Lugh

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[–] Lugh@futurology.today 1 points 43 seconds ago

Yes, and there is also the possibility that it could be upon us quite suddenly. It may just take one fundamental breakthrough to make the leap from what we have currently to AGI, and once that breakthrough is achieved, AGI could arrive quite quickly. It may not be a linear process of improvement, where we reach the summit in many years.

 

People often complain about lab breakthroughs going nowhere in the real world. That makes CATL's claims for its Naxtra sodium-ion batteries interesting. CATL is the world's biggest battery maker. If anyone can bring a product to market, it can.

Current lithium-ion battery pack prices are around $100-150/kWh. CATL says one day sodium-ion batteries could cost just $10/kWh. That would require a lot to go right, and massive economies of scale. But that has worked for lithium batteries, and CATL has the heft to make economies of scale plausible.

If fossil fuels and nuclear energy are already feeling the heat from renewables plus lithium being cheaper, renewables plus sodium-ion batteries at $10/kWh would be an annihilation event for other energy sources. They could also usher in an age of micro-grids and decentralized energy, reducing reliance on big business, autocratic countries, and large corporations. Fingers crossed it happens soon.

CATL’s sodium-ion EV battery passes China’s new certification with 15-minute fast-charging capability

 

I wonder how close the day is when we will have cheapish ( $20k, or so) humanoid robots capable of most unskilled or semi-skilled work? I'd guess 2030, or so. This new training approach confirms that the guess is on track to be right.

Significant too that they used Unitree's G1 model. It retails for less than $20k. When these robots capable of most work arrive, they won't be expensive. They'll work 24/7 for a fraction of the cost of a minimum wage human employee.

Dealing with this, by reorganizing our economic system, is likely to be the main political issue in developed nations in the 2030s.

HumanoidExo Turns Human Motion Into Data That Teaches Robots to Walk

 

European & US car makers seem to be in retreat. European car makers are lobbying the EU to relax laws pressuring them to hurry the transition to EVs. The current US administration wants to pretend the switch to EVs isn't happening, and gasoline will go on forever. This stance will doom the country's car industry on the global stage, and eventually at home, too.

Some people complain about Chinese manufacturing dominance through shady and unfair practices, but they won't be able to when China owns the global car-making industry in the 2030s. All the warning signs were clearly signposted, and willingly ignored.

Top 20 Table by CleanTechnica

 

The French government is in turmoil. There have been 5 different Prime Ministers since 2024, the most recent one resigning a few weeks into the job. All have left for the same reason. The French state is becoming ever more indebted paying for its citizens' welfare entitlements, but politicians cannot bring themselves to cut them or tax more. Now the country is close to a debt crisis, with spiralling interest payments.

The situation in France is acute, but other developed nations like the US, Japan, and Britain are also close to the same crisis, and for the same reasons. It's a structural demographic shift. The ageing of populations across the developed world is no longer a distant challenge. It is now a live crisis, and its financial, political, and social effects are beginning to cascade. Existing solutions to this problem - like mass immigration - have run their course.

A Debt Jubilee is the cancellation of all debts of a certain class, and they've been carried out many times in history, going back to ancient times. Is it an idea that is due for a revival?

1. France, the Ageing Population, and the Future of State Viability…

2. Reducing Debt via a Modern Debt Jubilee

[–] Lugh@futurology.today 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Manna need to get quieter drones. People who live beside their base of operation don't like the noise & disturbance.

[–] Lugh@futurology.today 3 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Also, if you're reasonably smart and self-motivated the 21st century world abounds with the materials to let you learn much of what you would in college. Not specialized learning maybe, but for generalized learning, yes.

https://www.openculture.com/freeonlinecourses

[–] Lugh@futurology.today 5 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

An Irish drone delivery company Manna has been getting lots of complaints, apparently its not much fun living beside its base of operations.

https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2025/0820/1529313-drone-planning-dublin/

[–] Lugh@futurology.today 2 points 1 month ago (7 children)

Won't there be insurance for this?

If companies like FedEx can bear the cost of liabilities for huge numbers of human drivers, doesn't that suggest the burden will be far less for robo-vehicle car companies?

[–] Lugh@futurology.today 6 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Caveat - China Daily is owned and operated by the Chinese government/CCP. But the article is interesting in itself, and its official endorsement is interesting, too.

[–] Lugh@futurology.today 9 points 1 month ago (3 children)

I'm still surprised at the rate LLMs make simple mistakes. I was recently using ChatGPT to research biographical details about James Joyce's life, and it gave me several basic facts (places he lived & was educated at) at variance with what is clearly stated in the Wikipedia article about him.

[–] Lugh@futurology.today 1 points 1 month ago

I wonder will the US & EU bifurcate on AI adoption for government and administration, with the EU opting for open-source?

US models don't seem interested in complying with EU law like the AI Act or GDPR.

If so, 5 or 10 years down the line this could lead to very fundamental differences in how the two territories are governed. There may all sorts of unexpected effects arising from this.

[–] Lugh@futurology.today 5 points 1 month ago

The person making this claim, Miles Brundage, has a distinguished background in AI policy research, including being head of Policy Research at OpenAI from 2018 to 24. Which is all the more reason to ask skeptical questions about claims like this.

What economists agree with this claim? (Where are citations/sources to back this claim?)

How will it come about politically? (Some countries are so polarised, they seem they'd prefer a civil war to anything as left-wing as UBI).

What would inflation be like if everyone had $10K UBI? (Would eggs be $1,000 a dozen?)

All the same, I'm glad he's at least brave enough to seriously face what most won't. It's just such a shame, as economists won't face this, we're left to deal with source-light discussion that doesn't rise much above anecdotes and opinions.

Former OpenAI researcher says a $10,000 monthly UBI will be 'feasible' with AI-enabled growth

[–] Lugh@futurology.today 16 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

its eligibility criteria to those with Italian parents or grandparents.

That's the existing criteria for Irish passports. I'd guess the number of Americans with one grandparent born in Ireland or Italy must run to 10s of millions.

[–] Lugh@futurology.today 5 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

In terms of advancing software, its extremely inefficient,

It amazes me how their BS on 'innovation' has infected broader culture and politics.

Look how little fundamental innovation there is in health, education and housing. All getting more expensive and out of reach.

[–] Lugh@futurology.today 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

Their hope seems to be to invent something proprietary and hypey that gets them bought up, not to actually build something functional.

They all seem to be chasing the dream of being unicorns (for the unintiated reading this, monopolist giants like Google/Meta, not magical horses).

Do American VCs even bother with start-ups who want to be small/medium sized firms, and have a solid case for making a few hundred million dollars every year?

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