I don’t think we’ll have the choice.

> I like fusion, really. I’ve talked to some of luminaries that work in the field, they’re great people. I love the technology and the physics behind it.

> But fusion as a power source is never going to happen. Not because it can’t, because it won’t. Because no matter how hard you try, it’s always going to cost more than the solutions we already have.

https://matter2energy.wordpress.com/2012/10/26/why-fusion-wi...

Yeh current tech is expensive and would likely be uncompetitive. At the very very end of that article is the key to this though:

> I fully support a pure research program for radically different approaches to fusion.

We've got by without them so far and solar is cracking along.

That's not how invention works though. Something has to be technically possible and we have to discover how to do it in a viable way.

ITER apparently fires up in 2039.

That date means nothing though. We have yet to figure out how to run a fusion reactor for any meaningful period of time and we haven't figured out how to do it profitably.

Setting a date for when one opens is just a pipe dream, they don't know how to get there yet.

isn't the ROI on current AI investment kinda similar though? Both are built on elements of hope.

Helion has one under construction https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/helion-energy-starts...

Whether it works or not is of course another matter.

Is it a fusion reactor if it can't maintain a fusion reaction and generator energy?

A non functioning fusion reactor? So far I think they've achieved fusion but not net energy.

What makes people think we'll have AGI in the 21st century? LLM is not AI, and as far away from AGI as self-parking car.