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Comment the long tail (Score 1) 38

As the article says, "Much of what the world needs probably does not require the absolute frontier."

The frontier models are great, but I find that the ones a release or two behind are also pretty darn good. The 'open source' models do fine in many cases and are much cheaper. In a few months the second and third tier models of will have caught up to the level where the best ones are now. So I'm not very worried that there will be some kind of monopoly on AI, the competition seems healthy at this point.

Comment Eddington limit (Score 1) 15

I get it that they see something that may be a convective filament, but I don't understand how this would solve the problem of the Eddington limit. As I understand it, the infalling matter near the black hole gets hot and bright enough to shed matter rather than accumulate it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

"The maximum possible luminosity of a source in hydrostatic equilibrium is the Eddington luminosity. If the luminosity exceeds the Eddington limit, then the radiation pressure drives an outflow."

"Because protons are negligibly pressured by the analog of Thomson scattering, due to their larger mass, the result is to create a slight charge separation and therefore a radially directed electric field, acting to lift the positive charges, which, under the conditions in stellar atmospheres, typically are free protons. When the outward electric field is sufficient to levitate the protons against gravity, both electrons and protons are expelled together."

A convective flow of outer material might make things a little less constipated but it doesn't explain these very early massive black holes in my opinion.

Comment The pavlovian solution (Score 0) 103

A shock collar. Ok maybe just a wristband tethered to the car. Mild misbehavior gets you a warning buzz, and after that you start getting some initially mild shocks that ramp up to safely below seizure level.

If you don't put it on you don't go anywhere, but still are being charged for the time. If you take it off you get dumped to the curb. We'll call it a health monitor.

Submission + - Californians sign up to have data brokers delete their personal information (eastbaytimes.com)

ZipNada writes: More than 300,000 Californians have demanded that hundreds of data brokers erase information about their locations, finances, health and personal lives as the state’s first-in-the-nation Delete Act requires brokers to start the mandatory process of removing data on Aug. 1.

Brokers must start accessing deletion requests within 45 days after Aug. 1, then once they have collected those requests, they have another 45 days to report what data they have purged to the agency — known as CalPrivacy — and people who have signed up. ...
The information Californians are asking brokers to erase can be extraordinarily sensitive. Of the nearly 600 data brokers in CalPrivacy’s registry, 110 sell people’s precise locations, the registry shows. More than 40 sell identity data that can include Social Security numbers. Almost 70 sell information on people’s gender identity. Seven sell data related to reproductive health, and six sell information on union membership. Eighteen sell minors’ data — and Kemp said children can sign up for deletion using DROP, or parents can do it for them.

Many of the brokers build — and sell to advertisers and marketers — dossiers that are increasingly processed using artificial intelligence to draw conclusions about a person’s interests, family, politics, lifestyle, finances, sexual orientation and health.

Comment Re:At least they are trying (Score 1) 92

>> a lot of people are going to have to die.

You appear to be bitterly pessimistic there buddy. It's tiresome and unhelpful.

The cited article mentions several proposals for retraining. Also the coalition "has so far raised more than $500 million — about half of its multiyear goal — from companies and nonprofit groups" to help fund it. Meanwhile the average communitycollege tuition and fees for indistrict students was about $4k per year in 2025, not a very heavy debt load. This isn't necessarily a disastrous transition, particularly if prices do fall due to increased production.

Comment At least they are trying (Score 1) 92

Sounds like they'll try to identify some highly physical things a person could do better than AI, and provide training for it. Nothing wrong with that. Healthcare (or at least nursing the elderly), plumbing, electrician, etc. It will be the blue-collaring of the workforce. White collar work has typically paid better, so unfortunately this will be a step down for many. As for young people, instead of university and a career as a lawyer you will be directed to a community college to learn some skill that still requires human hands.

But I also want to think about the possible advantages and better outcomes. In my experience the AI systems are a huge boost in personal productivity. You need to have the right mindset to use it and sufficient experience to steer it properly. People who are able to groove into that can get an awful lot of work done with relatively little effort. Be one of those people if possible, it ain't that hard.

And then, let's say an awful lot of work does get done with less and less effort on our parts. This could mean that things become cheaper and easier to make, therefore less expensive to buy. Standards of living could potentially rise. Yes you could imagine that the current titans of industry will dominate AI and consolidate economic control, make us all slaves, but I don't think they can monopolize it. There will soon come a time when sophisticated AI models run just fine on cellphones, and your worth will depend on what you can do with it.

Comment skeptical astrophysicist (Score 3, Interesting) 21

From the cited article;

Sean McWilliams, an astrophysicist at West Virginia University, was skeptical that the gravitational wave frequency analyzed by the scientists was actually "dictated" by the event horizon.

For this reason, "the actual observed signal doesn't really tell us anything about the horizon or the other properties directly related to it," he told AFP.

Comment lowball (Score 1) 39

I was wanting to sell a car recently, a nice one with low miles and in great shape. I went to the Carvana website and got a low quote. I was showing it at local dealerships and went by to see them as well, maybe they would do better if they saw the car and drove it. Nope, whatever the website said it was worth is what they would pay.

Eventually I was offered about 50% more elsewhere, a decent price and I'm sure they sold it at a profit.

Submission + - Why AI token prices are about to plummet (businessinsider.com)

ZipNada writes: The main force driving token prices lower is a new wave of technology that's sweeping through AI data centers.

Nvidia's Blackwell GPUs are being installed in huge volumes right now. By the second half of this year, these systems, which are really supercomputers rather than chips, will be operating at scale, helping AI labs train new models and run them more efficiently.

These systems took a while to install properly, partly because they needed to be water-cooled and required other gnarly new data center setups. But the payoff could be huge.

50 x more, 35 x cheaper
SemiAnalysis, a respected AI research firm, compared Nvidia's top Blackwell system, the GB 300 NVL72, to Nvidia's previous system, called the Hopper HGX 200.

With the older system, each GPU generated 90 tokens per second, while the new Blackwell system generated 6,000. That's 65 times more.

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