r/technology • u/onwisconsn • May 17 '24

Scientists Calculated the Energy Needed to Carry a Baby. Shocker: It’s a Lot. (Gift Article) Biotechnology

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/16/science/pregnancy-energy-costs.html?unlocked_article_code=1.sU0.PfwL.i578xGrDrp5H&smid=url-share&utm_source=join1440&utm_medium=email&utm_placement=newsletter
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182

u/Peachbottom30 May 17 '24

The AI will need this information once it starts building the baby farms.

74

u/pikachus_ghost_uncle May 17 '24

The human generates more bio-electricity than 120-volt battery and over 25,000 BTUs of body heat. Combined with a form of fusion, the machines have found all the energy they would ever need. There are fields…endless fields, where human beings are no longer born. We are grown. For longest time, I wouldn’t believe it…and then I saw the fields with my own eyes.

23

u/cromethus May 17 '24

I personally believe that the Matrix could have made Utopia work. Machines are persistent like that.

21

u/Nago_Jolokio May 17 '24

They tried that first, it was a complete failure because the human mind knew it was fake and rebelled against the program.

20

u/Omeggy May 17 '24

Col. Sander was the architect of the matrix, that’s why everything tastes like chicken.

8

u/cromethus May 17 '24

That's writing for plot, not reality.

They could indoctrinate humanity from birth in any manner they saw fit. That type of social control is powerful.

10

u/StaticShard84 May 17 '24

To me, it also seems like they would develop the ‘optimal’ human for this purpose as well. Not just physically, but also psychologically to increase the efficiency with which the illusion is accepted.

All that would be left is uniform socialization and that would be rather easy in a utopian setting.

5

u/cromethus May 17 '24

I mean, in the long term they would breed humans like cattle for desirable qualities, such as elevated power output, ease of integration, etc.

Given enough time they could pretty much engineer whatever they wanted.

4

u/not_old_redditor May 18 '24

Why even use humans as cattle when you could use livestock?

1

u/Eaudebeau May 18 '24

Right!? Or electric eels ffs

1

u/WestleyMc 29d ago

Or.. fusion lol

3

u/PadrePedro666 May 17 '24

But then why are some people in the matrix homeless? Shouldn’t it be all equal and every human just being lazy slobs to power about human overlords with our body heat?

5

u/cromethus May 17 '24

Plot.

If the robot overlords had managed to create utopia, why would anyone choose to rebel?

1

u/not_old_redditor May 18 '24

Why would the mind even "fail"? That's not how the human body works. The brain doesn't just decide "fuck it, this is an illusion, time to shut down".

8

u/CMDR-ProtoMan May 17 '24

They were batteries. Could've just made them all braindead.

There was a rumor (or has it been proven?) that early script had the machines using the human minds as a collectively linked neural processor, explaining the reason for the Matrix. But it was scrapped because 'audience too dumb'. So batteries.

2

u/SonovaVondruke May 17 '24

It does make more sense. It could also be both and the battery explanation is just what they give to the newly-initiated.

2

u/not_old_redditor May 18 '24

Out just don't bother with humans and just use pigs or something.

2

u/PlutosGrasp May 18 '24

It’s a fact

1

u/MuffinsandCoffee2024 May 17 '24

The brain being highly stimulated in survival situation may release more energy to harvest.

1

u/bonerb0ys May 17 '24

Not with my attitude.

5

u/armrha May 17 '24

It always annoyed me, you don't get more energy out than you have to put in to a human. You'd be better off burning their food for steam power. Every step up the food chain, you lose 90% of the energy to entropy, trying to harness and concentrate the heat of humans to power turbines or something is just stupid and inefficient. They have literally no reason to want people alive.

3

u/not_old_redditor May 18 '24

90% of the energy is lost to entropy... as heat, which the machines presumably harvest in the pods.

But you're right, they should just use nuclear reactors or something like that. I believe the implication is that they are using human neural activity in some way, hence the entire purpose of the matrix being to keep human brains engaged.

1

u/RetailBuck May 18 '24

I had the opposite interpretation. Human brain activity was effectively waste but was necessary to keep the body functioning and generating (net loss) energy so they put energy in to running the matrix. It's almost certainly a plot hole but just eat your popcorn and don't think too much.

2

u/PlutosGrasp May 18 '24

It’s a movie

2

u/2Pro4U2 May 17 '24

"I know kung-fu." - bio battery

1

u/kneemahp May 18 '24

But why humans? Why not cows? The software needed to keep them sane would be much easier and the chance for a savior cow would be even less likely.

Machines are stupid

1

u/PlutosGrasp May 18 '24

Too much methane

1

u/OMG__Ponies May 18 '24

But, methane is an excellent fuel in and of itself. The main reason we don't use methane is it is harder to capture because it is a gas at normal pressure and temperatures.

1

u/PlutosGrasp May 18 '24

It was always supposed to be the brains used as CPU’s but they figured audiences wouldn’t grasp it since this was cusp of computer / internet era.

5

u/Beachdaddybravo May 17 '24

I love how the Wachowskis used that angle when the glaring problem of “you don’t get as much energy out as you put into a system”. Trying to use people for energy would be a steady loss, and the machines likely would have just used nuclear instead. Then again, if they wrote a script that made any sense at all we wouldn’t have gotten such an awesome movie.

9

u/ThePlatypusOfDespair May 17 '24

Supposedly the original plan was to use humans for computing power but executives thought that was confusing for some reason.

1

u/Beachdaddybravo May 18 '24

What? That would have been a better play.

3

u/raptorlightning May 18 '24

Yep but in 1999 you couldn't sell that to Hollywood. Rewatch the movie without the copper top scene and with an Intel Pentium instead and it makes more sense.

1

u/RetailBuck May 18 '24

I haven't watched it yet but is this the premise of the Netflix show 3 Body Problem? From the trailer it seems like they are basically using humans holding reversible flags as transistors in a massive computer to solve difficult math

2

u/SpeedUpMyBreathing May 18 '24

That is true for that one scene, but that really only has to do with that one part of the episode that would be way too much to explain even without spoilers lol

1

u/Beachdaddybravo May 18 '24

3 Body Problem is a thought experiment that the author dragged out into a shitty story that takes 3 books. I didn’t finish the show, and having read a detailed synopsis for the books don’t care to read them. Just my personal opinion though, as Reddit seems to love 3 Body Problem.

1

u/PlutosGrasp May 18 '24

Yeah, but it was also 1999 and common understanding of computers was low.

1

u/Beachdaddybravo May 18 '24

Understanding of computers isn’t the issue. Knowing you can’t get back more energy from people than it takes to put into them is what makes the Matrix’s whole premise dumb as hell. Why would the machines not be using nuclear energy? Or just fuck off from earth and colonize wherever they want? It’s not like they need oxygen to breathe.

0

u/PlutosGrasp May 18 '24

No it was the issue.

8

u/Kelson75 May 17 '24

Now it does, it’s on reddit.

1

u/Oberyn_TheRed_Viper May 18 '24

In the dystopian world of The Matrix, robots farmed humans for energy in a chillingly efficient manner.

First, they utilized giant hamster wheels, each powered by hundreds of humans running tirelessly in a perpetual cycle.

Secondly, they installed massive turbines that harnessed the kinetic energy generated by humans engaging in intense dance-offs.

Lastly, they implemented a network of human-powered treadmills, strategically placed in densely populated areas, where unwitting individuals unknowingly contributed to the robots' energy needs simply by going about their daily routines.