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The Ridiculous Engineering Of The World's Most Important Machine

Jack by the hedge said:
Yep. That's exactly what I'm doing. After all, what else is the "cover" on a YouTube video for?

(Of course when that idiom arose it was warning against judging a book's content by the quality of its binding, not by blurb printed on the dust jacket.)
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With YouTube it's a bit more complicated, since their algorithm prejudges the thumbnail and grants or withholds wide distribution to potential viewers based on that prejudgement.

I've had more than one creator I respect, who makes good content, apologize for the clickbait thumbnail style they've adopted. Their videos are their livelihood, and when they see their numbers dip they do what have to do.
 
Anyway, what strikes me about engineering projects like this is the lengths humans will go, if there's profit to be had. ASML is pushing the physical limits of photolithography, at huge expense. The maintenance requirements alone, on these machines, are daunting. The mind might boggle at the idea that even one of these devices exists. But no, there's a thriving business in these extreme machines.

This is also seen in "mega-infrastructure" projects.
 
I have had an issue lately with being recommended both WW2 and Aviation videos which are just AI slop. It becomes a bit obvious when you see stuff such as a WW2 video about the Battle of the Coral Sea with a thumbnail depicting an aircraft carrier with an angled deck with a bunch of US Marine F-4B Phantoms and E-6 Prowlers parked on the apron! For this reason I open any video that is not from a known & trusted source in a new tab. If its AI slop, I close the tab, go back to original tab and block the channel.
 
I absolutely think that it is ridiculous/insane in the traditional sense to spend that much resources and brain power on advancing technology in a single area by not all that much, when there are so many issues with much higher priority that should be addressed.
 
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The Great Zaganza said:
I absolutely think that it is ridiculous/insane in the traditional sense to spend that much resources and brain power on advancing technology in a single area by not all that much, when there are so many issues with much higher priority that should be addressed.
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With the demand on resources that AI is creating, faster chips are a requirement. You might not like it, but the market is the final decision maker, and the decision has been made.
 
The Great Zaganza said:
I absolutely think that it is ridiculous/insane in the traditional sense to spend that much resources and brain power on advancing technology in a single area by not all that much, when there are so many issues with much higher priority that should be addressed.
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Seriously?

The "single area" you refer to impacts EVERY SINGLE DEVICE we use in our everyday lives. The advanced chips these machines make are used in mobile phones, tablets, computers, televisions, home appliances, cameras, gaming consoles, printing machines, MRI scanners, pacemakers, medical monitoring devices, surgical tools, handheld gaming devices, GPS, modems, routers and network infrastructure, electrnic test equipwent, ATM machines, EFTPOS machines, cars , trucks, aircraft, major infrastructure such as power distribution, water distribution, manufacturing, agricultural machinery, air traffic control and satellites.

You would be hard pressed to find any device in common use today that does not have a computer chip in it, or did not have a computer chip involved in its design, development or manufacture.
 
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lionking said:
With the demand on resources that AI is creating, faster chips are a requirement. You might not like it, but the market is the final decision maker, and the decision has been made.
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My point exactly: we have an artificially created demand that is supported only a handful of companies, not the widespread market.
It is a bubble according to literally everyone.

But I am speaking more generally: if you subscribe to the 80/20 Principle (as I do), you realize how incredibly inefficient the hightech industry is, being based on mostly on hype and promises.
There are so many other sectors that could grow massively with only a fraction of the investment and attention.
We could have literally mitigated Climate Change to manageable levels with the money spent on AI so far.
 
I'm lucky enough to know a physicist that is pushing the envelope with trapping and manipulating single photons.

He explained that the reason for his research, is that microchips are reaching another theoretical limit.

Particularly, electrons aren't really physical while they do their thing in circuits, they 'travel' as sets of probabilities.
If your 'tracks' are too close together, electrons become just as likely to be on adjacent tracks, and therefore don't arrive at their destination.

Apologies if I've garbled his explanation, but that was the gist of it.
 
About the clickbait title, Veritasium has researched that too:
There's a reason they use titles like this!
 
The Great Zaganza said:
I absolutely think that it is ridiculous/insane in the traditional sense to spend that much resources and brain power on advancing technology in a single area by not all that much, when there are so many issues with much higher priority that should be addressed.
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These machines actually required technological advances in several areas.
 
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