As always, "what do you mean by AI?" It's an umbrella term that can be used by some to mean machine learning, while others think of AGI research or "strong AI," and then get bogged down in whether computers can "really" think.

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_learning#Applications

One of the applications I find interesting is machine learning + computer vision to improve agriculture. To automate weeding or pest removal. Though you can also combine robotics to push automation even further.

astronauts with tennis rackets

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Lots of companies will say it’s a job killer and it makes the product too expensive. Companies say plenty of untrue things all the time.

I agree with your premise, that the cost of the entire product lifecycle needs to be baked in from the beginning, I just disagree with you on how much pushback there would be.

You've all heard of microplastics. Well, now we bring you microspacejunk!

This is why we should stop sending things into space

Way to rub it in dude

You seem to have it backwards. We WANT the smallest shrapnel to fall to the atmosphere because then they'll burn up. The problem is the stuff that is way above the effects of atmospheric drag (the top of the atmosphere varies at 10-17 km) and travelling at the speed required to maintain the orbital height they're at. They might stay there indefinitely unless we learn how to make gravity guns or something. For example, some orbital speeds: 6.90 km/s @ 2000 km, 7.35 km/s @ 1000 km.

Hmm, alright, I certainly expect gene editing therapies to be available to a much wider audience than billionaires - even if they tried to avoid it someone somewhere would be open to making money by offering it to the merely wealthy instead of the obscenely wealthy.

Hello, aerospace engineer here. There are quite a few things being done about this. First, the FCC adopted a change in rules last year that state that object out in orbit must come down within 5 years after end of life. Previously this rule was 20-25 years which was long enough for any LEO object to deorbit on its own. 5 years is too short of a time frame for upper atmosphere drag to pull it down so satellite manufacturers have to add a deorbit thruster or pay companies to use their space tug. Space tugs sound fictional but Launcher, RocketLab, and Firefly Aerospace are just a few commercial companies building or have already flight proven the concept.

This is going to be a larger deal with the FAA approving several thousand sized constellations entering the market by the end of the decade. My personal opinion is that trackable junk isn’t really a threat as countries blowing up satellites to prove a point. That debris cloud basically locks out an entire orbit. Space is really big and there are think tanks like Aerospace Corporation that are studying this problem to help mitigate the impacts and to advise industry and government on what to do.

The reality is that space objects are only going to go up not down in the next decade. Our job as space engineers around the world is to treat these missions with respect by providing deorbit plans and alerting agencies for possible collisions of our hardware with someone else’s.

This subject is of course highly nuanced and some of these nuances I can’t fully capture here in a Reddit comment. I highly encourage checking out the aerospace link below for some more information.

Source: https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-adopts-new-5-year-rule-deorbiting-satellites

Source: https://aerospace.org/cords

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Meanwhile on a Chinese reddit equivalent: The problem is to go tell a country like the USA to stop polluting. Waste of time. If China tries to be green friendly it will only lose power as a nation while making little to no impact on the worlds total pollution level.

He did in Beijing at least and used the vouchers there.

haah ha we can't even get governments to deal with earth trash and we expect them to deal with space trash

Will he go to McDonalds though?

Unfortunately it's probably too little too late regardless. Hell illegal fishing has absolutely devastated the ocean, hard to imagine the law is gonna keep plastic out of the ocean if it can't even keep sea life in the ocean

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I like wall-e though.

Since I’m adhd, a personal assistant would be ideal. I would need it to gamify and track things in my day to day life by making up for my lack of working memory and giving me dopamine rewards for completing tasks. Like a quest log in an MMO. Lastly I would name it, “id” or iddy. Since I would be the “ego” of sorts.

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That last one exists, it's called grounded.

Wouldnt it be cool, if product like Facebook, instead of focussing on adds and selling you stuff, would actively help people detect early stages of depression, lonely ness and actively work to help you get better before it gets worse.

Or expose people that have grown complacent to the things they need to be titulated to make changes in their life that would better their lives. Such as a move for education. A new job, ending a broken relationship. Reconnecting with old friends and such.

You know, put the social back in social media. Instead of the hyper consumerist brainwashing.

Aaah if only.

Domius- he could lend me his hand in inventing new things

Hal would help me by keeping my schedule and reminding me when I have appointments and the like. I have a terrible time remembering what I have committed to. Also he would remind me of people’s names.

I’d also want stock and property market trends, and information specifically in the energy market. He would need to integrate seamlessly into my home network and my car. I would want him to give context to headlines so I don’t have to actually read the article. Basically do the function of a high level C suite team, but look like a digital pet, similar to Ghost or Cortana. I like the idea of a little floating antigravity toy floating near my head, with the computing power of a $10k pc and RGB to match.

Bottom line is profits now, they're not concerned about the future.