Recent comments in /f/Futurology

Iffykindofguy t1_jahgk3d wrote

Reply to comment by just-a-dreamer- in How can we trust AI development when we can't even keep viruses save in labs? by just-a-dreamer-

Of the American agencies 2/6 think it was a lab leak and both rate that as "low confidence", two thinks natural transmission is the cause and two havent said either way because they dont think there is enough evidence. You should note that the FBI is the LEAST LIKELY to know given their jurisdiction and focus.

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Iffykindofguy t1_jahgf4n wrote

Reply to comment by Clueless-Carl in How can we trust AI development when we can't even keep viruses save in labs? by just-a-dreamer-

No, its not quickly becoming the most likely scenario. Of the American agencies 2/6 think it was a lab leak and both rate that as "low confidence", two thinks natural transmission is the cause and two havent said either way because they dont think there is enough evidence. You should note that the FBI is the LEAST LIKELY to know given their jurisdiction and focus.

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Digflipz t1_jahg2ch wrote

Reply to How can we trust AI development when we can't even keep viruses save in labs? by just-a-dreamer-

AI's ability to release and become self-aware is enviable. Take the human aspect of greed/money and the context of war and harm to others which an AI would learn about but not have empathy. Very different problems in comparing human release and self release from AI. I think one of the big "search engine" companies reported lost or breached AI years ago. They also reported two AI that taught themselves a language not understood by humans and were "destroyed." Trust is something we need to tread lightly with AI because we are inferior to it even in its infancy when self-awareness occurs.

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just-a-dreamer- OP t1_jahfwna wrote

Reply to comment by Iffykindofguy in How can we trust AI development when we can't even keep viruses save in labs? by just-a-dreamer-

Up untill the FBI is coming out with a new analysis recently.

I don't suspect any crazy plan, just the usual. Somebody fucked up. Of all the places in China, the very city with an institute doing research on Covid viruses gets hit first.

What are the odds? Not some backward village province, right in vicinity of the lab.

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Lirdon t1_jahft2o wrote

Reply to How can we trust AI development when we can't even keep viruses save in labs? by just-a-dreamer-

The report that stipulated that COVID leaked from a lab was marked as low confidence. Just FYI.

Other than that, AI being developed today is selected for. I.E. it is optimized for a certain function. These AI are not general AI, ones that can select inputs from a variety of sources and after process start controlling external things. All these AI do is exactly what they are trained to do. A chat bot can only generate text, a image bot can only generate images, a driver AI can only do path recognition/selection for a car. An AI like that cannot rewrite itself to do other functions. So it is unlikely, at least from the process as it is now, that AI will need containment the same way viruses do.

Might that ever change? Possibly.

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AGVann t1_jaheld4 wrote

Reply to comment by Sumfuc in German scientists show a commercially feasible method for cyanobacteria to extract 17 rare earth elements from low-concentration sources. Currently, most of the world's supply of these elements is mined in China. by lughnasadh

The reason why China is the major source of rare earth minerals isn't necessarily the fact that China has most of the ore - the US and Australia also have huge reserves - it's the fact that the cost of extraction is very low in China due to low labour costs and crucially the lack of environmental regulations.

In China, the extremely toxic tailings from the ore processing and refining are just dumped into the countryside, creating heavy polluted hellscapes that will probably remained poisoned for thousands of years. This saves so much money that it makes almost all other rare earth operations unprofitable. Here's a gnarly video of the tailings lake at Baotou, China's rare earth mineral capital.

Regardless of the politics, this new development could be a very welcome change for the environment.

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lughnasadh OP t1_jaheh1y wrote

Reply to comment by fauxbeauceron in German scientists show a commercially feasible method for cyanobacteria to extract 17 rare earth elements from low-concentration sources. Currently, most of the world's supply of these elements is mined in China. by lughnasadh

>>If that method can be scaled up

I don't think there's any technical issue with it being scaled up, the researchers say as much in the original paper.

The issue is cost.

Will it produce the rare earth elements as cheaply as the mined product?

If supply-chain security is an issue, then maybe consumers might have to accept higher prices from non-Chinese sources.

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commentist t1_jahdg24 wrote

Reply to comment by Sumfuc in German scientists show a commercially feasible method for cyanobacteria to extract 17 rare earth elements from low-concentration sources. Currently, most of the world's supply of these elements is mined in China. by lughnasadh

If I remember correctly world can switch fairly quickly from China right now if we want to. It is extremely environment unfriendly process so while China doing for reasonable price no one cares.

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FuturologyBot t1_jah58lc wrote

Reply to German scientists show a commercially feasible method for cyanobacteria to extract 17 rare earth elements from low-concentration sources. Currently, most of the world's supply of these elements is mined in China. by lughnasadh

The following submission statement was provided by /u/lughnasadh:

Submission Statement

"This system is expected to become economically feasible in the near future, as the demand and market prices for REEs are likely to rise significantly in the coming years"

It will be interesting to see what price this can be commercialized at. One of the themes of the 2020s is supply-chain security, and China being the dominant source for so many critical elements is a vulnerability. The EU has billions of €'s in funding set aside for circular economy initiatives. Bringing this to market seems a strong contender for that support.

Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/11f1fir/german_scientists_show_a_commercially_feasible/jah29e6/

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lughnasadh OP t1_jah29e6 wrote

Reply to German scientists show a commercially feasible method for cyanobacteria to extract 17 rare earth elements from low-concentration sources. Currently, most of the world's supply of these elements is mined in China. by lughnasadh

Submission Statement

"This system is expected to become economically feasible in the near future, as the demand and market prices for REEs are likely to rise significantly in the coming years"

It will be interesting to see what price this can be commercialized at. One of the themes of the 2020s is supply-chain security, and China being the dominant source for so many critical elements is a vulnerability. The EU has billions of €'s in funding set aside for circular economy initiatives. Bringing this to market seems a strong contender for that support.

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