going to disappear due to robots/AI, even in China & we’ll be moving on to a different type of economic system anyway, whether we like it or not.
Before that happens, there are benefits to this world of China-dominated manufacturing, too. We can see it most clearly in renewables & EVs, but I think it will happen with robotics as well.
China will make humanoid robots cheap. I’m sure there’ll be expensive luxury models, too. But like all other electronics, the vast majority will be cheaper ‘almost as good’ models. How cheap? China can already make them for $5,000 or so. I’d guess in the 2030s, a few cheaper humanoid robots will be the price of the cheaper car models.
So, simultaneously with robots making human workers obsolete, they will also be giving us all our own personal workers, too.
Yes, it should be 1.5 MW. I corrected the headline.
"The polymer solar cell is able to retain 97% of its performance after 2,000 hours in air. By blending small-molecule acceptors into polymeric matrices, the research team improved molecular packing, enhancing both stability and charge transport for “ultra-stable” flexible devices.
It will be interesting to see if & how quickly this can be translated into commercially available solar tech. If this isn’t a final breakthrough for polymer solar, it’s certainly bringing it one step closer.
This is why solar energy will conquer the world, and all the other energy options are dead men walking. It’s already the cheapest energy source in most of the world in 2026, and it will be an order of magnitude cheaper when next-gen solar tech like this comes online.
Another consequence of polymer solar tech? It is vastly easier to manufacture. China will lose a structural advantage there. By the 2030s, poorer parts of the world could be churning this stuff out at a massive scale and for a small cost. A hopeful vision for the future.
I think its not built as much because solar/wind are simpler & cheaper. Hydro needs the right elevation/water flow/geography. Its disruptive to ecosystems & human habitation & it has huge up-front costs. Yes, its great sometimes, but maybe not as often as we might think.
The Petrostates were already facing the prospect of fossil fuels’ decline before the 2026 war started; now, events may accelerate fossil fuels’ decline. Iran may have many times more cheap drones and missiles than the expensive systems the US, Israel & Gulf states need to neutralize them. At $20-50k each, it can build 5,000 or so per $100 million and has been preparing for years. Soon, when those expensive defences run out, 20% of the world’s fossil fuel production may be at Iran’s mercy and defenceless from its drones and missiles.
The rest of the world may be forced to adapt to a world of permanent high oil & LNG prices. Unlike the last time this happened in the 1970s, this time there is an alternative. Renewables, batteries, and EVs were already cheaper before the 2026 Middle East War; they will be vastly cheaper as it goes on. Iran may have enough cheap missiles to last months, or possibly years. By the time they run out, the Gulf states may find the rest of the world has adapted away from needing them so much.
This is an interesting piece of research that has been doing the rounds. It speculates about the financial effects of AI displacing workers. In essence, what happens when AI-induced unemployment and wage reduction lead to reduced demand in the economy, even as AI makes sectors more productive.
This kind of speculation is nothing new; people have been wondering about this scenario for years. What interests me about this particular piece of research is the reaction to it. Predictably, Big Tech’s defenders have come out criticizing it, yet all around us are the signs that it’s coming true.
Sure, I changed it to Time, who I think did the original reporting.
Open source AI is the equal of anything investors are pouring hundreds of billions into. You can have its expertise for free. Soon, that expertise will do the work any lawyer or doctor can do. Everyone on planet Earth will be able to have that for free.
It strikes me the author has it right on AI tending towards abundance.
This article feel AI written.
I see a lot of people getting AI to rewrite their writing for ‘polish’, which might be what is happening here. However, looking at the totality of their thought across their other articles, it definitely feels like this originates from a human.
China has a well developed plan for Space stretching out into the 2050s and beyond, and sticks to it.
Every new US administration chops & changes with NASA. That’s how its ended up with its current nonsensical half Artemis/half-Space X plans for the Moon that are destined to fail.
Fingers crossed that ‘third time is a charm’ for ispace & they succeed with Hakuto-R Mission 3.
The US government has moved closer to establishing an autonomous, self-governing libertarian enclave for Big Tech within San Francisco.
Once a military base and these days a public park, Presidio is 1,500 acres of federal land within San Francisco’s city limits. Fans of the Freedom City concept have long eyed it as a location. In March 2023, President Trump made that a campaign promise. Today, he started to make good on that promise by firing all the board members of the trust that runs it.
This is entirely expected and a foreshadowing of a world to come. Prediction? When robo-taxis are everywhere they’ll be a target, too. Driving jobs are one of the last refuges in our economy to earn money when people are out of other options.
Gen Z workers are so fearful AI will take their job they’re intentionally sabotaging their company’s AI rollout. (fortune.com)
In a first-of-its-kind study, researchers show that self-organized living cellular robots can develop functional nervous systems, enabling complex movement and distinct gene expression. (wyss.harvard.edu)
utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
The French were smart to keep all their military tech home-produced, and not rely on anything American. All of Europe (& Canada & S American countries, too) needs to do the same.
A clinical trial is set to put ‘partial reprogramming’, an experimental treatment that uses targeted protein expression to reverse cellular ageing to the test in people for the first time. (nature.com)
"In 2006, Shinya Yamanaka, a stem-cell biologist then at Kyoto University in Japan, and his colleague discovered that four proteins known as transcription factors — later dubbed Yamanaka factors — could transform an adult cell into an induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cell that is capable of taking on new identities."
10 AI Experts Predict What Agents Will Look Like by 2030. (octopodas.com)
The 99% success rate of the Robotic company Generalist's GEN-1 model shows us that humanoid robots are progressing faster than most people expect. (arstechnica.com)
"With GEN-1, though, Generalist says its physical models have reached a GPT-3-style inflection point, where some tasks are starting to “cross the level of performance needed to be deployed in economically useful settings.”
New startup R3 Bio aims to develop "non-sentient" human clones to serve as full-body replacements for organ and tissue rejuvenation. (technologyreview.com)
Europe set 2030 as a date to dismantle its reliance on US financial infrastructure like Visa/Mastercard payments; it's happening far quicker. (europeanbusinessmagazine.com)
Now that the US sees the EU as a potential enemy, Europe has moved to ensure its financial system can never be sanctioned or shut down; something the US has done to Russia, Cuba, and Iran.
China’s solar/wind power generation now exceeds all U.S. household and industrial electricity consumption, and this cheap electricity is directly facilitating its global industrial dominance. (rhg.com)
As the Middle East War continues, with fuel rationing & $200/barrel oil likely ahead, it feels like history will look back at this moment as a definitive ending of the Fossil Fuel Age. People will still be using oil, gas, and coal for decades to come, but in constantly declining amounts. But something more fundamental has changed.
Google just set a 2029 deadline to migrate to quantum-safe encryption, years ahead of government targets, citing the risk that encrypted data is already being collected for future decryption. (blog.google)
Nothing wrong with making money off open-source if you are adding some value. What I question here is the investors pouring hundreds of billions into closed-source AI. If free open-source is almost as good - how do you expect to get your money back?
$2.3 billion funded Cursor, admits its new coding model was built on top of Moonshot AI’s Open-Source Kimi. (techcrunch.com)
I don’t know how much China wants to be a global “leader”, but OP is correct, the opportunity is there for the taking.
A blueprint for Chinese global leadership: With the US destroying its own credibility, the opportunity is Beijing’s for the taking (archive.ph)
Inside the stealthy startup that pitched brainless human clones: The ultimate plan to live forever is a brand new body. (technologyreview.com)
Despite Ukraine demonstrating that cheap drones are the future of warfare, 2026's wars show some people still haven't got the message. (archive.ph)
"The Russians had lost an estimated 3,000 tanks in the previous year, along with 9,000 armored vehicles, 13,000 artillery systems, and more than 400 air-defense systems, Cavoli said in written testimony. The main weapon that the Ukrainians had used to inflict this damage was the suicide drone, which costs about $400 to make……………….“It’s Ukrainian housewives,” Papperger (CEO Rheinmetall, Germany’s biggest arms manufacturer) said of their factories. “They have 3-D printers in the kitchen, and they produce parts for drones,” he said. “This is not innovation.”
China Is Rapidly Overtaking the United States as the World’s Scientific Superpower (futurism.com)
Social media is populist and polarising; AI may be the opposite: Large language models elevate expert consensus and moderate views, in sharp contrast to social platforms. (archive.ph)