this post was submitted on 30 Jul 2024
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Fuck AI
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A place for all those who loathe AI to discuss things, post articles, and ridicule the AI hype. Proud supporter of working people. And proud booer of SXSW 2024.
AI, in this case, refers to LLMs, GPT technology, and anything listed as "AI" meant to increase market valuations.
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Room temperature super conductors will save us, if they exist.
I'm fully expecting AI bros to say AI will create a working room-temp superconductor design
I'm sure that if you asked any AI they would give you recipes for room temperature superconductors.
I asked an AI what lava would feel like if you took the heat out of it and it told me, but then it asked me if I would like to know if I would be interested in some delicious lava recipes.
So I said yes.
Resistive heating is not the dominant energy loss mechanism in modern computing. Since the advent of field effect transistors, switching losses dominate. Room temperature super conductors could be relevant in power generation, distribution, and manuafacturing, but would not radically alter the power requirements for computing.
I personally don't think any possible room temperature super conductors would be economical to produce at a large enough scale to make a large difference in energy demands. Researchers have pretty thoroughly investigated the classes of materials that are easy to manufacture, which suggests a room temperature superconductor would be prohibitevely expensive to produce.
Been waiting since the 90s, about given up hope.
The one last summer broke me. I have a healthy skepticism of any announcement, but that one seemed so credible I bought in.