The AI thread

[Cornuck]

We tried this a while ago, and it went to shit. Let's see if we can stay on topic.

It would be interesting to your stories of working with AI, or other interesting stuff.

[Carl Yagro]

In May 2025, UK based AI company, builder.ai declared insolvency after it was found to have been deceiving customers and investors.

Founded in 2016, builder.ai became a unicorn in the AI space and was marketed so well that it attracted more than $700M of investments from Qatar, Mircrosoft and others. It was said to have developed a no-code tool called 'Natasha' that could build apps 5-6 times faster than traditional development process and at a far lower cost.

Once valued at around $1.5B USD, the company declared bankruptcy after revelations that the original Indian CEO was fraudulent with his marketing and sales of his AI products and services. It was discovered that the company overstated its revenues in 2023 and 2024 by a factor of four. Major backers demanded immediate repayment of loans that were extended to builder.ai in 2023.

As well as committing financial fraud, it was discovered that 'Natasha' was not actually AI, but a team of 700 human developers who wrote software for customers and tasked with pretending to be AI bots.

Indian AI = "Actually Indians"

fuckin'

Can't wait for the Sam Altman OpenAI fraud bubble to burst.

[Topper]

Where is the energy coming from?

Local electrical contractor got out of retail and home electrical work several years ago to concentrate on crypto mines and after their power was shut down, AI farms.

The push to AI, EV, and fully electric homes puts all the eggs in one basket.

Where is that electricity coming from and with much of rural BC at brown out power levels currently, where is the additional transmission coming from.

BC won't even approve new natural gas lines into new housing developments in the Okanogan.

[Ronning's Ghost]

Where is the energy coming from?

This was one of my favourite bits of good news recently:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCb8Y1sqz-Y
(the usually very credible Sabine Hossenfelder talks about increased development of geothermal power)

And I don't have to tell you that B.C. is unusually well blessed with geothermal potential. Not Iceland or anything, but solid. And right next door are a bunch of guys with a passion for drilling.

Plus we are also well set up for easy, low tech (and therefore low cost) tidal power. And we've barely begun to tap wind.

B.C. can also store intermittent power from renewables more easily than most places, because we have many workable site for pumped hydro storage.

Energy superpower !

[I hope that's not too far off topic. Tangentially related, at least.]

[Meds]

Where is the energy coming from?

This was one of my favourite bits of good news recently:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCb8Y1sqz-Y
(the usually very credible Sabine Hossenfelder talks about increased development of geothermal power)

And I don't have to tell you that B.C. is unusually well blessed with geothermal potential. Not Iceland or anything, but solid. And right next door are a bunch of guys with a passion for drilling.

Plus we are also well set up for easy, low tech (and therefore low cost) tidal power. And we've barely begun to tap wind.

B.C. can also store intermittent power from renewables more easily than most places, because we have many workable site for pumped hydro storage.

Energy superpower !

[I hope that's not too far off topic. Tangentially related, at least.]

I will direct you here.....

https://www.canuckscorner.com/forums/vi ... 91#p606291

.....this applies to any project in this province.

[Ronning's Ghost]

One could say it’s intelligence is artificial.

Absolutely. I even prefer to call it Artificial Ignorance.
It only knows what it has been told, which could be factual or wrong, and when it finds no information it will make shit up.

The only use I see for it is to summarize a large amount of information to give you an initial idea.

The kind of AI that most people encounter directly is Large Language Models, and I agree with every criticism anyone might care to lay about it.

But AI is much more, and much better, than that. The 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded for two AI models, one predicts protein folding from primary amino acid sequences, and other (even more amazingly) predicts protein shapes required for a given enzymatic function, and the amino acid sequence required to achieve that conformation.

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemi ... s-release/

The implications for biotechnology and medicine are profound.

Another useful thing AI can do is predict compositions for useful new materials (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06735-9) and alloys
(https://cee.mit.edu/automating-alloy-de ... n-the-fly/).

[I thought you'd all love the "on the fly" reference.]

Improved materials can advance almost any and every phase of technological capability.

As usual, the problem with a new technology isn't the technology, it's with the people who try to directly make (or save) money off the technology, whether for spurious mineral deposit predictions, or replacing customer service reps.

[Topper]

Where is the energy coming from?

This was one of my favourite bits of good news recently:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCb8Y1sqz-Y
(the usually very credible Sabine Hossenfelder talks about increased development of geothermal power)

And I don't have to tell you that B.C. is unusually well blessed with geothermal potential. Not Iceland or anything, but solid. And right next door are a bunch of guys with a passion for drilling.

Plus we are also well set up for easy, low tech (and therefore low cost) tidal power. And we've barely begun to tap wind.

B.C. can also store intermittent power from renewables more easily than most places, because we have many workable site for pumped hydro storage.

Energy superpower !

[I hope that's not too far off topic. Tangentially related, at least.]

I've posted this before
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egQbOvvBrlA

Geothermal in the western sedimentary basin is wild

BC still doesn't have it's act together but GeoScience BC is doing a geothermal program near Grey Creek across Kootenay Lake from Ainsworth Hot Springs. There was also the work in the 80's at Mt Meager north of Pemberton.

Note, the western sedimentary basin does not have a geothermal gradient high enough to generate electricity, but can be used for other things freeing up energy sources for electrical generation or be part a of a co generating system.

[Topper]

17 minutes in, though if you want to know something about 1920's Martin's, go from the top

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VA4yBnoQxw0