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
>What is the goal?

Be the definitive first past the post in the budding "AI" industry.

Why? He who wins first writes the rules.

For an obvious example: The aviation industry uses feets and knots instead of metres because the US invented and commercialized aviation.

Another obvious example: Computers all speak ASCII (read: English) and even Unicode is based on ASCII because the US and UK commercialized computers.

If you want to write the rules you must win first, it is an absolute requirement. Runner-ups and below only get to obey the rules.

>>Dalewy+021
The aviation and maritime industries use knots because the nautical mile is closely tied to longitude/latitude.

A vessel traveling at 1 knot along a meridian travels one minute of geographic latitude per hour.