my god how many stars had to align to make that joke. wish i could think of puns in my own response but even if i could they wouldn't match this. fucking bravo.
i'm probably going to come back to this in a few days and marvel at it again. JFC nicely done.
Not gonna read the article because IDGAF, but just the headline smacks of entitlement and profit motive.
People will learn to avoid this kind of shit and I hope they start emailing CEOs like this asshole to complain. And then STOP buying that company's products.
Is it still Monday morning? Why am I still crabby?
Desalination at any scale above miniscule is just creating new ecological disasters. I don’t know why we keep getting/seeing articles and projected plans to try it again and again. 🤦
Edit: getting down voted because people I guess didn’t want to read up on it themselves, so:
Dealing with the Brine is a two fold problem: it’s incredibly toxic and caustic, AND you have to run leeching/extraction treatment on it before putting it somewhere else.
You can’t just “put it back” in the ocean, because then you’re increasing the concentration of salinity and toxicity in a localized area and killing everything, and you almost certainly can’t store it as-is in a bunker like nuclear waste, because it’s also incredibly volatile. So, sure, you have some clean water now, but you’re just kicking the can down the road on dealing with the byproducts which have no practical use as of now. Almost worse than dealing with nuclear waste with all the extra steps involved.
Desalination at any scale above miniscule is just creating new ecological disasters
Why? The only ecological impact of desalination is concentrated brine, and that’s only an issue if you dump all of it into a single spot, creating a small local dead zone. If you put the resources into properly distributing the brine across a wide area, it’s literally a drop in the ocean. You’re using a tiny logistical issue easily solved with a bit of money as a reason to blackball an entire technology that could save the lives of millions of people.
Despite your edits, I don’t see anything in the linked articles that suggests brine cannot be diluted or dissipated.
You can’t just “put it back” in the ocean, because then you’re increasing the concentration of salinity and toxicity in a localized area and killing everything
Not sure why you’re still insisting on this after your edit, since as several commentors have pointed out there’s no reason for you to dump it in a single localised area. Toxins and heavy metals can also be extracted, and might even be done so profitably (according to your own links, in fact).
The only point you might have so far is Israel, since they are using a small lake as their source of water, and can’t reasonably dilute the brine. However, with seawater desalination none of these issues apply.
Seawater desalination can have this Problem too, if they are not continously discharging polluted brine, I.e. run a batch process. I believe some japanese build desalinator is doing the sensible continous discharge, but cant be fucked to Google right now.
Then you didn’t read enough. Israel has the largest Desal operation in the world with their combined facilities, and they’ve still managed to cause issues every operating year for a decade. Whether it be pipeline leaks, transport issues, or not controlling the byproducts well enough when they dilute it back to the ocean. It’s just not sustainable, and prone to error at every step.
Whether you think feasibility is enough in the “can we do this?” way is irrelevant. You just can’t use this type of system to solve the entire world’s issues, because eventually the intake vs output becomes unmanageable, and it’s basic math to figure that out. Storing this stuff in a mountain like we do with toxic waste has the same implications, and then you’re just adding to the pile for future generations to deal with. Same with air pollution, nuclear waste, fertilizer runoff…etc.
Seriously, if people like you are what future generations are contending with in that this is “not my problem now, they’ll figure it out”, this planet is certainly fucking doomed.
Israel has the largest Desal operation in the world with their combined facilities, and they’ve still managed to cause issues every operating year for a decade. Whether it be pipeline leaks, transport issues, or not controlling the byproducts well enough when they dilute it back to the ocean.
What exactly does operational issues and equipment breakdown have to do with a technology being viable?
It’s just not sustainable, and prone to error at every step.
Pretty much everything in modern industrial processes are prone to error at every step. Somehow, we’ve figured out how to follow checklists and procedures and avoid blowing stuff up. Your statement implies incompetence among the operators more than anything else.
Storing this stuff in a mountain like we do with toxic waste has the same implications
Nobody has EVER suggested this, and you’ve set up a strawman argument out of thin air.
Seriously, if people like you are what future generations are contending with in that this is “not my problem now, they’ll figure it out”, this planet is certainly fucking doomed.
I’ve been pointing out how and why the technology can operate. You’ve been resorting to strawmen arguments and ad hominem attacks.
I “can” shit in the sink instead of my toilet. Of course it will eventually get down to the sewer.
I “should” shit in my toilet, for obvious reasons.
If your argument is that we “should” do something just because we “can”, you’re not thinking much of the world around you, or the rest of the population you affect with your actions.
I’d thank you not to mischaracterise my statements. I’ve been pointing out how and why the technology is sustainable, contrary to your claims. You are now merely resorting to puerile, kindergarten level arguments.
And yet, you’ve provided zero documentation or study backing up such claims, while I’ve provided plenty in the negative to yours. You can find way more if you just search for it instead of relying on your uninformed instincts and position because you don’t work in the field. Sorry, I wasn’t about to link every damn thing on the Internet proving my point. I thought four was enough.
Wikipedia is a topical resource. It’s not the real world, friend. My links are the real world, and the real implications of that. Every link explains the same problems I’ve mentioned, so that is evidence. Everyone sees this, so why don’t you?
Ah, we’ve moved on to the ‘Do your own research!’ phase. Complete with a helping of ‘If your conclusions don’t match mine, you didn’t research enough’.
Can we pretend we’ve progressed through all the various fallacies already, and call it here?
Did the research for you. Gave you journals and articles. I think we’re in the “I’m in denial phase” where you can’t process what you’ve been handed. Pretty sad considering how deep you’re willing to go in defense of this thing you seemingly know nothing about and are just learning about today.
Edit: brah, you’re on the same IP and downvoting me twice. Pathetic. Get a VPN at least.
Facilities can mitigate the environmental impact by, for example, mixing the brine with seawater before pumping it out, to dilute it. They might also take care to expel the byproduct where currents are strongest, thus dissipating the brine quicker. Inland, a plant might evaporate the water in pools and cart away the remaining salt.
The discharge can also contain precious elements like uranium. This might be enough incentive to turn desal brine from a noxious byproduct into a source of revenue. Or you might use evaporative pools inland to produce commercial road salt for deicing roads.
To me, it doesn’t sound as though brine disposal is an insurmountable problem.
Never said insurmountable, but if it’s so easy, why the world’s largest desal operation still having issues 10 years on? They’ve solved zero of the issues, and are just hoping there is a solution in the future. As we’ve learned with so many other solutions in the past, kicking the can down the road and hoping someone figures it out does not work.
Cause it ain’t 0 cost to implement a dispersal mechanism and without government incentive just dumping the brine straight in the ocean is more profitable.
You know the reason they wanna do this is make it hands off so they can ignore it. And it will work until the AI starts confidently giving people false advice and misinformation about what they need help with. If a human makes a mistake they can correct it. In a lot of cases with AI if it makes a mistake it will just double down. And if you have no human element to fact check it will just spiral downward while you ignore it. I just hope the AI starts telling people to cancel their services as the most effective way to solve their problems and they don’t even notice.
Isn’t there already a case where a llm assistant quoted a wrong price and the person sued when the company tried to go back on the offer. Maybe it was an airline, I can’t quite remember, but it stood up in court and the company had to honor it as far as I remember.
NASA really is stuck between a rock and a hard place when it comes to its lunar plans. Its SLS system is a disaster, but pork barrel politics means it can’t ditch it. So it lives on, zombie-like, to suck the life and money out of better options.
Meanwhile, it’s placed all its eggs in a SpaceX basket. That company is run by someone who routinely exaggerates timelines for delivery and fails to meet them. Guess what? It’s happening again. A commenter on the OP article sums up what SpaceX has to do before humans can go back to the Moon.
Re-light Starship engines
Achieve stable orbit
Dock with another Starship
Transfer propellant
Use transferred propellant
Dock with Orion and/or Dragon
Design a life support system for a volume much larger than Dragon
Re-light Starship engines, achieve stable orbit (they deliberately cut the engines just a few meters per second shy of it on IFT-3, there's no reason not to count it), and transfer propellant (one of IFT-3's test routines during its almost-orbit was transferring propellant between internal tanks).
Actually they did not succesfully relight the engines in space as planned, but they intentionally skipped the test due to vehicle conditions as opposed to it failing
They attempted to relight the booster, but only 1 of the 13 engines they wanted on actually started (2 others almost started but immediately failed). Their hope was to demonstrate in-space relight of the second stage engines, which is obviously a crucial demonstration for HLS and eventually going to the moon, but they never went for it. So far they have never demonstrated Raptor start in a vacuum and microgravity, which is a significantly different challenge to firing on the ground or even during re-entry as was the case for the booster due to propellant slosh and ullage considerations. In fact, we have seen them struggle with these issues in the earlier Starship solo tests, where the engines upon relight would eat backfill helium and eventually switch over to an engine-rich cycle :D. I’m sure they will figure it out but in space Raptor relights are far from the ‘same’ as what they have already done.
I suppose if you want to add "in microgravity" to that list item, then yeah, they haven't done that part yet. The list item just said "Re-light Starship engines", which they have indeed done many times in many circumstances. Just not that particular one yet.
There was a propellant transfer done during IFT-3's flight between internal tanks, too.
The list's not as big as it seems, several items are very closely related (there's three separate items for "design, build, and test a life support system" for example).
Even if the model stops here - did you imagine it’d get this far?
Humans do all their civilization brouhaha on three pounds of wet meat powered by corn flakes. Most of which evolved for marginal improvements on “grab branch and pull” or “do not pet tiger.” It’s a cosmic accident that’s given us language and music and dubstep. And this stupid trick with a pile of video cards can fake a lot of that, to the point we’re worried the average human will be able to spot the fakes.
Point being: the miraculous birth of a computer intellect may well arise from “the fact blender.” Or “fancy Wikipedia.” Or “twenty questions, hard mode.” Or any other stupid gimmick that some grad students can cobble together after a 4 AM what-if. Calling this hot mess “spicy autocorrect” is accurate, and in some sense damning, but we had no fucking idea where it’d stop. Emergent properties are chaos. Approximate knowledge of conditions cannot predict approximate outcomes.
LLMs are still liable to figure out math. That’s a process which gigabytes of linear algebra can obviously do, which would massively improve its ability to guess the next letter in a word problem. It won’t be the kind of AI you can explain calculus to, and then expect it to remember, next time - but getting any portion of the way there is deeply spooky.
People have been able to easily make their own TV and Movies since consumer-grade videotape cameras became affordable. When was the last time you willingly sat down and watched amateur direct-to-video media that wasn’t porn?
That’s missing the point. Yes, you could have made a version of Game of Thrones with a smartphone & your friends in costumes made from thrift store clothes, but there’s a reason everyone wants the one HBO spent a billion dollars to make. Now (or very soon) that advantage will disappear.
With generative video, such as Sora is demonstrating, everyone will be able to make the same standards as Hollywood. Its financial and skills clout won’t count for anything, or confer any advantages any more.
I don’t know how you figure an independent studio or individual will be able to keep pace with the likes of Hollywood or HBO. The premise is ridiculous. There’s more to it than good cameras, good microphones, and some minimal computer processing. There’s the story writing, script and dialogue, sound and sound engineering, sometimes CGI, the location and set that is immersive and complementary, and a slew of other stuff covered in the credits to contend with. Unless you think everyone on the planet is going to prefer blair witch style movies your future isn’t close by, it’s literally never coming.
Now you might say that AI can solve this problem, but unless you’ve got lots of people with the vision and ability to write unreasonably explicit prompts, that future is also way, way, WAY off and still improbable: consider how many pictures of people with hands and teeth there are and see how bad AI generations are. You can’t give 30 Marvel movies as training data and expect the next Ironman to emerge from your fanfic write up.
, sound and sound engineering, sometimes CGI, the location
If you look at Sora now, it seems obvious within a couple of years it will be able to produce TV and movies, indistinguishable from today’s human produced ones, entirely with AI. I’m sure good human storytelling will still command attention. However shows like “Game of Thrones” that HBO spent over a billion to make, will be able to be produced by AI alone.
I haven’t looked at sora but I hear good things. Even still though, as someone who works in AI, the outcome you get is only as good as the data you put in for training and there just isn’t enough yet. Even if there were, people are super sensitive to plot holes and inconsistencies. Though, you might be able to get Michael Bay to retire ;).
Problem I see here is not even in tech. Movies’ language is ridiculously controlled and intentional, up to the point you can tell who is the director or what influenced them. It comes in completely opposite direction to what LLMs are as a tool.
It’s demonstrated by endless remakes\sequels not holding any water, and these done by real people yet lacking many things that made originals stand out. LLMs can help you here and there, probably, but it’s not revolutionary to the industry. Even endless uninspired sitcoms can hardly be imitated with generative models. Especially with consistency.
Honestly, I’d suggest you to go ahead and try it yourself. Even a campy movie for friends and family or a simple musical clip requires a lot of effort. And even if you have all scenes at hand (by generating them?), editing can take days and decide if it’s good or a flop. That’s why some directors only work with familiar editors who they can trust with their movie. And there are many professions like that in the industry. You lose nothing and would probably get a fun hobby.
One thing: you can use your phone, but set focus to locking once you hit the rec button. Camera changing focus is the most annoying shit that can kill a good shot.
We know so little about how Sora works I’m reluctant to assume it will get better. It could be that it fundamentally isn’t easy to force it to render a specific person twice, for example. It definitely has a limitation with panning back to the same stuff.
Otherwise, yeah. I’m not sure why this is controversial. I guess most people here think only Americans can direct or edit? Like, statistically, there’s bound to be a Speilberg born in a slum somewhere.
“Early in the Reticulum-thousands of years ago-it became almost useless because it was cluttered with faulty, obsolete, or downright misleading information,” Sammann said.
“Crap, you once called it,” I reminded him.
“Yes-a technical term. So crap filtering became important. Businesses were built around it. Some of those businesses came up with a clever plan to make more money: they poisoned the well. They began to put crap on the Reticulum deliberately, forcing people to use their products to filter that crap back out. They created syndevs whose sole purpose was to spew crap into the Reticulum. But it had to be good crap.”
“What is good crap?” Arsibalt asked in a politely incredulous tone.
“Well, bad crap would be an unformatted document consisting of random letters. Good crap would be a beautifully typeset, well-written document that contained a hundred correct, verifiable sentences and one that was subtly false. It’s a lot harder to generate good crap. At first they had to hire humans to churn it out. They mostly did it by taking legitimate documents and inserting errors-swapping one name for another, say. But it didn’t really take off until the military got interested.”
“As a tactic for planting misinformation in the enemy’s reticules, you mean,” Osa said. “This I know about. You are referring to the Artificial Inanity programs of the mid-First Millennium A.R.”
On the bright side, my Google assistant understood me calling her a dumb fucking bitch after the 4th “I don’t understand” and apologized.
Also why are these fuckers not using ai for natural language processing? “Hey Google, turn the living room lights off and the bedroom lights on and change them to blue” should be simple to parse with an llm, but I have to say hey Google 3 times to accomplish that.
Probably an automated swarm tightly connected in a mesh network with either charging station they can fly to or mounted solar panels. Most will stay dormant, when one of the patrol drones spots an enemy, it will send a couple of the smaller kill drones to its location.
I’m guessing we might see some new camo roll out with a QR like codes embedded in them. That or maybe they will constantly blink ir lights using a code they change every week or so.
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