They designed and built a battery that uses up to 70 per cent less lithium than some competing designs.
This is probably a way of phrasing that means it’s up to 70% less than the absolute most lithium-requiring designs that few/no one uses, and probably only marginally better than most designs actually used. Since they’re very vague about it, I will be sceptical and assume it is way less revolutionary than the headline suggests.
Also, lithium is of pretty low concern when it comes to the materials in current cells. Stuff like cobalt and nickel are more critical and would be larger news.
LFP batteries are both nickel and cobalt free, and are being used in production cars right now (e.g. Tesla model 3/Y standard range options). That technology has long arrived.
Also, AI would have just sped up an existing plan they had to try new approaches because AI doesn’t create new ideas or think of things out of nowhere.
If you tell AI to do things within a certain range and it gives you results then AI came up with a design as much as google came up with search results when you put something into the search bar.
It can apply existing concepts in ways we haven’t thought of. AI has been used for exactly this thing for years in chemistry. When given constraints (less lithium) and parameters (with this much capacity) it can try permutations of various designs that theoretically meet those conditions.
Yes AI is overhyped, yes it’s often exaggerated by news sources, but that doesn’t mean AI is a non-invention or something. It’s a long way off from any of the lofty goals that are often thrown around by tech ceos, but that doesn’t mean it’s useless.
It can apply existing concepts in ways we haven’t thought of, like people do. AI has been used for exactly this thing for decades in chemistry. When given constraints (less lithium) and parameters (with this much capacity) it can try permutations of various designs that theoretically meet those conditions.
We have had weather models, astronomical models, and all other kinds of computer based prediction methods that do multiple permutations that theoretically meet conditions. AI is just another step forward by doing better pattern recognition and identifying relationships with data based on design choices. All of the chemistry findings came from the system being designed to try things they would not normally test for because testing is expensive and AI can run simulated tests faster and cheaper.
My point is that saying ‘AI came up with’ is 100% inaccurate phrasing intended to trick people into thinking that AI is intelligent instead of just being a very complex tool used to do things we already do faster. It allows for trying more permutations and more pattern recognition, but is just another approach to existing computer models that have also identified things we did not expect. Computer models used to identify starts with planets, but we don’t call those intelligent because they aren’t being sold as something they are not.
Ah, I see what you’re saying. Yes the recognition for these advances should be with human programmers and engineers who are configuring the software and making the models for testing. You’re right I can definitely see why that distinction is important and the media should be making clear that the AI isn’t just turned on and magically works it all out on its own. It’s computational resources being directed towards a task, the models it works within are setup by professionals and the discoveries it finds are interpreted and made useful by those professionals.
The media is just parroting what the companies that want to sell AI are saying. They suck at reporting anything technical or scientific for sure, but they didn’t come up with this on their own.
Your first comment my first thought was how does this have any upvotes. Thats super wrong
Top notch comback with this comment, i still cant agree with the original wording, i do recognize your point and agree with yoiur sentiment. Its a tool first and foremost.
That’s not true at all. AI can in fact generate novel techniques and solutions and has already done so in biotech and electrical engineering. I don’t think you understand how AI works or what it is
I think maybe people are running into a misunderstanding between LLMs and neural nets or machine kearning in general? AI has become too big of an umbrella term. We’ve been using NNs for a while now to produce entirely new ways to go about things. They can find bugs in games that humans can’t, been used to design new wind turbine blades (even made several asymmetrical ones which humans just don’t really do), or plot out entirely new ways of locomotion when given physical bodies. Machine learning is fascinating and can produce very unique results partly because it can be set up to not have existing design biases like humans do
And the nature of computers is that they are magnitudes better than humans at brute forcing. Machine learning can brute force (depending on the technique, it can be smarter than brute forcing, being more efficient) test many many many more designs and techniques than we could manually do. Sure it’ll fail many times, but it’s just a numbers game, and it can pump those numbers. It’ll try a lot of weird and unique stuff we wouldn’t even think to try, with varying degrees of success.
Name one that wasn’t just doing the thing it was told and the users being surprised. You know, the same way that people are surprised when research has results they did not expect using other approaches.
It’s a weird way of asking this. Of course it’s going to do what’s told, the alternative is that it, out of the blue, spits a battery design for no reason. If it were to somehow find a way to make batteries with less lithium in a way that never did before, isn’t that an unexpected result using other approaches?
This is not general artificial intelligence, everything we have is narrow AI, focused on solving one specific problem, for identifying birds to understand instructions between drugs.
Of course it’s going to do what’s told, the alternative is that it, out of the blue, spits a battery design for no reason.
Yeah, that would be coming up with a battery design.
What novel solutions has ai done in electrical engineering?
That’s the point, it takes all the factors we know about and speed runs through all the possible ways it could work. Humans don’t have the time to look for every single possible way a battery could be constructed, but a ML model can just work it’s way through the issue faster and without human intervention.
Plus just like with the new group of antibiotics we just used AI to discover, it will allow truly thinking Humans to expand upon it.
Really sick of this “oh but you don’t realize AI don’t actually think! Therefore it’s all worthless!” With this smug bullshit like you think you’re bringing anything of value to the conversation.
I didn’t say it was worthless. In fact, I said the exact same things you just said in another post but with the additional detail that the name actually does matter when it is clearly misleading people into thinking it is something that it is not.
Not even close to true
Do you think AI just does things unprompted?
No one said anything about unprompted
Only a small subset of AI uses prompts.
What a terribly ignorant thing to say, when people make these armchair comments they’re only hurting ordinary people that can make real benefits from using the technology.
What a giant leap you have taken there. Speeding up existing processes is an extremely helpful thing for the average people, just like weather models that also did things we were already doing far faster and with more variables than people could handle without the automation.
AI will be very helpful. It will not magically solve all of our problems on its own, which is how ‘AI comes up with’ is being presented.
My favorite part is the one where you skipped over exactly what I was talking about
My favorite part was where you accused me of hurting people because I said AI does what we already do faster.
You compared AI to googling bro
I’m done with this convo lmao
By this very same logic, nobody has ever discovered anything because they’re just speeding someone else’s plans of improving or deriving from someone else’s findings
Genius.
At the core, weather models, web searches, and AI are all pattern recognition with various levels of complexity and scope. Just like a bicycle is comparable to a motorcycle because they both have two wheels even though one is powered and can go faster and for longer without wearing out the rider.
By this very same logic, nobody has ever discovered anything because they’re just speeding someone else’s plans of improving or deriving from someone else’s findings
AI is not a person capable of coming up with something on its own.
Not all batteries even use lithium. So why not just go with 100% less lithium, if that’s the target metric.
SLA doesn’t get enough love. It’s still the most reliable battery type in adverse conditions.
Just has some small issues with size, weight, and energy density.
OK, but is the energy density comparable?
“His team built a working battery with this material, albeit with a lower conductivity than similar prototypes that use more lithium.”
I do know that because of Ohm’s law, this directly translates to less available current than conventional electrolytes. There’s not enough info to determine mAh though.
Yeah, batteries internal resistance is a huge factor in their usability and the speed they charge.
Especially in the modern day where a lot of their use is towards high amperage applications like cars.
People need to understand tho, Lithium batteries are usually only about 11% lithium, Lithium Ion batteries are mostly Cobalt and other metals. So at most you’re replacing 6% of a batteries total mass.
Mostly cobalt is also not accurate. There’s a small part of cobalt in some batteries.
Other like LiFePo are cobalt free.
Now AI is stealing jobs from lithium miners
Just what we needed. AI creating more battery types that will never be produced.
It used to take marketing human beings to make up battery types that never get released. Now AI is taking their jobs!
Good
I’m holding out for neutron generators. Until then, it’s 100% coal for me.
Good news then, traditional fission plants generate lots of neutrons
What about solid state batteries that can charge in 2 minutes instead of one hour? And have better capacity and a longer life?
As soon as they figure out how to actually mass produce them at an affordable price, and fix the swelling issues during high charging currents, they’ll be available.
They’ve been as good predicting when this will happen as Elon has been about FSD.
It’s always just around the corner.
Although it really does seem like we might start seeing soon this time at least in low volume expensive things.
Is it just a 70% smaller battery?
More lithium for me!
I hate those sensationalist titles that portrait AI as if some sort of sentient being, and not just a tool the researchers used. The secondary title should have been the main one.
I wish there is an AI that would optimize how many rolls / folds is enough when trying to wipe off fecal matter.
0… bidet
This post title is pretty bad. Even the news article says “Scientists use AI [read: machine learning] to [come up with new battery idea]”.
It’s a real shame but I’m seeing this more often on all media sources. How do we combat these shitty titles?
Surely on Lemmy we have some power? I’ve downvoted and moved on but is that really all I can do?
I wish I had a solution. But its the same with all shitty titles, you have to hope people click and read the article/comments in order to get the nuanced information.
"Sure Dr.battery, I can create a set of instructions to create a new battery that uses less lithium for you!
Step one, use 70% less lithium.
Step two, drain the butter into a pan.
Step three, enjoy your new battery!
Remember: batteries can be dangerous and it’s always advised to check with your battery professional before making a battery."
Oohhh, experimental groundbreaking paradigm shifting revolutionary battery design article #3646263859!
Let’s see if this one isn’t total bullshit like the 3646263841 ones before it!
Seriously this is getting ridiculous, I’ve seen these some literally 40 years ago, 99.99% is bullshit, and now I’m seeing literally over 5 new articles per week.
ITS BULLSHIT.
Call me when there is an actual battery based off peer reviewed research that has been successfully tested in production systems by at least 5 major companies. Until then, BULLSHIT.
bitch what’s wrong with lithium
A lot. Look into how it’s mined.
[Edit: Maybe it’s cobalt I was thinking of. But one problem I’m sure about is that lithium demand is predicted to be greater than the supply of lithium batteries continue to grow in popularity.
OTOH it’s not harmless either, e.g. https://www.euronews.com/green/2022/02/01/south-america-s-lithium-fields-reveal-the-dark-side-of-our-electric-future]
I work in a lithium mine, we make big rocks into little rocks the same as any other. What’s the problem? Unless you’re against mining in general, hard rock lithium should be fine
It’s only greater than the supply because the demand for more wasn’t there.
There’s so much Lithium out there, it’s not scarce at all. It just means we gotta put resources into looking for good deposits and then extracting it.
We might run into a brief shortage in the short term while things scale, or we might not. TBD.
If we can find something that works as well and it’s as or more environmentally friendly to obtain, then that’s great too.
Yes do look into it. There are MANY ways to harvest lithium and most are better than what the oil and gas companies does when fracking or drilling on land.
Being better than one of the most destructive industries ever is not a high bar. But the most effective way to harvest lithium remains an open pit mine, which are arguably worse than literally anything else.
which are arguably worse than literally anything else.
Going to argue it isn’t as bad as shale / oil sands projects. Also the battery is mostly aluminum, copper and nickel in the anode and cathode, all that has to be mined as well.
The products of the Oil industry are also consumed and can’t be recycled, something like 90% of a battery can be recycled and reused.
I thought it was all or almost all of the metals?
There’s other non metals that wouldn’t necessarily be, but all the lithium is for example?
Not sure what you are even saying?
All of the lithium (metals) is recycled. Some of the other materials can’t be or aren’t recycled
Making an improvement for something that can be recycled and thus should REDUCE over time is a a MASSIVE improvement over doing nothing and bitching about it.
The less we need of it, the better either way.
It can be recycled… Unlike the oil and gas used up in ICE cars.
I don’t know who told you that being second worst is a flex, but it’s not.
No matter what, it’s always good to use less of a resource, if you can get the same outcome. It’s efficiency basically.
