Viewing profile — ag315

What on earth do you mean by 1kw of fuel rod? Your quantifications make no sense and cite no sources. You're going to need to be more specific than "read the latest reports"; this …

Solar panels aren't made of lithium, but they are made of a wide variety of other things that have to be mined (which, again, uses up space and has to be taken into consideration),…

"No longer needed once the panel is produced" The land used for the mining isn't land that we're just getting back--given the costs of making it useful again for anything else, spa…

Strategic installation of solar panels certainly helps maximize efficiency, and is in general a great idea, especially in some areas. But to your point about the space taken up by …

Happy to discuss the numbers of your numbers-based argument, but you didn't cite your sources.

1370/sq km is at the atmospheric level. The amount that actually reaches the surface is significantly less.

While I'm less optimistic than you on solar power, you're absolutely right about ethanol, which is easily one of the worst and most inefficient power sources we could have possibly…

Correct--while the sun sends an enormous amount of free energy our way, it's maddeningly diffuse and requires enormous investments of energy and materials to capture it in a usable…

I agree with your perspective on this, but my hope is that it won't have a major negative externality at the end of the day--drum machines and drum software have really solid for w…

This is a really excellent point, both in general and vis a vis the conflict in Ukraine. Something I see happening often is that some people are quick to confuse expertise-as-crede…

I think it's an oversimplification to argue that the mind as a whole is like a closet, but I do think memory specifically works a bit in this way--hence the well-established utilit…

I don't believe AGI needs to have actual consciousness in order to functionally be AGI, and I personally am not of the view that we will ever make a conscious computer. That said, …

I agree with you that it could be dangerous, but I neither said nor implied at any point that I disagree with that--I don't think the original comment was implying that either. LLM…

In most cases there are vastly more synapses than there are neurons, and beyond that the neurons and synapses are not highly rudimentary pieces but are themselves extremely complex…

My response to that would be to point out that these LLM models, complex and intricate as they are, are nowhere near as complex as, for example, the nervous system of a grasshopper…

This is spot on in my opinion and I wish more people would keep it in mind--it may well be that large language models can eventually become functionally very much like AGI in terms…

I can believe that they've been tracking it for awhile, but it is unlikely that they can easily shoot it down. We probably literally don't have the technical capacity to do so reli…

Your analogy doesn't work and I suspect it's because you may fundamentally misunderstand what qualia actually are--this isn't about gaps; this relates much more to the logical impo…

The quantifiable characteristics of the light spectrum are the same--the experience of the qualia are not necessarily the same. This is common with taste and smell; it could easily…

Qualia are one of the more interesting subjects in the study of mind because they're inextricable from our perceptions and our experience of everything, but they can't be reduced o…

The question you're responding to is (although of little if any practical importance) a more philosophical one than can be answered by cortex differentiation, which cannot tell us …

I don't think you can get good at doing calculations without practicing the calculations, but reading books that discuss the higher-level aspects of math and the philosophical unde…

Any updates on Havana syndrome and chronic Lyme's while we're at it?

It's not just lithium that's the problem; copper is also a major component, and we don't have nearly enough of that either. A full transition to electric vehicles is not viable wit…

I've played both piano and guitar for many years now, and the distinction I'd make is that piano is easier to start out on than guitar, but harder to get good at--in the long run t…