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Comment by wg0 | Hacker News Reader

The other few things possible in next few years for past few years are:

1. Fusion 2. Self driving cars. 3. Ubiquitous, generally available and stable 8192 bit quantum computers. 4. High energy density grid scale batteries.

Just few more "this maybe the... what could revolutionize..." articles away.

What we forget is that it is in these people's business interest (executives making such statements) to state the exaggerated version of a future which drives the investors of all levels to allocate funds under FOMO which pumps up share price which is the end goal anyway, through a breakthrough or without.

EDIT: Merged another comment to keep all in one place.

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I think we'll have full-blown AGI before fusion and before world-changing levels of quantum computing. Which is to say, we won't be around to see fusion and world-changing quantum :(

But there's still time for robo-taxis!

Or, more optimistically, AGI will accelerate scientific progress and we will have fusion, quantum computers, and self driving cars shortly after.

If AIs had the tendency to recursively devour worlds you would expect at least one alien AI to have conquered our galaxy by now. But the sky is quiet, so either we are the very first species to get this far, or there’s a natural ceiling to the pace of technological progress.

The directives that mandated eliminating its creators don't necessarily lead to interstellar conquest. Or more likely IMO, we're just too far apart and interstellar travel isn't feasible even for artificial super intelligence.

Here’s a paper that shows how a civilization could colonize the galaxy in under 300 million years:

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1902.04450.pdf

Here’s a YouTube visualization of the timeline:

https://youtu.be/hNMgtRf0GOg

What is the actual rate of intelligences per galaxy, not the simulated one? Galaxies are very far apart from each other.

>you would expect

There is no evidence that an actually existing thing like a Von Neumann probe can survive interstellar travel. I think that the answer to all of these paradoxes is that special relativity just makes it basically impossible. That’s anathema to us nerds, I know.

That’s a very thin argument to hang a Pandora’s Box opening on. It only needs to devour one planet, though we appear to be doing that ourselves too.

Why do we need the G to do any of these things? I assume non general intelligence should be further along, so shouldn’t this recursive self improvement happen before the general part?

They probably can't overcome the universal speed limit. Space is big.

A nearly omnipotent AI could probably get close to light speed, which would allow it to reach all edges of the galaxy in 100,000 or so years.

That's assuming the AI really wants to make a lot of paperclips though

I'd say a hallmark of an intelligent agent is knowledge seeking. You can only learn so much without venturing out into space.

There is a slight possibility that this is an unintelligent question, with humanity being ignorant as to why that's the case.

The universe we live in is only around 14 billion years old, which under the ideas of how long a universe could be around is actually a tiny immeasurably small blip on eternity. Before our universe started there was a vacuum metastability event somewhere that we at least assume had a nice even entropy. Again, that instability happened pretty damned recently...

So what if the first thing any super intelligence realizes is that at any moment our universe could have another such instability event? It's not going to work on exploring the vast distances of space... It's going to figure out if it can develop a plan to GTFO of here to a plain of reality that's more stable than this one.

There is evolution at work. Those who venture out will come to dominate the universe. Those who do not will be suffocated.

You may be onto something. AGI is one or two marketing campaigns away while fusion is hard science - difficult to fake.

The future is here, its just unevenly distributed. If you live in a specific collection of neighborhoods in San Francisco or Phoenix, robo taxis are already here.

Haha, I just read the other day on r/collapse that "Collapse (of the civilization) is already here, just not evenly distributed."

Good news is you're both right. Collapse is the future. :)

Honestly, I think robotaxis would have existed already by now, provided every vehicle is a robo-taxi. IIRC, robotaxis tend to perform smoothly in environments where they alone operate - I think Google proved that in some test concept many years before.

There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.

Fusion by 1990 with a bit of extra investment promised in 1972 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.175.4027.1194.b

I remember tons of articles from that time arguing the same. Then the attention shifted to "fifth-generation computers".

That is actually a really interesting find. Some of the verbiage is parallel to the hype we have around AGI right now too "fusion by 1990 instead of 2000..." does that not sound exactly like AGI in X year up from Y year that we read now?

Please see my reply to parent.

> "fusion by 1990 instead of 2000..." Those three dots are omitting the most important part of the issue if we spend that much extra money on R&D

In the fusion case no one was willing to spend the money, in AGI's case it looks like everyone seems to be willing to spend the money.

I personally hope they won't, but that is a crutial point not to be overlooked.

That wasn’t the case at all for fusion. It is that to be viable different scientific breakthroughs in particle physics, and lasers. Especially to the point where the demo recently showed the viability of it. If you read up on it you’ll see that there was a lot of important steps that lead up to the short demo that was achieved. That is my point though, if you read the article even after the ellipses it wasn’t a monetary issue.

I don't think this contradicts the AGI prediction though (nor the "Fusion by 1990 with a bit of extra investment" prediction for that matters)

https://external-preview.redd.it/LkKBNe1NW51Wh-8nLSTRdQtTha2...

This chart shows how much people in the 1970s estimated should be invested to have fusion by 1990, to have it by 2000s and to "never" have it. We ended up spending below the "never" amount for research over four decades so of course fusion never happened exactly as predicted.

I think the main difference is that no one was interested in investing in fusion back then, while everyone is interested in investing in AGI now.

In addition to the funding aspect, I think it could be argued that a fusion reactor is actually much harder than people thought it was in 1970.

We're not reading news, we're reading press releases. And to be honest I would have hoped for a healthier dose of skepticism from HN. Vaporware and hype are common things in software. Ship it, let me play with it, then we'll talk about it.

Grid scale energy storage is basically solved once you realize that hydrogen storage is an option already. It's in the same boat as when photovoltaics got very cheap, but skeptics continued to deny that possibility for some years afterwards.

>once you realize that hydrogen storage is an option already With unavoidable ~30% efficiency (or ~70%) energy loss, requiring an overcapacity factor of 2-3...

That's the same argument used against solar, that it is too inefficient. It's also greatly exaggerated, another thing it has in common with solar. Fuel cell systems are electrochemical systems and can be easily improved beyond that level. Especially with large facilities where waste heat can be recaptured and reused.

Isn't hydrogen extremely hard to store over a long period of time ? (Seasonal)

No. That is its strength.

Not sure when you last upgraded your pc.

Personally I'm running the latest roomtemp superconducting, 4Giqb quantum memristor computer. It even remotely drives my fusion-powered car over the quantum internet!

Don’t forget mentioning your new AI girlfriend

You cherry pick examples that fit a narrative.

Many things thought to be a distant dream have now become reality - cheap solar electricity, pocket computer for everyone, mRNA vaccine, affordable electric car with acceptable range, reusable rocket, satellite based broadband internet, image recognition, translation, and now generative AI.

Why didn’t we hear much about them from CEOs before they were available?

Also, which CEO promised fusion being available in the next few years? Or only wildly optimistic scientists?

I'll add another one: all trucks and cars will be electric in 10 years.

"A flying car in every garage…"

Don't see that happening. Electric cars are either a rich boy's toy or environmentalists or enthusiasts are into it.

Average Joe with concerns of practicality and longevity is sticking to ICEs for foreseeable future.

OTOH, Average Joe is mandating 50% electric cars by 2030 and 66% by 2032! It is going to be the battle of the Average Joes.

Nope.

I'd reformulate it like this: "Most new trucks and cars will be electric in 10 years"

The keywords being "most" and "new"

Just a point with #4.

Grid scale batteries don’t need to be “high energy density” like EVs. I would argue that cost is probably the biggest factor, and it’s already across the cost/benefit barrier in many markets.

This. It surprises me every time when battery or any "green" technology is discussed here and 90% of Americans keep parroting Trump's talking points. For example one of the comments above is talking about how EVs are just "a rich boy's toy".

In fairness EVs still are more expensive than petrol cars. I'm hoping this will change though

On average usage case Tesla Model 3 is already cheaper than Toyota Corolla. Chevy Bolt, while they still sell it, is even cheaper.

inb4: I only buy 20 year old cars for $500 and I want to drive 1000km without stopping while shitting in my pants.

We don’t all forget about incentives people might have in saying something; but we also don’t all assume that the first convenient explanation is adequate.

Numbers 1-4 obviously don’t have enormous recent progress nor the funding and mindshare poured into, and pouring in, as consequence.

were we ever promised high-speed (fiber) internet everywhere or was that always a pipe dream?

That's heavily dependent on where you live. We're getting high speed internet pretty much everywhere in France. It's a program full of controversies, but here I am in a 3k inhabitant village with a 10gbps connection for 40€ a month... (Yes, 10Gbps, I'm throttled by my gigabit ethernet)

If you can't get fiber here you get a subsidised 4G / 5G router for a very reasonable price.

don't forget room temperature super conductors

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