Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

US AI Action Plan

ai.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

601–610 of 672 posts

Re: US AI Action Plan

#601

Post by slg »

terminalshort wrote: post #377
slg wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not an argument that has any relevancy to AI. If anything, someone who believes what you say should be against the introduction of AI into the system because your argument is fundamentally that these drugs shouldn't have a gatekeeper. Swapping out one gatekeeper for another, especially with the new gatekeeper being the unknown black box of some AI middleman, won't actually address your complaint.

It is entirely relevant because removing the bureaucratic gatekeeping of doctors allows people to choose to use AI instead.

> removing the bureaucratic gatekeeping of doctors

And replacing it with the "bureaucratic gatekeeping of" AI?

Re: US AI Action Plan

#602

Post by more_corn »

pizzafeelsright wrote: post #542
softwaredoug wrote: post #504

Obviously AI is a massive and important area for economic growth. But so is clean energy. And both right now are at an inflection point. It seems the US is going to thrive with the former but naively stick our heads in the sands with the latter. We’ll cede economic leadership, and wonder in 20 years what happened as other countries lead in energy. Even worse, the administrations stance will encourage US energy compan…

Whomever has more nuclear power generation will own energy. The cleanest energy is nuclear.

Nuclear takes 20 years to build and plants cost $10B.

Rooftop solar starts paying back instantly and can be deployed in $20k tranches. It also requires no additional grid infrastructure and decreases demand on non generating grid infrastructure.

Pretty sure it’s rooftop solar that wins the future.

Re: US AI Action Plan

#603

Post by more_corn »

jmyeet wrote: post #568
pizzafeelsright wrote: post #542

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whomever has more nuclear power generation will own energy. The cleanest energy is nuclear.

I really don't understand HN's love affair with nuclear. Uranium mining produces significant toxic waste (tailings and raffinates). Fuel processing produces toxic waste, typically UF6. There is some processing of UF6 to UF4 but that doesn't solve the problem and it's not economic anyway. Fuel usage produces even more waste that typically needs to be actively cooled for years or decades before it can be forgotten abou…

Its astroturfing

Re: US AI Action Plan

#604

Post by ted_dunning »

axpy906 wrote: post #561
margalabargala wrote: post #558

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US has long since exhausted it's "easy" oil/gas reserves. Yes, there's tons more down there, but it's increasingly hard to get to. Lots of extraction methods only make sense when the price for oil is above some amount. If the rest of the world standardizes on solar+battery, demand for oil goes down, and so will the price. Which in turn makes US-produced oil not cost effective to extract, and domestic energy produ…

This probably a stupid question but do solar and batteries depend on rare earth metals and their supply?

The answer depends on the kind of battery chemistry and how literally you mean "rare earth". If you take some slack on the definition and just mean "metal stuff in limited supply", then many battery chemistries have limited supplies.

There are, however, some chemistries with really nice supply chains. The Iron Redox Flow Battery (IRFB) really only needs iron and iron chloride as reactants. Those batteries are being commercialized, but they aren't common (yet?).

Re: US AI Action Plan

#605

Post by taurath »

softwaredoug wrote: post #504

Obviously AI is a massive and important area for economic growth. But so is clean energy. And both right now are at an inflection point. It seems the US is going to thrive with the former but naively stick our heads in the sands with the latter. We’ll cede economic leadership, and wonder in 20 years what happened as other countries lead in energy. Even worse, the administrations stance will encourage US energy compan…

The US is not naively sticking our heads in the sand, our leadership is making direct choices to make sure that they rule over the ashes rather than let a future happen where they have less power.

Re: US AI Action Plan

#606

Post by cholantesh »

terminalshort wrote: post #377
slg wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not an argument that has any relevancy to AI. If anything, someone who believes what you say should be against the introduction of AI into the system because your argument is fundamentally that these drugs shouldn't have a gatekeeper. Swapping out one gatekeeper for another, especially with the new gatekeeper being the unknown black box of some AI middleman, won't actually address your complaint.

It is entirely relevant because removing the bureaucratic gatekeeping of doctors allows people to choose to use AI instead.

"choose" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there.

Re: US AI Action Plan

#607

Post by godelski »

dangoor wrote: post #573
pizzafeelsright wrote: post #542

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whomever has more nuclear power generation will own energy. The cleanest energy is nuclear.

Nuclear is clean, but has other drawbacks. "Solar+Storage is so much farther along than you think": https://www.volts.wtf/p/solarstorage-is-so-much-farther-alon...

This doesn't seem to be passing a sniff test

1) cherry picking the best case.

2) numbers seem off

  > The sunniest US city, Las Vegas, could get 98% of its power from solar+storage at a price of $104/MWh, which is higher than gas but cheaper than new coal or nuclear. It could get to 60% solar+storage at $65/MWh — cheaper than gas.
But according to this[0], the US average cost of nuclear is ~$32/MWh (2023). I think the subtle keyword is "new", which could make for a very fuzzy argument.

Or maybe prices are different in LV but that's a big differential. It's also mentioning it's the best case scenario for solar. So even then, maybe that's the best option for Las Vegas, but is it elsewhere?

World Nuclear also gives us some global numbers to help us see the larger range of costs [1]

  > LCOE figures assuming an 85% capacity factor ranged from $27/MWh in Russia to $61/MWh in Japan at a 3% discount rate, from $42/MWh (Russia) to $102/MWh (Slovakia) at a 7% discount rate, and from $57/MWh (Russia) to $146/MWh (Slovakia) at a 10% discount rate.
I don't think this means we shouldn't continue investing in solar and storage, but neither does it suggest taking nuclear off the table. This might be fine for LV or other areas in the Southwest, but unless those costs can be stable for the rest of the country I think we should keep nuclear as an option.

We shouldn't forget: it's not "nuclear vs solar" it's "zero carbon emitters vs carbon emitters". The former framing is something big oil and gas want you to argue, and that's why they've historically given funds to initiatives like the Sierra Nevada Club. If we care about the environment or zero emissions then the question isn't as simple as "nuclear vs solar" it is "what is the best zero carbon emitting producer given the constraints of the local region".

[0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/184754/cost-of-nuclear-e...

[1] https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/economic-aspec...

Re: US AI Action Plan

#608

Post by godelski »

hardolaf wrote: post #579
jmyeet wrote: post #568

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't understand HN's love affair with nuclear. Uranium mining produces significant toxic waste (tailings and raffinates). Fuel processing produces toxic waste, typically UF6. There is some processing of UF6 to UF4 but that doesn't solve the problem and it's not economic anyway. Fuel usage produces even more waste that typically needs to be actively cooled for years or decades before it can be forgotten abou…

Wow. So you really know nothing about the technology and are just spreading fear. The Chernobyl exclusion zone is mostly safe for people now outside of the fact that Russia is current bombing Ukraine. The issue with cleanup at Fukushima Daichii is one of money and political will, not one of technology. We've had the ability to clean up nuclear accidents since the 1950s. Also, the future of power is increasingly looki…

  > with cleanup at Fukushima Daichii
To add a small note here: the background level of radiation is fairly safe in most of the region. The danger (including in the Chernobyl region) is more about concern of small radioactive particulate. Things like your vegetables in your garden could become deadly because they formed around a hot material that was buried in the ground. Same can happen with rain runoff.

These are manageable, but expensive and still take care. You'd still want to arm everyone with a detector and get them to be in the habit of testing their food and water (highly manageable for public water or food).

Re: US AI Action Plan

#610

Post by sschueller »

stpedgwdgfhgdd wrote: post #609

Remarkable that an official White House plan uses the term “America” instead of United States of America.

Nothing new. There is the MLB World Series [1], World Wrestling Entertainment and many others that don't have anything to do with the "world".

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Series

Post reply on HN