The only successful applications of "AI" (like collaborative filtering and recommendation systems) are ALL based on Machine Learning (ML), the very method you say failed. ML is the most vibrant and exciting area of computer science today, and one that has had a huge amount of success.
I MENTIONED systems like recommendations. These are intelligent processes. They act like AI, and in a way they are kind of a "minor" form of it. The actual methodology for interpretation of the information is hard coded not derived from the learning process, so it isn't hard core AI.
Your objections apply equally to humans as to an AI implemented in a human-like manner. Do you also think humans are useless?!
Not as such, no, but one of the reasons why we employ computers is an effort to remove human error. If we design computers that are just as fallible humans, then what is the point?
Rather than panning AI based on a simplistic and inadequate model of how it may be achieved, it would be more logical to try to understand how we ourselves transcend our fuzzy underpinnings, then realize that those same mechanisms can be implemented in an AI.
I'm not panning AI. I worked in robotics for a while and am quite familiar with the concepts and theories. I have not done any "research" per se' but I have built a goal seeking robot capable of learning and escaping a maze.
You seem to be under the impression that we don't understand how the brain works. This is a false assumption. We know quite a bit about how the brain learns.
The issue is the "fuzzy" aspect of learning machines is that "fuzzy" is not always appropriate. You don't want a "fuzzy" calculator balancing your check book. You want a rock solid deterministic calculator.
The most interesting prospect of AI isn't in matching human capability - it's in exceeding it. Not just in speed of thought or memory capacity, but in every way possible.
The problem with "exceeding" human capability is the next step past emulating it. I've already expressed why this doesn't work.
Achieving human-level capabilty is the hard part and therefore the initial goal, but the real dream is something more like a human that has evolved another layer to our brain - the outer computational cortex that has computer-like memory and computational capabilities. Think Spock, or HAL, as the goal, not a human.
The problem with "AI" is defining the input and output mechanisms and quantifying them in such a way as the relationships to other input is realized and the trial/error feedback of goal seeking is allowed to build workable heuristics to solve problems.
This is no longer computing, it does not generally produce "predictable" results. It may generate "usable" functions, i.e. robots that can figure out how to get out of a maze, but not predictable or verifiable results that can be used by industries like finance.
The real problem was that we were trying to emulate the brain's ability to learn without actually understanding how the brain learns.
This is the basic trouble with AI. It is trying to simulate something that we simply do not understand.
I don't agree. We know a GREAT DEAL about how the brain learns and the learning process. The problem with that process is that it is not precise. It is inherently built on probabilities and not hard logic.
A computer isn't allowed to make the mistakes that a human makes. Having it learn "biologically" means that it is no longer reliable for accuracy.
AI failed because it is a failed model, kind of
on
Whatever Happened To AI?
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· Score: 5, Insightful
The thing about AI as we approached it from the '80s was that we wanted to emulate the human brain's ability to learn. A truly exciting prospect but a completely ridiculous endevor.
"AI" based on learning and developing is not perfect, can not be perfect, and will never be perfect. This is because we have to teach it like a child and slowly build up the ability of the AI system. For it to be powerful, it has to be able to incorporate new unpredictable information. In doing so, it must, as a result, also be able to incorporate "wrong" information and thus become unpredictable. Of all things, a computer needs to be predictable.
The problem with making a computer think like a person is that you lose the precision of the computer and get the bad judgment and mistakes of a human. Not a good solution to anything.
The "better" approach is to capitalize on "intelligent methods." Intelligent people have developed reliable approaches to solving problems and the development work is to implement them on a computer. Like the article points out, recommendations systems mimic intelligence because they implement a single intelligent "process" that an expert would use with a lot of information.
It is not a general purpose learning system like "AI" was originally envisioned, but it implements a function typically associated with intelligence.
Don't get me wrong, I loved Carlin all my life, but one of the things that was pissing him off lately was the fact that people weren't questioning government or religion as much as they used to be, and by all measure, things are getting worse.
Maybe this shock will wake up some people. Maybe the inevitable memorials will spark a renewal of the rebellious spirit.
I only hope so.
As a fellow atheist, I have come to accept that people only live on as the effect they've had on the world. For a relatively brief time in history, the world had a great jester and poet, lets all take time to remember him in or lives.
Do you really believe the government won't make encryption itself illegal?
Seriously, of course they would try, but there are too many big money interests that *need* the security of encryption. When you think of finance, e-commerce, banking, etc. there's no way they can put the genie back in the bottle.
Power is about greed, and the greedy want money, and making encryption affects the bottom line. Governments are run by greedy people. The one thing greedy people want more than power and control is money.
As more and more wiretapping laws and eavesdropping systems come on line, the more and more the technology movers will make it impossible.
Every last thing is going to be encrypted, IM, web, email, etc. The more of this crap they pull, the more they will be unable to do. If they break the encryption, we'll make it better.
The traits mentioned at the "dark triad" also tend to fade with youth, not always, of course, but I'd say more often than not.
When I was young, I drank, smoked pot, drove fast, got in fights, and yes, got lots of girls, would sleep with a friends girl friend, etc. 25 years later, I have a wife, kids, home, etc. I'm different, I out grew those traits.
I suspect that the part they seem to be missing is that those traits are needed to buck the establishment and make your way in the world when you are starting out. As you become successful, those traits become less effective and their expense becomes too high.
Are you suggesting the distinct lack of interest in Word for DOS is the reason Word destroyed Wordperfect in the '90s ?
No I'm suggesting that the crap Microsoft pulled to make Word competitive under DOS and then Windows was an unfair advantage that Word Star and Word Perfect didn't get. While Word Perfect was a better word processor, it should come as a SHOCK! A SHOCK I tell you, that Word for DOS and Word for Windows, had an advantage. I'm not sure how tech savvy you are, but under Windows, "Word for Windows 1.0" was basically the beginnings of Windows common control architecture.
There was no way Word Perfect could compete when "Word for Windows" was basically built on the next generation of Windows technology before it was released. Sherman act violation.
Then perhaps you can enlighten us as to why pretty much everyone in the industry considered Navigator 4.0 to be a broken piece of crap
All browsers were crap back then. Netscape was better than IE. At that time, Winsock was very buggy.
We are in no way, shape, or form, talking about Word for DOS.
Then you miss a VERY important step, ignoring which, will cloud your view of what REALLY happened in the office market of the late 80s and early 90s. Its like ignoring slavery in the 1700s and 1800s when trying to understand the civil war.
Which does not change the facts. IE4 took ca. 50% of the browser market off Navigator before "integration" could have possible been a significant factor.
Yes because Netscape charged for their browser and Microsoft gave theirs away for free. This was an almost perfect example of a violation of the sherman act.
Indeed, it's a struggle to take anyone who remembers Navigator 4.0 as anything other than an unstable, bloated piece of crap, seriously.
Having been in the industry since CP/M, it is a hard job to keep history from being re-written by people who don't know the whole series of events.
Well, we can't do anything over night. It took a generation or two to get to this point, and it may take just as long to get back.
There is no single battle. This is a war within the United States to return control to the people. I love my country, by my government is becoming a fascist dictatorship.
Civil disobedience. Run for office. Local, and build. VOTE. We got here because people didn't care.
Do you really believe that? At what point was Word ever better than Word Perfect? Bonus: why?
When was IE ever better than Netscape? again, why?
What "back doors" ? What did these "back doors" do ? The whole DOS background printing, inDOS flag, and other undocumented features were used my multiplan and word. Windows 2.x has a section in the SDK called "Extensions to Windows for MS Word."
Microsoft's success came from a complete lack of ethics.
While companies tried to compete on a level and ethical playing field, Microsoft was dirty dealing them. Stealing their work, poisoning business relationships, intentionally disrupting their businesses, etc.
I can't think of one, that's right, not one product of theirs that won on its own merit. Their whole office suite wouldn't be anything if they didn't create back doors in Windows and DOS for them. Windows wouldn't be anything if they did not poison relations between the likes of Xerox and DRI. DOS would have had competition from DRI if they didn't embed bogus warning messages in their applications. FUD is the modus operandi of Microsoft and how they "succeed."
They took illegal and unethical advantage of every piece of software they ever sold. Every last piece of their software works against every other software ISV.
Those they couldn't beat, they put out of business by dumping "free" versions on the market. Netscape anyone?
The problem with asking for a kit to teach you electronics is like using frozen cookie dough to teach you how to make cookies. When you're done, all you really learned was the assembly process.
A good electronics book, like Art of Electronics, is the best place to start. The basic kits you would buy are made unnecessary by the first few chapters.
Why do you want to learn electronics? Is it to build a radio? Is it to build an I/O interface for your computer? Set out to figure out how to build it without a kit.
My dad used to say, "You have to be smart enough to do it yourself or make enough money to pay someone to do it for you." So you can imagine how much help I had doing things when I was young, so for me, it is natural to just do it myself. Kits are for sissys.:-)
Maybe we can add an extension to "Google Desktop" that will test ODF files when they are indexed and warn users that their applications are producing broken documents.
We are in a very important phase. We (someone) needs to create an ODF compatibility test utility, like an HTML validator, that will test the compliance of an ODF file.
It can be used to catch Microsoft's crap. Remember, a word processing document is unlike HTML. HTML is likely to be seen by a multitude of people where as a document is probably only going to be seen by a specifically targeted group. Microsoft will be able to add incompatibility and almost no one will be able to notice until they wish to open THEIR document with a non-microsoft word processor or spread sheet. At that point it will be too late.
We also have to make sure that Microsoft's products render ODF compliant documents correctly when they are created by non microsoft applications.
OK, this is the first shoe to drop. (Sorry British Columbia, no offense)
The is the "embrace" part. Once they start using the format, just you watch, like Java, HTML, CSS, SQL, C++, C, etc. they will add features that break compatibility, because of, wait for it, "customer demand." As we all know "customer demand" will be asking a room full of carefully collected idiots a set of loaded questions.
I have worked closely, in the past, with Microsoft and they view any real standard as a threat. They wield their monopoly power and "defaco" status like a sledge hammer. They've done it in the past, and they'll do it with ODF.
The computing community has to monitor the situation and fight incompatibility as the run of the mill consumer has absolutely no idea what is going on.
That is called running a business. Thousands of decisions are made like this every day. I used to drive a Volkswagen Scirocco, but the end-of-life'ed it. They came out with a Corrado which I didn't want and neither did a lot of other Scirocco fans. There is no way to twist this in such a way that VW had a monopoly.
It isn't just running a business. The Scirocco was not a good seller and VW was losing money on it. That's why they got rid of it.
Windows XP selling great and people want it. I gave the example of Ford keeping the mustang instead of branding what was the Probe as New Mustang" also, remember new coke?
Really? I wasn't aware that Best Buy was the only place to buy computers. I went to a Volkswagen dealership and all they had was VW's... again, not a monopoly.
Car dealers sell their brand of cars and there is no monopoly on cars or car dealers. So your analogy is bogus.
Find me one main stream consumer retail establishment that sells commodity P.C. type computers with something other than Microsoft Windows.
However, by your definition Apple is a monopoly too, right?
It isn't *my* definition, it is the established definition of monopoly and, no, apple sells its product and it hardly has enough market share to be considered anything but a niche market.
P.S. at work I am responsible for 100 or so machines, all Dells- none of which run Windows. I'm sure you're confused now. Yes, there are even more choices- and this choice was free! They run Linux. We pre-order them that way.
Yes, we all know that some people can order a limited selection of computers with Linux pre-installed, but that isn't the issue.
From an economic point, the establishment of a "monopoly" isn't that there are no choices, but that the barriers to using an alternate product are too high.
Read about "Standard Oil" and the Sherman Act. Microsoft is a monopoly. This wasn't a troll regardless of what you think. Your post, with the obvious straw man arguments, bad analogies, and a clear misunderstanding and/or misrepresentation about what constitutes a "monopoly" more fits the description of troll.
There's no question that in an environment of standardized reactor design and streamlined regulation that nuclear would be less expensive.
There is no evidence to support that statement. Inevitable accidents? Interesting way of phrasing it
Please tell me of one human run technology that has never had an accident.
PBRs are interesting in their "fail safe" design, but there are airplanes in the sky, earth quakes, hurricanes, tornadoes and so on.
Nuclear power is unlike other technologies in that an error can have world wide catastrophes that result in generations of injury.
I'll trade that risk to eliminate emissions from coal, oil, and gas fired plants.
Its funny, the idea of "risk" doesn't trouble me. The idea of a "for profit" company running nuclear power plants does. If you want a good analogy, look at private health insurance. People are dying because their health insurance companies will find any way they can to keep from paying out what they are supposed to pay. Now, a private company running a nuclear power plant, weighing risks against a corporate bottom line scares the hell out of me.
The safest technology in the hands of corporations isn't. Remember Bhopal India?
Slashdot Mirror
You are so wrong.
Obviously, I don't think so.
The only successful applications of "AI" (like collaborative filtering and recommendation systems) are ALL based on Machine Learning (ML), the very method you say failed. ML is the most vibrant and exciting area of computer science today, and one that has had a huge amount of success.
I MENTIONED systems like recommendations. These are intelligent processes. They act like AI, and in a way they are kind of a "minor" form of it. The actual methodology for interpretation of the information is hard coded not derived from the learning process, so it isn't hard core AI.
That's the point I have been making.
Your objections apply equally to humans as to an AI implemented in a human-like manner. Do you also think humans are useless?!
Not as such, no, but one of the reasons why we employ computers is an effort to remove human error. If we design computers that are just as fallible humans, then what is the point?
Rather than panning AI based on a simplistic and inadequate model of how it may be achieved, it would be more logical to try to understand how we ourselves transcend our fuzzy underpinnings, then realize that those same mechanisms can be implemented in an AI.
I'm not panning AI. I worked in robotics for a while and am quite familiar with the concepts and theories. I have not done any "research" per se' but I have built a goal seeking robot capable of learning and escaping a maze.
You seem to be under the impression that we don't understand how the brain works. This is a false assumption. We know quite a bit about how the brain learns.
The issue is the "fuzzy" aspect of learning machines is that "fuzzy" is not always appropriate. You don't want a "fuzzy" calculator balancing your check book. You want a rock solid deterministic calculator.
Yea, I have lots of ideas and things I've been working on.
Fund me! :-)
The most interesting prospect of AI isn't in matching human capability - it's in exceeding it. Not just in speed of thought or memory capacity, but in every way possible.
The problem with "exceeding" human capability is the next step past emulating it. I've already expressed why this doesn't work.
Achieving human-level capabilty is the hard part and therefore the initial goal, but the real dream is something more like a human that has evolved another layer to our brain - the outer computational cortex that has computer-like memory and computational capabilities. Think Spock, or HAL, as the goal, not a human.
The problem with "AI" is defining the input and output mechanisms and quantifying them in such a way as the relationships to other input is realized and the trial/error feedback of goal seeking is allowed to build workable heuristics to solve problems.
This is no longer computing, it does not generally produce "predictable" results. It may generate "usable" functions, i.e. robots that can figure out how to get out of a maze, but not predictable or verifiable results that can be used by industries like finance.
The real problem was that we were trying to emulate the brain's ability to learn without actually understanding how the brain learns.
This is the basic trouble with AI. It is trying to simulate something that we simply do not understand.
I don't agree. We know a GREAT DEAL about how the brain learns and the learning process. The problem with that process is that it is not precise. It is inherently built on probabilities and not hard logic.A computer isn't allowed to make the mistakes that a human makes. Having it learn "biologically" means that it is no longer reliable for accuracy.
The thing about AI as we approached it from the '80s was that we wanted to emulate the human brain's ability to learn. A truly exciting prospect but a completely ridiculous endevor.
"AI" based on learning and developing is not perfect, can not be perfect, and will never be perfect. This is because we have to teach it like a child and slowly build up the ability of the AI system. For it to be powerful, it has to be able to incorporate new unpredictable information. In doing so, it must, as a result, also be able to incorporate "wrong" information and thus become unpredictable. Of all things, a computer needs to be predictable.
The problem with making a computer think like a person is that you lose the precision of the computer and get the bad judgment and mistakes of a human. Not a good solution to anything.
The "better" approach is to capitalize on "intelligent methods." Intelligent people have developed reliable approaches to solving problems and the development work is to implement them on a computer. Like the article points out, recommendations systems mimic intelligence because they implement a single intelligent "process" that an expert would use with a lot of information.
It is not a general purpose learning system like "AI" was originally envisioned, but it implements a function typically associated with intelligence.
Don't get me wrong, I loved Carlin all my life, but one of the things that was pissing him off lately was the fact that people weren't questioning government or religion as much as they used to be, and by all measure, things are getting worse.
Maybe this shock will wake up some people. Maybe the inevitable memorials will spark a renewal of the rebellious spirit.
I only hope so.
As a fellow atheist, I have come to accept that people only live on as the effect they've had on the world. For a relatively brief time in history, the world had a great jester and poet, lets all take time to remember him in or lives.
Do you really believe the government won't make encryption itself illegal?
Seriously, of course they would try, but there are too many big money interests that *need* the security of encryption. When you think of finance, e-commerce, banking, etc. there's no way they can put the genie back in the bottle.
Power is about greed, and the greedy want money, and making encryption affects the bottom line. Governments are run by greedy people. The one thing greedy people want more than power and control is money.
As more and more wiretapping laws and eavesdropping systems come on line, the more and more the technology movers will make it impossible.
Every last thing is going to be encrypted, IM, web, email, etc. The more of this crap they pull, the more they will be unable to do. If they break the encryption, we'll make it better.
The traits mentioned at the "dark triad" also tend to fade with youth, not always, of course, but I'd say more often than not.
When I was young, I drank, smoked pot, drove fast, got in fights, and yes, got lots of girls, would sleep with a friends girl friend, etc. 25 years later, I have a wife, kids, home, etc. I'm different, I out grew those traits.
I suspect that the part they seem to be missing is that those traits are needed to buck the establishment and make your way in the world when you are starting out. As you become successful, those traits become less effective and their expense becomes too high.
Are you suggesting the distinct lack of interest in Word for DOS is the reason Word destroyed Wordperfect in the '90s ?
No I'm suggesting that the crap Microsoft pulled to make Word competitive under DOS and then Windows was an unfair advantage that Word Star and Word Perfect didn't get. While Word Perfect was a better word processor, it should come as a SHOCK! A SHOCK I tell you, that Word for DOS and Word for Windows, had an advantage. I'm not sure how tech savvy you are, but under Windows, "Word for Windows 1.0" was basically the beginnings of Windows common control architecture.
There was no way Word Perfect could compete when "Word for Windows" was basically built on the next generation of Windows technology before it was released. Sherman act violation.
Then perhaps you can enlighten us as to why pretty much everyone in the industry considered Navigator 4.0 to be a broken piece of crap
All browsers were crap back then. Netscape was better than IE. At that time, Winsock was very buggy.
We are in no way, shape, or form, talking about Word for DOS.
Then you miss a VERY important step, ignoring which, will cloud your view of what REALLY happened in the office market of the late 80s and early 90s. Its like ignoring slavery in the 1700s and 1800s when trying to understand the civil war.
Which does not change the facts. IE4 took ca. 50% of the browser market off Navigator before "integration" could have possible been a significant factor.
Yes because Netscape charged for their browser and Microsoft gave theirs away for free. This was an almost perfect example of a violation of the sherman act.
Indeed, it's a struggle to take anyone who remembers Navigator 4.0 as anything other than an unstable, bloated piece of crap, seriously.
Having been in the industry since CP/M, it is a hard job to keep history from being re-written by people who don't know the whole series of events.
Agreed! But what can we do about it?
Well, we can't do anything over night. It took a generation or two to get to this point, and it may take just as long to get back.
There is no single battle. This is a war within the United States to return control to the people. I love my country, by my government is becoming a fascist dictatorship.
Civil disobedience. Run for office. Local, and build. VOTE. We got here because people didn't care.
Word for Windows or Word for Mac ?
We are talking about history not current events. Word for DOS.
Which is why it _slaughtered_ Navigator's market share long before its integration into Windows 98 became a factor.
You and I remember history different. I remember IE being worse than Netscape.
Office and IE are the two most obvious examples.
Do you really believe that? At what point was Word ever better than Word Perfect? Bonus: why?
When was IE ever better than Netscape? again, why?
What "back doors" ? What did these "back doors" do ?
The whole DOS background printing, inDOS flag, and other undocumented features were used my multiplan and word. Windows 2.x has a section in the SDK called "Extensions to Windows for MS Word."
I don't consider the XBox "innovative" in any way. They basically took an existing set of technologies wrapped it in a box and added DRM.
They didn't design anything.
Microsoft's success came from a complete lack of ethics.
While companies tried to compete on a level and ethical playing field, Microsoft was dirty dealing them. Stealing their work, poisoning business relationships, intentionally disrupting their businesses, etc.
I can't think of one, that's right, not one product of theirs that won on its own merit. Their whole office suite wouldn't be anything if they didn't create back doors in Windows and DOS for them. Windows wouldn't be anything if they did not poison relations between the likes of Xerox and DRI. DOS would have had competition from DRI if they didn't embed bogus warning messages in their applications. FUD is the modus operandi of Microsoft and how they "succeed."
They took illegal and unethical advantage of every piece of software they ever sold. Every last piece of their software works against every other software ISV.
Those they couldn't beat, they put out of business by dumping "free" versions on the market. Netscape anyone?
They took an oath to uphold the constitution of the U.S.A. This is a violation of that oath. I would call this treason, yes.
The problem with asking for a kit to teach you electronics is like using frozen cookie dough to teach you how to make cookies. When you're done, all you really learned was the assembly process.
A good electronics book, like Art of Electronics, is the best place to start. The basic kits you would buy are made unnecessary by the first few chapters.
Why do you want to learn electronics? Is it to build a radio? Is it to build an I/O interface for your computer? Set out to figure out how to build it without a kit.
My dad used to say, "You have to be smart enough to do it yourself or make enough money to pay someone to do it for you." So you can imagine how much help I had doing things when I was young, so for me, it is natural to just do it myself. Kits are for sissys. :-)
Maybe we can add an extension to "Google Desktop" that will test ODF files when they are indexed and warn users that their applications are producing broken documents.
We are in a very important phase. We (someone) needs to create an ODF compatibility test utility, like an HTML validator, that will test the compliance of an ODF file.
It can be used to catch Microsoft's crap. Remember, a word processing document is unlike HTML. HTML is likely to be seen by a multitude of people where as a document is probably only going to be seen by a specifically targeted group. Microsoft will be able to add incompatibility and almost no one will be able to notice until they wish to open THEIR document with a non-microsoft word processor or spread sheet. At that point it will be too late.
We also have to make sure that Microsoft's products render ODF compliant documents correctly when they are created by non microsoft applications.
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
OK, this is the first shoe to drop. (Sorry British Columbia, no offense)
The is the "embrace" part. Once they start using the format, just you watch, like Java, HTML, CSS, SQL, C++, C, etc. they will add features that break compatibility, because of, wait for it, "customer demand." As we all know "customer demand" will be asking a room full of carefully collected idiots a set of loaded questions.
I have worked closely, in the past, with Microsoft and they view any real standard as a threat. They wield their monopoly power and "defaco" status like a sledge hammer. They've done it in the past, and they'll do it with ODF.
The computing community has to monitor the situation and fight incompatibility as the run of the mill consumer has absolutely no idea what is going on.
That is called running a business. Thousands of decisions are made like this every day. I used to drive a Volkswagen Scirocco, but the end-of-life'ed it. They came out with a Corrado which I didn't want and neither did a lot of other Scirocco fans. There is no way to twist this in such a way that VW had a monopoly.
It isn't just running a business. The Scirocco was not a good seller and VW was losing money on it. That's why they got rid of it.
Windows XP selling great and people want it. I gave the example of Ford keeping the mustang instead of branding what was the Probe as New Mustang" also, remember new coke?
Really? I wasn't aware that Best Buy was the only place to buy computers. I went to a Volkswagen dealership and all they had was VW's... again, not a monopoly.
Car dealers sell their brand of cars and there is no monopoly on cars or car dealers. So your analogy is bogus.
Find me one main stream consumer retail establishment that sells commodity P.C. type computers with something other than Microsoft Windows.
However, by your definition Apple is a monopoly too, right?
It isn't *my* definition, it is the established definition of monopoly and, no, apple sells its product and it hardly has enough market share to be considered anything but a niche market.
P.S. at work I am responsible for 100 or so machines, all Dells- none of which run Windows. I'm sure you're confused now. Yes, there are even more choices- and this choice was free! They run Linux. We pre-order them that way.
Yes, we all know that some people can order a limited selection of computers with Linux pre-installed, but that isn't the issue.
From an economic point, the establishment of a "monopoly" isn't that there are no choices, but that the barriers to using an alternate product are too high.
Read about "Standard Oil" and the Sherman Act. Microsoft is a monopoly. This wasn't a troll regardless of what you think. Your post, with the obvious straw man arguments, bad analogies, and a clear misunderstanding and/or misrepresentation about what constitutes a "monopoly" more fits the description of troll.
There's no question that in an environment of standardized reactor design and streamlined regulation that nuclear would be less expensive.
There is no evidence to support that statement.
Inevitable accidents? Interesting way of phrasing it
Please tell me of one human run technology that has never had an accident.
PBRs are interesting in their "fail safe" design, but there are airplanes in the sky, earth quakes, hurricanes, tornadoes and so on.
Nuclear power is unlike other technologies in that an error can have world wide catastrophes that result in generations of injury.
I'll trade that risk to eliminate emissions from coal, oil, and gas fired plants.
Its funny, the idea of "risk" doesn't trouble me. The idea of a "for profit" company running nuclear power plants does. If you want a good analogy, look at private health insurance. People are dying because their health insurance companies will find any way they can to keep from paying out what they are supposed to pay. Now, a private company running a nuclear power plant, weighing risks against a corporate bottom line scares the hell out of me.
The safest technology in the hands of corporations isn't. Remember Bhopal India?
Please refute anything in the post which is untrue. Calling it propaganda is not a debate.