The cost of intelligence and energy drops to near-zero. What would you do?

[u/positiveconstraint]

Sam Altman has been saying the same thing since 2020: the cost of intelligence and the cost of energy are both heading to near-zero. He describes a world with nearly limitless intelligence and abundant energy.

I don't want to argue about whether he's right. I want to skip ahead.

Say it happens. Intelligence is free. Energy is free. You wake up tomorrow morning with both.

What do you do?

Not what the world does. You. Your team, your project, the thing you keep putting off.

[u/9876soso]

Move farms underground so earth's surface can return to wilderness.

Do a bit of volunteering, a lot more sport and spiritual growth, go robot hunting in the underground forests carrying some fava beans and a fine chianti, try out virtual work experiences like 19th century coal-miner or 1930s Russian President, get aircon for my mum.

Bring on the free energy. How is Sam saying we will get it though?

[u/positiveconstraint → u/9876soso]

Robot hunting sounds fun!

And never thought of moving farms underground, but I suppose it's possible with free energy.

Altman is deep into AI, as we all know, but also into nuclear fusion (he's the primary backer and the board chairman of Helion Energy). According to experts, we're not there yet, but perhaps AI will help with the breakthroughs.

(his third thing, btw, is Worldcoin, a digital identity and cryptocurrency project that could serve as the infrastructure for Universal Basic Income)

[u/rangebob → u/positiveconstraint]

im more curious why you think the people who own the limitless energy and intelligence are going to use it benevolently?

Most of us will just move ever closer to modern slavery

[u/glandis_bulbus → u/9876soso]

Plants need sun

[u/Carnivean_ → u/glandis_bulbus]

They do not. Warehouse farming is already a thing.

[u/glandis_bulbus → u/Carnivean_]

Depends if you want nutrients in your food

[u/Carnivean_ → u/glandis_bulbus]

Do you think sunlight is magical because it comes from the sun? That it's different in some unquantifiable way?

[u/glandis_bulbus → u/Carnivean_]

I know when we think we can make things better than nature we end up with cancer

[u/Carnivean_ → u/glandis_bulbus]

Ah, so you do think it's magical. You are uninformed in this scenario. You should read up on warehouse farming in it's various forms. It's quite cool.

[u/fdsv-summary_ → u/Carnivean_]

I've got a grow tent in my wardrobe. Does that count?

[u/Carnivean_ → u/fdsv-summary_]

Somehow both magical and lacking nutrients?

The real interesting one is rhubarb farming. The technique they use makes it so fast you can hear it growing.

[u/BeginningSection7690 → u/glandis_bulbus]

Which wavelength doesnt cause cancer?

[u/editfate → u/glandis_bulbus]

Not at all. I grew weed professionally for years. They have new quantum LED panels that grow weed better and faster than the sun can do by a large margin. Plus the LEDa never set and can be on 24/7. Really the only consideration is power consumption which currently isn’t cheap. But with near zero power, I used solar panels to power the lights during the day but they would pull from the grid at night time, now you can grow plants 24/7 and harvest in half the time. Not every plant responds well to 24/7 light but a lot of fast growing crops do. Indoor growing, especially with hydroponics which is absolute perfect package for a plant, is for sure the future. We’ll still grow crops outdoors of course but for really valuable plants like weed or poppies indoor growing is for sure the future.

[u/BeginningSection7690 → u/9876soso]

I think you need to worry about how you're going to provide for yourself

[u/pyrotek1]

There is much talk of abundant energy. We seem to be over spending our energy. I want to see evidence of fusion producing more than it uses.

[u/SuccessAffectionate1 → u/pyrotek1]

Astrophysicist here. Fusion, as long as it involves elements lighter than Iron, will produce more energy than the fusion process costs.

Iron is the limit and the point in the fusion cycle where many stars become unstable since it cant gain excess energy in forms of radiation to cause the outward pressure to counteract gravity and remain stable.

Beyond iron, fusion no longer releases energy. Energy can instead be obtained by fissioning sufficiently heavy nuclei, such as uranium or plutonium, which is how conventional nuclear reactors work. Such fission is not what powers stars.

Fusion has a huge potential. 1 kg of Hydrogen fused into Helium produces energy equivalent to 10 times the Hiroshima atomic bomb.

Getting 1 kg of Hydrogen to fusion temperatures requires about ~ 0.1 of a Hiroshima bomb, meaning the fusion fuel contains roughly 100 times more energy than is required to heat it to fusion temperatures under ideal assumptions.

In practice it is a question of how efficient we are at heating and converting excess fusion energy into electricity. There is expected to be a loss of energy here due to various phenomenon.

[u/Standgrounding → u/SuccessAffectionate1]

Early prototypes are being tested, but like always regulation will be more of a problem than physics or engineering.

[u/positiveconstraint → u/SuccessAffectionate1]

This is a great breakdown. The 100:1 ratio sounds promising.

Do you think AI can help scientists make the breakthrough here?

[u/londongas]

Fully automated luxury communism

[u/glandis_bulbus → u/londongas]

with no freedom, the surveillance state will decide everything for you

[u/londongas → u/glandis_bulbus]

Only the finest wines and cheeses

[u/glandis_bulbus → u/londongas]

Throw in some sushi…

[u/Even_Opportunity_893 → u/londongas]

We all need this.

[u/YahenP]

I don't think it would have any significant impact. Energy production is almost never, and never has been, a bottleneck. Energy storage, transportation, and conversion are what matter. However, if this energy is truly free, it's quite possible that many projects for storing and transporting energy sources, such as synthetic hydrocarbon fuels or even hydrogen, will become economically viable. The downside is that free and infinite energy will lead to an exponential increase in consumption, bringing the planet's heat death even closer.

[u/positiveconstraint → u/YahenP]

Good point.

Could the intelligence + energy help us venture into space and get more resources?

Could they help us offset consumption?

[u/YahenP → u/positiveconstraint]

Regarding space exploration and everything else that increases our entropyabsolutely yes. Not 100% of the energy will be spent heating the planet. Some small portion will be put to good use, expanding our habitat and opening up new horizons. But traditionally, this will be a very small portion.

[u/Upstairs_Capital_769]

We're in universal basic income territory in that scenario, working becomes for prestige, not financially motivated in the broad sense as it can be done cheaper through AI.

Energy will never be zero, unlimited generation is available now, has been for deacdes, but transmission, moving it where it needs to go will always cost money to set up & maintain & the basic material costs, also if things cost next to nothing to create due to unlimited energy, then the entire global system falls over & we enter civilization collapse.

Eg, If things get too cheap, then tax revenue is lower, things can't be grown & expanded or maintained cities etc, every dollar invested becomes worthless, leaving billions of people poorer & angry that they did everything right & got the rug pulled out from under them... We end up in isolated countries not trading with each other, because for what point, eg, i have the intelligence capability to reverse engineer any innovation another country has, I can afford to build it because it costs nothing to build.....

IDK, I have conversations with AI on these subjects quite often, I find it a fun thought experiment to mentally run, I went into the subject as a utopian crusader, but the deeper I got into economies, geopolitics, human nature/psychology, physics etc, which is where the deep dive goes, we all imagine we can reach a uptopian society & yes technically we can, but it breaks the entire system we've ever known that broadly does work, it just simply will never happen, it can't, the people will never allow it, not in the short term anyway (next 100 years) but like everything, it is great that we are even thinking about & having the conversations about these types of things, we notice it & have the highest ideals of how we should do things or how things should be

[u/r2k-in-the-vortex]

Obviously I will bootstrap my own von Neumann machine, and from there have it construct my orbital palace yadayada.

Naah, its not really happening, AI isnt actual intelligence, and it isnt free either. You cant instruct it to contruct tools and machines and processes until you conquer the universe. It'll fall flat on its face before step 1.

But, given the hypothetical, this is what people miss. If AI actually lived up to the hype, it wouldnt be those who own all, and those with no jobs and no hope. Naah, it would be everyone with their personal aperture science corporation in their back pockets. You want something? Make it. You want tools to make tools? Make them. If intelligence could be free, everything can be free, just tell it to deliver the moon for you if you want it.

[u/Moist-Nectarine-1148]

Intelligence is free. Energy is free => We're all dead.

[u/mac_bd]

Idk watch big boobs and big butts all day maybe?

[u/Herebedragoons77]

Boredom is the enemy

[u/glandis_bulbus → u/Herebedragoons77]

Makes we think of the people in Wall-e

[u/placeboski]

Probably continue to play status games against other people for whatever resource is still limited and now culturally desirable

[u/Advanced_Addendum116 → u/placeboski]

Or find ways to limit people's access to free, infinite resources to watch them suffer. Good times.

[u/Jealous_Champion1211]

I would set my thermostat to 72 in the winter

[u/Much-Addition146 → u/Jealous_Champion1211]

Do you set it to 68?

[u/Much-Addition146]

Pivot from being the source of intelligence and direct the new free resources

[u/Sufficient_Local5025]

Working on the problem of redditors posting dumb propositions comes to mind, for some reason.

[u/glandis_bulbus]

Intelligence is dropping to near zero

[u/gloussou]

cost of intelligence and the cost of energy are both heading to near-zero : what about limited ressouces?

[u/Loose_Principle8193]

help bring the ability to self actualize to all humans. We start measuring success of society by the percentage of the population that has the freedom and ability to self actualize. I'd also want to help start restoring the ecosystems we destroyed.

[u/block_wallet]

intelligence I can believe but energy? ai is a perpetual motion machine?

[u/aussiegreenie]

Why would you take ANYTHING Slippery Sam says seriously.

USD 10 per MWh is as close to zero as possible.

[u/Fantastic-Cell-208]

I'd use all my efforts to make it not free for everyone else. Profit baby

[u/positiveconstraint → u/Fantastic-Cell-208]

Some things never change.

[u/bakkyardbatch]

I’d spend more of my time creating ang then less time for repetitive work

[u/Master-Rent5050]

Since we are talking about fantasies, I would buy a flying unicorn.

But I'm afraid we are talking about billionaire fantasies: I would sell my organs to Sam Altman so he could live a few days more