back to article DARPA seeks a few good AI coders to help America find its own rare minerals

DARPA – the US government's boffinry nerve center – is offering up to $10,000 to programmers who can whip up some AI to help find rare earth minerals on our home world and ease US supply constraints of critical materials needed by the energy and defense industry. To win the money, developers need to compete in a contest that's …

  1. Denarius Silver badge

    cant be

    bringing industry back to USA ? why reverse policies that have worked so well, for others anyway ? </sarc> for the impaired. Its like the current administration is copying Bad Orange man concept.(NON-$DEITY forbid)

  2. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

    Meanwhile, elsewhere, as the Nero type hero fiddles whilst Uncle Sam burns

    The fact of the matter is, that such a titbit, and that is all that such a paltry sum nowadays is due to global and World Economic Forum mismanagement and delusional posturing, does DARPA no favours, revealing as it does quite possibly, and therefore highly likely and probably, systemic supply weaknesses in vital future infrastructure inventory and strategic non-fungible token trade assets.

    And that can only be as a result of the catastrophic decline in top management advice being offered from allied investment groups and rogue partners alike, with the following recent example being a real doozy .....

    amanfromMars [2208160543] ...... points out a few major flaws and difficulties to overcome on https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/wefs-global-intelligence-collecting-ai-erase-ideas-internet

    Whose side is WEF author Inbal Goldberger on, for that sort of delusional grandiose God complex solution proposal guarantees highly disruptive and destructive dark web underground movement and novel completely unexpected and unprecedented hyper activity with barrages of 0dDays locked and loaded for launching against all manner of prime premium and filthy rich targets in critical infrastructure facilities/utilities from a vast array of relatively anonymous and virtually autonomous state and non-state, renegade rogue actors against which there is no known effective defence.

    The proposal to collect off-platform intelligence from “millions of sources” to spy on people and new ideas, and then merge this information together for “content removal decisions” sent down to “Internet platforms” is very Nazi fascist too, and who doesn't know how that psychotic psychopathic episode ended and what worlds are prepared to do to ensure the infection is neutralised and eradicated.

    Not the best of plans that crazy one, Inbal.

    And whoever/whatever is currently at the titanic helm of HMS UKGBNI operations is also infected and afflicted and in dire straits need of immediate eradication and novel revolutionary replacement.

    The world as you may think you know it, and how easily it is changed, has been changed, and the old traditional moneyed elite and conventionally warring status quo as you may realise were formerly responsible and oh so conveniently unaccountable, are no longer in any way in absolute command and control of rapidly unfolding future 0dDay events with the best that they can expect is to be permitted to channel and represent power and influence as a remote proxy of leading A.N.Others designedly left conveniently unknown in order to guarantee the safety and security which be extended to the many extensive expansive members of such remote proxy leaderships.

    And the beauty in the stealth that all of the above effortlessly provides is that all that it takes is for one to deny it is possible and seek to prove it is not so, has one doing battle in vain in a war one has already just lost and clearly denied ever existed.

    Take care out there if you dare to share. Things aint at all like they used to be ever before. IT has fundamentally and radically virtually changed practically everything ........ hence all the panicking crazy headless chicken bull shit the old systems administrations are pumping and dumping/pimping and pioneering.

  3. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Coat

    In particular being able to....

    Read the word "treasure" on a map and then identify (anywhere on the planet) where this is a map of.

    Preferably without needing the services of any rum soaked sea captains with a possibly fishy sounding name.

    Identifying minarl deposits from SAR and satellite photographs was an expert system research project in the 1970's. I'd presumed it ws SOP by now as the results seemed quite good.

    DARPA. "Creating and preventing Strategic Surprise" is apparently their official mission statement.

    1. Jellied Eel Silver badge

      Re: In particular being able to....

      Identifying minarl deposits from SAR and satellite photographs was an expert system research project in the 1970's.

      There was a strange show on Discovery where some folks got hold of radar maps and identified an 'undiscovered' cave in Utah.. Near the infamous Skinwalker cave. Show then went on to demonstrate various cack-handed ways to get into the cave, find the lost Aztec treasure, and stumble on an interesting looking iridium deposit, along with some uranium.

      Which got me wondering how hard it'd be to find other unknown caves, build a house on top of one and have a proper man-cave. And got me interested in geophysics again, like how far down can we see, what kinda detail etc. Also got me wondering if any of the gravity mapping projects could help, if they can provide sufficient resolution. Then potential for gravigrammetry to locate unusually dense bits of the Earth. Especially if they resemble pyramids, but I guess I shouldn't give Discovery any ideas for more augmented reality shows.

      1. trindflo Bronze badge
        Boffin

        Re: In particular being able to....

        Here's one way. It sounds like science fiction, but it's not.

        Magnetotellurics

    2. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

      Greater IntelAIgent Games Play for NEUKlearer HyperRadioProACTive IT Solutions. An AI Log Jam Buster

      DARPA. "Creating and preventing Strategic Surprise" is apparently their official mission statement. ..... John Smith 19

      :-) Quite evidently is that an official mission failure in both attack and defence sectors for they neither command nor control novel unexpected interventions/surreal meme emergences in either of those two vital fundamental environments as they do vain battle daily against all manner of myriad otherworldly 0day exploitable vulnerabilities/opportunities ...... or as may be is the case in far too many instances, fail catastrophically to realise that is the leading Strategic IntelAIgent Space to AIMaster Pilot.

      And the simple answer and practically immediate solution to that sort of all too prevalent systemic problem in a vast array of increasingly disruptive and destructive situations/proprietary intellectual property deficits is advertise for and then hire, at whatever cost be agreeable and appropriate, suitably qualified Strategic IntelAIgent Space AIMaster Pilots enabled to lead with directions and simple instruction sets in practical programs and virtual projects alike worth following and supporting/positively reinforcing.

      IT aint difficult when it is surely just plain common sense which is agreed missing in persistent human dilemmas.

  4. Headley_Grange Silver badge

    And the answer is..

    I just did my own quick search. Ebay has got loads, but I think that they are mostly Chinese suppliers.

    1. MyffyW Silver badge

      Re: And the answer is..

      And our local landfill is accumulating rare earths, wonder at what point it would be worth mining it?

      1. Headley_Grange Silver badge

        Re: And the answer is..

        One of them has large deposits of bitcoin. Allegedly.

        https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/aug/02/man-hopes-ai-and-robot-dogs-will-help-recover-150m-in-bitcoin-from-landfill

        1. jmch Silver badge
          Happy

          Re: And the answer is..

          Now, that's a new spin on 'bitcoin mining'!!!

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: And the answer is..

        See this old Reg article on the difference between "ore" and "dirt" for insight.

        https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.theregister.com/2011/11/02/recycling_your_high_tech_gear/&sa=U&ved=2ahUKEwi08LXoqs75AhX2MDQIHdJnBFMQFnoECAIQAg&usg=AOvVaw3wB_4vxo30MelQja4xpTp8

      3. An_Old_Dog Silver badge

        Reprocessing the mine tailings

        A mine at Brittania Beach in Canada was for a while, the biggest copper producer in North America. When I visited it in the 1980s, gold prices had risen enough that it was profitable for them to reprocess the mine tailings to extract gold.

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