

UK to award £1 million for world's biggest problem solution - jwdunne
http://bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-22892443

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onion2k
Anyone capable of making the "next penicillin" or "a carbon-free plane" is
going to do so without the need for a £1m prize. The implementation would make
them hundreds of times more.

£1m is 0.00014% of the UK government's annual budget. This sort of
"motivation" is nothing more than a ridiculous platitude that enables the
government to pretend they're supporting technology and innovation with
practically no cost to them. Frankly, it's an insult to anyone remotely
entrepreneurial. 100 prizes of £10,000 would very likely do _a lot_ more for
industry, encourage people to get behind something imaginative, and perhaps
would be enough of a start to someone who could eventually solve one of these
problems.

~~~
antihero
It's the capitalist mindset - capitalism is based upon the idea that money is
a universal motivator. The idea that people can be productive for other
reasons, such as pride, passion, joy, or compassion, is incompatible and would
lead to the idea that systems other than capitalism could be successful on a
grand scale.

~~~
gizmo686
The point (as I read it) isn't that money is not a good motivator. However, if
you are talking about something like the next penicillin, then your potential
to monetize dwarfs the million dollar reward. That money would be better spent
to incentive things that would not otherwise make the person rich.

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axefrog
In my opinion, the "biggest problem of our time" is oversized government and
excessive lobbying of politicians to serve corporate interests rather than the
needs of the people. Unfortunately the powers that be are not going to reward
that which undermines their own reason for existing...

~~~
antihero
Surely if you look at the root causes, the biggest issue is the failings of
capitalism in that it creates a artificial scarcity on a grand scale in order
to make people in other countries desperate enough to make things for us for
pittance?

~~~
e3pi
That! sir, is insightful.

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jgrahamc
Let's hope that the modern day Harrison isn't forced to personally petition HM
The Queen to force Parliament to actually pay out who then has to personally
threaten to appear in parliament only to have Harrison die three years later:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Harrison#Harrison.27s_Fir...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Harrison#Harrison.27s_First_Marine_Watch)

~~~
lifeisstillgood
I see the Harrison clock as a brilliant vindication of X-prize development,
but I do not think we will solve the big problems through X-Prizes. What we
will do is get the equivalent of bi-metallic strips and other engineering
enhancements. My totally unscientific view is X-prizes allow unusual
approaches to actually leave drawing board and get tried out - I suspect in a
manner similar to war.

PS - yes he was "cheated" for decades out of a prize he had won. And given
current Prince Charles' public letter campaigns on architecture and farming, I
seriously doubt that parliament would be moved by that threat anymore !

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JDGM
It took me a little while to even _get_ what this _is_. I understand the
public votes on "the biggest problem" and then whoever "solves it" (or, I
assume, makes significant progress on it) receives £1 million.

The best case is a carefully constructed short list for voting and the whole
thing being essentially an orchestrated PR stunt with a winner (probably a
known strong candidate even at this announcement stage). The worst case is
this quietly fading out until no-one remembers it and there aren't even many
real records of it ever having been a thing.

Or perhaps I've got "best" and "worst" the wrong way around there.

~~~
panacea
We already know what the biggest problem is. Finding a non-polluting energy
source.

...and a million pounds isn't going to solve it.

~~~
loceng
I somewhat disagree. It will disrupt a single complex that's been perpetuated,
and yes, it will create and allow for a lot of innovation - however producing
product and developing resources into buildings, and other systems, cause tons
of pollution and non-renewable destruction of our lands. It will actually be
bad IMHO in certain circumstances if non-polluting energy comes too soon to
us.

~~~
JDGM
If I follow correctly, you believe that non-polluting energy would loosen
constraints on production and the acceleration of growth this would cause
would have a net negative environmental effect because the increase in non-
energy-creation-related pollution would more than counter balance the savings
from non-polluting energy. Is that an accurate summary?

~~~
loceng
Assuming rules / laws / regulations weren't put in place to counter this, yes.
We all know how fast government is to act ... which is why there should be
concern.

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olalonde
I had to double check if today was April 1st. I try to avoid "middlebrow
dismissal" comments but come on, do they really think £1 million is going to
motivate anyone in solving the world's biggest problem? This is borderline
insulting.

~~~
goatforce5
The X Prize was only for $10m dollars:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_Prize_Foundation](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_Prize_Foundation)

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nakedrobot2
This is wrong on so many levels. Among other things:

\- The solution isn't hard, it is the implementation of the solution that is
hard. Hey, we have electric cars. But getting people to use them requires
having electric cars succeed on the open market (which Tesla and others will
eventually do, I think). Overpopulation is the problem; educating people to a
higher level results in more well-off people having fewer kids. And so on.

The solution is easy! How the hell do we actually get there, as messy, lazy,
corrupt humans? That is what the prize should be for.

~~~
lifeisstillgood
I agree, apart from the over-population thing which is best explained by Hans
Rosling -
[http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_on_global_population_g...](http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_on_global_population_growth.html)

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Pitarou
If we're talking about engineering problems, it isn't enough money.

By modern standards, the R&D problem that John Harrison tackled was low-
hanging fruit. Our modern R&D infrastructure, while far from perfect, would
not have left such a (relatively) easy and important problem unsolved for so
long. These days, lone geniuses of Harrison's calibre have to content
themselves with more minor problems like designing the bagless vacuum cleaner.

If you really want good things to happen, you need larger teams and larger
prizes. At least £10 million. Think "X-prize".

I'd like to be wrong about this. Can anyone show me that I've missed something
important?

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unono
The obvious choice is creating Ai, that would solve all solvable problems
thereafter.

~~~
drakeandrews
Solve all problems for x, where we hope x is the comfort and continued
meaningful existence of humanity and not, say, the maximisation of paperclips.

~~~
polymatter
link for those who didn't get the reference
([http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Paperclip_maximizer](http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Paperclip_maximizer))

"The AI does not hate you, nor does it love you, but you are made out of atoms
which it can use for something else."

—Eliezer Yudkowsky

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TimSAstro
This seems like something of a PR stunt, I would much prefer a serious re-
investment in science and acknowledgement that the UK economy could be driven
by a knowledge economy. Good recap here:
[http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/occams-
corner/2013/mar/11/...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/occams-
corner/2013/mar/11/1)

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lazyjones
Compare that to the £500m the UK councils have spent on mass-surevilance with
CCTVs, to understand the UK government's priorities.

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sidcool
Although I appreciate this motivational gesture from the Prime Minister, I
have reservations as to how much this would be effective. Better would be to
foster an environment where people are motivated by inspiration to find
solutions to tough problems. Believe it or not, the U.S. is a good example of
how to do it.

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kryten
That sounds like a lot, but it's really nothing.

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e3pi
A million pounds would go far toward advocating Edward Snowden to win the
Nobel peace prize?

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lifeisstillgood
What bugs the hell out of me is that we know how to solve the biggest problems
of the world _today_. We just don't want to do it. Lets hit three:

1\. CO2 emissions.

2\. Water scarcity

3\. Trade imbalances

(2) Is an agricultural problem. Drip-feed everywhere. (1) has a agricultural
solution - stop using livestock in agriculture. (3) Well, this has lots of
issues, but start with the easiest. End completely the use of agricultural
subsidies in the developed world.

Three things, all pretty much the same solution, all uncosted and not backed
up with references, which can be done with no technological inventions, and
will drop the big issues of the day by a ridiculous amount.

~~~
kintamanimatt
Stop using livestock in agriculture? What do you mean?

~~~
lifeisstillgood
Tyrannosaurs is basically right - get rid of cattle sheep and pigs (plus assoc
others) from our food chain. India has hundreds of millions of people living
like this today so it's a viable cultural and agricultural option

It's also more or less guaranteed to slash co2 to the bone, fix enourmous run-
on problems and help trade

And frankly will never happen until after we live on mars on a vegan diet and
so make it cool and desirable

~~~
kintamanimatt
Basically mandatory vegetarianism?

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lifeisstillgood
You will be forced to live on a low cost healthy diet that will extend your
lifespan by an average of ten years while at the same time saving the planet
from ecological meltdown and the consequent loss of millions of lives.

The Nanny State. It's crap isn't it :-)

~~~
kintamanimatt
I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic, but I've been a vegetarian and
absolutely hated every minute of it. I love eating meat too much and its
substitutes aren't comparable! If I had to cut dairy out too (no butter?!) I'd
just stop enjoying food.

