zlacker

>>tedsan+(OP)
For fun, I calculated how this stacks up against other humanity-scale mega projects.

Mega Project Rankings (USD Inflation Adjusted)

The New Deal: $1T,

Interstate Highway System: $618B,

OpenAI Stargate: $500B,

The Apollo Project: $278B,

International Space Station: $180B,

South-North Water Transfer: $106B,

The Channel Tunnel: $31B,

Manhattan Project: $30B

Insane Stuff.

>>wujerr+DI
It's unfair, because we are talking in the hindsight about everything but Project Stargate, and it's also just your list (and I don't know what others could add to it) but it got me thinking. Manhattan Project goal is to make a powerful bomb. Apollo is to get to the Moon before soviets do (so, because of hubris, but still there is a concrete goal). South-North Water Transfer is pretty much terraforming, and others are mostly roads. I mean, it's all kinda understandable.

And Stargate Project is... what exactly? What is the goal? To make Altman richer, or is there any more or less concrete goal to achieve?

Also, few items for comparison, that I googled while thinking about it:

- Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository: $96B

- ITER: $65B

- Hubble Space Telescope: $16B

- JWST: $11B

- LHC: $10B

Sources:

https://jameswebbtracker.com/jwst/budget

https://blogfusion.tech/worlds-most-expensive-experiments/

https://science.nasa.gov/mission/hubble/overview/faqs/

>>krick+tY
AI race is arguably just as, and maybe even more important, than the space race.

From a national security PoV, surpassing other countries’ work in the field is paramount to maintaining US hegemony.

We know China performs a ton of corporate espionage, and likely research in this field is being copied, then extended, in other parts of the world. China has been more intentional in putting money towards AI over the last 4 years.

We had the chips act, which is tangentially related, but nothing as complete as this. For i think a couple years, the climate impact of data centers caused active political slowdown from the previous administration.

Part of this is selling the project politically, so my belief is much of the talk of AGI and super intelligence is more marketing speak aimed at a general audience vs a niche tech community.

I’d be willing to predict that we’ll get some ancillary benefits to this level of investment. Maybe more efficient power generation? Cheaper electricity via more investment in nuclear power? Just spitballing, but this is an incredible amount of money, with $100 billion “instantly” deployed.

>>spacep+qE1
AI is important but are LLMs even the right answer?

We're not spending money on AI as a field, we're spending a lot of money on one, quite possibly doomed, approach.