as far fetched and far away. Here are swimming robots that can navigate around objects. This does sound like a dire situation.
Not a lot of talk about this in the media of course. It's all Doanld Trump, Donald Trump!

since humans cannot go anywhere near the reactor core. This would be a perfect job for robots, but they are dying just like humans would, so we are kind of screwed at the moment.

And I agree, this is a big problem getting ignored.

Jobs. They don't need healthcare, breaks, they can work 24/7, and require no pay?? Slave wages are attractive, but free wages are even better. I think this is around the corner, not some distant future. We are arguing trade bills that will be irrelevant soon. We need to get free job training for the jobs of the future, not just free college.

I am serious in explaining this and do not want to be seen as condescending or mocking at all.

I have worked in tech most of my adult life. Computers, hardware and software, networks, printers, publishing, databases, CAD/CAM, EDI, CNC systems, etc. I also work at a company that uses industrial robots and we follow automation very closely.

While some of the things the Japanese and companies like Google and Boston Dynamics are really cool, they are a LONG way from becoming mainstream. Robots excel at repetitive tasks in controlled environments, where they can be plugged into main power. Remove any of those parameters and they suck.

The humanaform robots they are showing off lately are really cool, but they are still showing them under optimal conditions. For a robot to really be useful, it has to be able to move around freely. To do that the robot requires three things: A battery and incredible sophisticated sensors and software. A robot is no good if it has to spend an hour charging every 20 minutes of activity. So, if you give it a battery big enough for an 8 hour shift, you now have a bulky 400+ lbs robot, which makes it unsuitable for many tasks. Also, it is one thing to show off a robot handling objects of a specific size and weight in a rigidly controlled environment, another to turn it loose in the human world with all of its obstacles, and objects of infinite sizes, shapes and weights.

People underestimate the flexibility of the human body and brain.

Now, if you want to worry about world-altering events that will throw all human society into chaos, you should look at global warming, not robots. Unchecked, the former will wipe us out as a species centuries before our robot overlords.

agree about global warming. It is the biggest threat on the table. A threat not many are taking seriously.

Battery technology will improve, though I think there's lots of unrealistic bullshit published asserting we'll see EVs with a 400 mile range, 30 minute recharge, and under $20K price tag for a mid size vehicle in 5 years.

Battery swapping could certainly make a humanaform robot very practical. Automated battery swapping, even if it happens every hour and takes 5 minutes, provides 55 minutes of productivity every hour, 24 hours a day, 365.25 days a year.

Maintenance would be necessary, but much of that could also be automated.

Please note, I've worked in IT for almost 27 years so I know that natural stupidity is no match for artificial intelligence. I've seen the code people write so I'm not worried about Cyberdyne Systems and the rise of the machines.

Assuming we survive Climate Change, robots could become very useful. However, robotic policing and robotic soldiers would be frightening.

What we are going to see in the next 5 years for EVs is a lot of cars with REALISTIC ranges around 150 miles in the $30-$40K price range, getting a little cheaper each year, and bumping up range every 3-5 years (my rule of thumb is discount all claimed EV mileages by 25%). What is WAY more important is the adoption rate of EV cars, which I think will be driven more by used EV going VERY cheap, than new ones. Currently you can pick up a Nissan Leaf with 30K+ miles for around $10,000 or less. As a daily commuter car it has a perfect range for the average American, is cheap to run (2-3 cents a mile) and pretty reliable. It is also fun to drive and kind of Zen like. Any time I switch back to an ICE, it seems like I am driving a rickety old pick up full of scrap metal.

Battery swapping is certainly one solution to the capacity problem, but it adds to the overall cost of the robot, since batteries are VERY expensive, and then you have to pay for the hardware to do the swapping. (Again, cost and space are increased). Tesla has a battery swapping facility, but it has not been deployed beyond a few test locations due to cost.

That still leaves the enormous challenge of writing code, and as you say from your own experience, Skynet it ain't. I am working with Samsung's home automation software right now and I can tell you it is NOT ready for prime time, despite having been on the market about 4 years now. And compared to the type of AI required for a robot, this stuff is "See Spot run!", and they STILL screw it up in the most amazing ways.

Anyone who gives weapons to a robot should be locked in a room with ED-209 with a Nerf gun superglued to their hand.

Man made disaster in history...

"The fuel rods melted through their containment vessels in the reactors, and no one knows exactly where they are now."

Wow...these are on their way to the center of the planet.

It's a crazy situation.

I don't know how much mass of molten material one of these reactors has or how it might disburse but if there is enough mass it certainly has the temperature to melt its way thru any layers of crust it comes across.

...and it was not just one reactor that melted down. 3 did...and as far as I know Tepco does not know where the fuel from the 3 reactors has gone. X-rays show that it is not in the containment vessels.

At what point do the melted fuel rods get deep enough that they are unrecoverable and will simply irradiate the area forever? I expect that 90% of the media reports that paper over the issue are due to a mendacious media but what exactly are the real threats remaining here? are these things potentially able to slide into the ocean at some point?

where they could, in theory, cause a steam explosion, further contaminating the area. The problem at the moment is the water in the area is being contaminated, and making its way to the sea.

The risk of a meltdown and the waste produced (and what to do with it) alone outweigh the benefits of fission power.

And because humans are in control of such power plants there will inevitably be human error involved.

Why go with something risky and toxic when you have other options? Because we can?

It's not the wiring, it's the diodes and transistors. They are basically layers of semiconductors, n-doped or p-doped to give the material specific electronic properties.

The radioactive radiation enters the diodes and transistors, implants itself there, and changes those electronic properties. The device gradually works worse and worse the more radiation it gets. Until it's finally no longer capable of doing what it was designed to do.



I guess, electronics based vacuum-tubes (instead of transistors) would be way more resitant to radioactive damage, but they are far too bulky to arrange them into microchips.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_tube

I remember the Chernobyl meltdown. The international media converged on the site, documented the effects, the heroics, and the public had information from any number of experts being interviewed at the time. But this mess in Japan seems to have been largely bypassed by the press, but whether it's just a blasé attitude, rank ignorance, or a coverup, I don't understand why it isn't a more prominent news story.

This is treated more like a dirty secret because it can happen anywhere...and probably will again.

Oh nothing to see here move along.