6 ms·

> First Light is working towards a pilot plant producing ~150 MW of electricity and costing less than $1 billion in the 2030s. Finally, fusion in only ten to t

> First Light is working towards a pilot plant producing ~150 MW of electricity and costing less than $1 billion in the 2030s. Finally, fusion in only ten to twenty years. I've been waiting ten to twenty years for this!

AQuantized 5y ago
It's been 20 to 40 years for about 60 years, now we're down to 10 to 20 we might get down to 5 to 10 in only 30 more years!
- thanatos519 5y ago
  It's a full-on Xeno's paradox. Soon enough we will be 10 to 20 seconds away but will still never reach it.
- lta 5y ago
  You, Sir/Madan, are looking me. It's both pretty funny and despairing
ck2 5y ago
It's my favorite go-to and the series number is so easy to remember: https://m.xkcd.com/678/ https://m.xkcd.com/678/ (be sure to click for its very relevant alt-text)
- lowbloodsugar 5y ago
  I think this misses the most important thing about predictions: * has been "10 years away" for many years: could be tomorrow An example would be "How long before a computer beats a grandmaster at Go?" The answer was "10 years away" for decades, right up to 2015, and then one day in 2016, that day was "today".
  - YeGoblynQueenne 5y ago
    >> The answer was "10 years away" for decades, right up to 2015, and then one day in 2016, that day was "today". I've heard this a few times. In 2014 I was doing an MSc in Intelligent Systems ("AI" after the Winter) and Go was discussed in class in the context of Russel and Norvig. I don't remember the tutor saying that beating a grandmaster (? do they have grandmasters in Go?) was "10 years away". I remember him saying that Go was the last of the classic board games where humans still dominated machines because it requires intuition. So, can you say where the "10 years away" quote comes from? Is it an actual quote? Do you know someone who actually said beating [a top human player] in Go is "10 years away" at some time before 2015?
    - lowbloodsugar 5y ago
      For example https://www.wired.com/2016/01/in-a-huge-breakthrough-googles-ai-beats-a-top-player-at-the-game-of-go/ https://www.wired.com/2016/01/in-a-huge-breakthrough-googles... >In early 2014, Coulom's Go-playing program, Crazystone, challenged grandmaster Norimoto Yoda at a tournament in Japan. And it won. But the win came with caveat: the machine had a four-move head start, a significant advantage. At the time, Coulom predicted that it would be another 10 years before machines beat the best players without a head start. I'm sure there's more to find, but of course google now biases towards the articles about AlphaGo actually winning.
      - wolverine876 5y ago
        There's also a large confirmation bias in the search: If we look for '10 years away' predictions, we're going to find them.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - YeGoblynQueenne 5y ago
        Thanks, I appreciate the reply but the quote from the Wired article does not look like a direct quote from Coulom, so I'm still not sure what it really means. Was it really a "prediction", or more like an offhand remark? What does the person quoted, Coulom, really think about this "prediction" today, and what would they say they meant back then? More to the point, when you commented above that "The answer was "10 years away" for decades, right up to 2015", did you have the Wired article in mind? I mean to say, did you read that article in 2014 and think that machines dominating Go is still 10 years away or is it more something you found with a search yesterday? Did you think in 2014 that machines dominating Go was 10 years away? What I really want to know is what this "prediction" means. Was there really some kind of consensus on "10 years"? How seriously was this taken? It's all so vague and anyone could have said anything and meant anything.
SantalBlush 5y ago
This same joke has been made for twenty years. If we can't even make progress in fusion-related humor, maybe we really are doomed at fusion research.
- MiddleEndian 5y ago
  Duke Nukem Forever eventually got created, so why not usable nuclear fusion too?
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
jeffbee 5y ago
Isn't that more than ten times the cost of a PV installation of the same scale?

AQuantized 5y ago

It's been 20 to 40 years for about 60 years, now we're down to 10 to 20 we might get down to 5 to 10 in only 30 more years!

thanatos519 5y ago
It's a full-on Xeno's paradox. Soon enough we will be 10 to 20 seconds away but will still never reach it.
lta 5y ago
You, Sir/Madan, are looking me. It's both pretty funny and despairing

ck2 5y ago

It's my favorite go-to and the series number is so easy to remember: https://m.xkcd.com/678/ https://m.xkcd.com/678/ (be sure to click for its very relevant alt-text)

lowbloodsugar 5y ago
I think this misses the most important thing about predictions: * has been "10 years away" for many years: could be tomorrow An example would be "How long before a computer beats a grandmaster at Go?" The answer was "10 years away" for decades, right up to 2015, and then one day in 2016, that day was "today".
- YeGoblynQueenne 5y ago
  >> The answer was "10 years away" for decades, right up to 2015, and then one day in 2016, that day was "today". I've heard this a few times. In 2014 I was doing an MSc in Intelligent Systems ("AI" after the Winter) and Go was discussed in class in the context of Russel and Norvig. I don't remember the tutor saying that beating a grandmaster (? do they have grandmasters in Go?) was "10 years away". I remember him saying that Go was the last of the classic board games where humans still dominated machines because it requires intuition. So, can you say where the "10 years away" quote comes from? Is it an actual quote? Do you know someone who actually said beating [a top human player] in Go is "10 years away" at some time before 2015?
  - lowbloodsugar 5y ago
    For example https://www.wired.com/2016/01/in-a-huge-breakthrough-googles-ai-beats-a-top-player-at-the-game-of-go/ https://www.wired.com/2016/01/in-a-huge-breakthrough-googles... >In early 2014, Coulom's Go-playing program, Crazystone, challenged grandmaster Norimoto Yoda at a tournament in Japan. And it won. But the win came with caveat: the machine had a four-move head start, a significant advantage. At the time, Coulom predicted that it would be another 10 years before machines beat the best players without a head start. I'm sure there's more to find, but of course google now biases towards the articles about AlphaGo actually winning.
    - wolverine876 5y ago
      There's also a large confirmation bias in the search: If we look for '10 years away' predictions, we're going to find them.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - YeGoblynQueenne 5y ago
      Thanks, I appreciate the reply but the quote from the Wired article does not look like a direct quote from Coulom, so I'm still not sure what it really means. Was it really a "prediction", or more like an offhand remark? What does the person quoted, Coulom, really think about this "prediction" today, and what would they say they meant back then? More to the point, when you commented above that "The answer was "10 years away" for decades, right up to 2015", did you have the Wired article in mind? I mean to say, did you read that article in 2014 and think that machines dominating Go is still 10 years away or is it more something you found with a search yesterday? Did you think in 2014 that machines dominating Go was 10 years away? What I really want to know is what this "prediction" means. Was there really some kind of consensus on "10 years"? How seriously was this taken? It's all so vague and anyone could have said anything and meant anything.

SantalBlush 5y ago

This same joke has been made for twenty years. If we can't even make progress in fusion-related humor, maybe we really are doomed at fusion research.

MiddleEndian 5y ago
Duke Nukem Forever eventually got created, so why not usable nuclear fusion too?

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

jeffbee 5y ago

Isn't that more than ten times the cost of a PV installation of the same scale?