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by _heimdall 602 days ago
We'd be much better off using less power rather than finding different sources of power though. I also personally prefer nuclear energy to coal, but is our best chance really to come up with a new technology so power hungry that we have to build nuclear just for the new demand?
1 comments
johnnyanmac 602 days ago
That's sadly how we advance into new tech, historically speaking. Humanity only put a man on the moon as a case of showboating to political rivals. And look how we iterated on that 60 years later (I'm aware the moon landing was more or less stuck together with bubble gum and hopes/prayers, but still.). the uses for rocket propulsion to serve the public only came later.

Someone really important or really rich needs to build that demand so we get something for the wrong reasons but for potential good intent. FWIW, I'm not really optimistic that the bubble lasts long enough to even get these plants off the planning stage, though.

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_heimdall 602 days ago
> FWIW, I'm not really optimistic that the bubble lasts long enough to even get these plants off the planning stage, though.

I don't really expect the current LLM bubble to last long enough to stand up new nuclear plants, though I don't expect that to actually stop the new energy projects unless the bubble popping has a massive economic impact.

Power plants are slow moving projects. Even if LLMs as they are don't live up to expectations they have seemed to open the door for the idea that amazing things are coming and we need to make sure the energy supply is ready for it.

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johnnyanmac 602 days ago
>I don't expect that to actually stop the new energy projects unless the bubble popping has a massive economic impact.

I can see it going either way. It really depends on how the economy moves this decade, and I feel we're very much at an inflection point as of now. I won't even pretend to guess how 2025-6 will go at this point.

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jart 599 days ago
We put a man on the moon. AI is a bubble. Nuclear power is bad. Progress comes from political showboating. Hopes and prayer let us do the impossible. I can't take any more. Hacker News is officially ruined for me the rest of today. I'm going back to coding.
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