Although it doesn't get much attention in western media, China shows every sign of having the first lunar base in the 2030's. NASA's plans are hobbled by the politics of the SLS, and hopes SpaceX or Blue Origin will come up with an alternative. In particular many hopes are pinned on SpaceX's StarShip, but the challenges it needs to overcome to get people & materials to the moon are formidable. China's plans are detailed, organized and tied to concrete goals.
This isn't the first research that has shown 2023 robotaxi AI is already safer than human drivers, but it is the most comprehensive. There are two takeaways.
First, AI is continuously improving. 2024 & 2025 robotaxi will be even more safer than humans.
Second, at some point, human driving will come to be seen as a safety liability the way drunk driving and not wearing seat belts are now. The question is how soon will that happen? Will there be a day when human driving is banned or restricted on most roads? It wouldn't surprise me if that day is coming.
Don't think this will happen? Road traffic injuries are the leading cause of death for children and young adults aged 5-29 years. Approximately 1.3 million people die each year as a result of road traffic crashes.
If there is simple life on Titan and Enceladus, there is every possibility it could have been seeded from Earth. Plenty of asteroid collisions have been big enough to eject material from Earth's surface into space over the last few billion years. Though that idea suggests something else. Maybe Earth's life was seeded from elsewhere. Such ejecta dust also travels all around the galaxy from other stars and their planetary systems.
The study is carried out by the University of Exeter and University College London, and funded by the British government. So its not the solar industry saying this.
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Robot startup Figure has gone from a concept to an impressive humanoid robot in only a year.
(www.therobotreport.com)
It's amazing how regularly people in tech companies think "big government" is unnecessary until it directly affects their interests - and then they want that part to be well-funded and efficient.
That said, even NASA's Inspector General is attacking the US government's role in space development as wasteful and inefficient. He put his name to a damning recent report on the SLS space launch system that said it should be scrapped by NASA in favor of commercial alternatives.
I'm not sure I can accept SpaceX's claims at face value. They appear to be blaming the FAA for their own failures, yet they are owned by a person notorious for consistently over-promising and under-delivering.
When they think of the vast deluge of AI-generated SEO spam to come, there must be people in Google who feel like people after an earthquake when a tsunami has started to arrive,, and they realize they've left it too late to get to higher ground.
Tech companies often boast of how technology is revolutionizing our world. Yet for all the gain, technology fails us on so many levels. Basic necessities like housing, health & education seem to get ever more expensive and difficult to access for many.
If ever there was a sector that could do with a tech revolution, it's housing. 3D printing & robotics promise much but never seem to take off. Perhaps a new approach is needed to jump-start them. Renewable energy markets didn't take off until governments intervened to support them. Maybe the same should happen for ultra-cheap housing via robots & 3D printing.
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Hadrian X, a robot-bricklayer that can lay 300 bricks an hour is starting work in the US.
(www.australianmanufacturing.com.au)
@lurch@sh.itjust.works
Can you provide a reputable source for these claims? Otherwise I'll delete the OG comment and its replies. There's no point in leaving up misinformation.
It often surprises me how much doomerism influences thinking about the future. To be convincing, it seems a classic case of cherry-picking facts, to ignore all the good news about the future.
Here's a great example. AI is rapidly advancing our defense against viruses. It's stunning to think a tool is available that could have predicted how Covid would have evolved. It's reassuring to know this weapon against viruses will be available in the future.
It should also worry investors open-source AI is only months behind the big tech leaders. I looked into AI voice cloning lately. There's a few really pricey options. Like $25 a month for a couple of hours voice cloning.
However, there's already an open-source version of what they're selling.
I would guess in a few years time AI will be able to evaluate a lot about an individual's psychological profile from their language use.
Some people might scoff at the 2027/28 timeline, but I doubt this is vaporware. Toyota is the world's biggest car maker, so their claims have some credibility.
Toyota's breakthrough is with mass-producing these types of batteries, they still face challenges in real world use - "Problems include the extreme sensitivity of the batteries to moisture and oxygen, as well as the mechanical pressure needed to hold them together to prevent the formation of dendrites, the metal filaments that can cause short circuits."