573

So i thought this fits here, he calls the boat Helios 11 and builds it with very little experience. He docunents the adventure quite well and shares what he learns, and also shares all the plans for the boat for free.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] Enkrod@feddit.org 36 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

He want's to make it

AI controlled

aww man

I respect his solar commitement, but listening to him it's obvious he's a libertarian Elon-Bro... my immediate reaction is "oh no... it's stupid."

And the concept isn't new, solar boats have been a thing for ages now and most of them are (like @OwOarchist@pawb.social suggested) catamarans or trimarans.

[-] poVoq@slrpnk.net 20 points 2 months ago

Can we please avoid using abelist slurs in this community?

[-] Enkrod@feddit.org 17 points 2 months ago

Heard and edited.

[-] _nb@slrpnk.net 2 points 2 months ago

AI is completely irrelevant to his project, I really don't know why he mentioned that. The solar/battery/motor setup looks like off-the-shelf from victron — we can see a screenshot of the app at some point.

[-] SteveKLord@slrpnk.net 3 points 2 months ago

I'd like to second Povoq's request and ask that we're more mindful of the words we choose and their impact please.

[-] RobotToaster@mander.xyz 8 points 2 months ago

Honestly not a terrible use of ai. I imagine it's pretty good at spotting things in a sparse environment like the middle of the ocean.

[-] Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 months ago

Wouldn’t that just be a regular software that uses ML for just image detection?

[-] keepthepace@slrpnk.net 3 points 2 months ago

I suspect voice control + a small LLM for tool uses qualifies it as "AI"

[-] Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 months ago

Which is terrible imo cause they were never considered intelligence before, just tools that barely worked

[-] keepthepace@slrpnk.net 2 points 2 months ago

Quite frankly, in the last two years, I've accepted the AI term because that's pretty close to what we expected sci-fi AI to be.

Something that you talk to that understands from the context what you mean and that calls the appropriate tool is exactly things like Jarvis, like HAL 9000.

[-] Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 months ago

That’s a fair point, we also called video game enemy algorithm AI.

But no one calls that AI, I think the key indicator is a statistical model instead of a human coded script

[-] hayvan@piefed.world 3 points 2 months ago

Yes and no. "AI" has been a marketing term over a decade now, it's a vague statement which is pretty much mandatory to get funding.

In theory, I agree with you, automated navigation of boats seems like a good fit for machine learning.

[-] jj4211@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

Technically over a decade, but feels like that's an understatement.

In the 1940s some people called a machine to play NIM as "Artificial Intelligence". People talked about opponent AI in checkers games before most of us were born.

Certainly by the 80s using "AI" to describe the manipulations of enemy characters was all-in.

[-] hayvan@piefed.world 1 points 2 months ago

That's why AI means everything and nothing. In games, computer controllwd characters are called AI, although they are straightforward algorithms. It's a catch-all term.

In early 2000s, at least in the academia, we used AI to refer to neural networks, although it wasn't a strict term. Then anything machine learning (including regression models) were called AI, now LLMs and chatbots are called AI while other type of models are pretty much ignored. A boat navigation system could use a neural network but almost definitely not a language model at its core.

[-] jmill@lemmy.zip 4 points 2 months ago

Oh, it's OK, he specifically addressed how to get good AI results. He commanded Chat-GPT to give him good info. If you just ask nicely it won't work, you have to be forceful. Forget boat building, he should clearly be teaching classes on using LLMs.

[-] keepthepace@slrpnk.net 2 points 2 months ago

AI can be fine, I cringed at the mention of Starlink, even though that's a case where it makes sense.

[-] Cethin@lemmy.zip 2 points 2 months ago

There's currently not really an alternative to Starlink for this type of use sadly. If speed isn't a concern then there are, but for typical internet usage there really isn't.

[-] keepthepace@slrpnk.net 3 points 2 months ago
this post was submitted on 09 May 2026
573 points (99.0% liked)

Solarpunk

9178 readers
111 users here now

The space to discuss Solarpunk itself and Solarpunk related stuff that doesn't fit elsewhere.

What is Solarpunk?

Join our chat: Movim or XMPP client.

founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS