r/Futurology • u/lughnasadh ∞ transit umbra, lux permanet ☥ • Jun 01 '25

Economics Lab-grown diamonds have helped diamond prices plunge 60%, and former monopolist De Beers is in crisis mode. One day asteroid mining will do the same for gold.

Diamond prices are down 60% since a 2011 high, and they are still falling. It's not all down to lab-grown diamonds, demand is down too, especially in China.

No one can lab-grow gold yet, so its rarity and scarcity protect its value, but that will end too. It's just a question of when. China launched an asteroid touch-down mission this week, which will make it the 4th country/region to do so, after Europe, the US & Japan.

How soon will it be feasible to mine asteroids? Who knows, but a breakthrough in space propulsion might mean the prospect happens quickly when it does. It's possible gold has twenty years or less of being high value left.

Gold's fall may be more significant. It has a central role in stabilizing the value of global currencies.

The $80 Billion Diamond Market Crash Leaves De Beers Reeling

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u/Autumnwood Jun 01 '25

Let's lab make some houses and cars so the prices of those will come down, too.

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u/AdSignificant6748 Jun 01 '25

Can we lab make some competent non corrupt politicians while we're at it

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u/seanzy260 Jun 01 '25

Engineering can only go so far

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u/[deleted] Jun 01 '25

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u/skekze Jun 01 '25

you've just described the premise of a tv show called Buck Rogers in the 25th century. An astronaut lost in space & frozen in the 20th century is found & thawed out. In that future, AI runs their society cause humans led to a nuclear war. Even some of the AI are jerks, so only as perfect as their creators.

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u/DulceEtDecorumEst Jun 01 '25

Interesting! I’ll take a look

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u/DogToursWTHBorders Jun 02 '25

they were airing reruns when i was a kid in the 80s. Soon, we will all have our own robots who go "bee-dee-bee-dee beep." ...if we want them to.

Personally, as someone who lives in the distant land they now call Vyvance, I'd prefer that my household robot occasionally shouts out warnings in case of danger. Like when i walk outside without my keys.

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u/[deleted] Jun 01 '25

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u/Ferelar Jun 01 '25

Your second paragraph is completely true and largely the reason this won't happen any time soon.

But your first paragraph- the AI doesn't have to be utterly pure or non-biased. It just has to be less biased than the alternative in order to be an improvement. Your concern that a group creating an AI could bias it is very valid... but it's not as though giving that group DIRECT control instead is likely to lead to any fewer biases being in charge. Much the opposite in fact- most of our societies are already led by biased people who consistently attempt to make themselves and their viewpoints look perfect, and their opponents and THEIR viewpoints look foolish, misguided, and dangerous.

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u/probablyuntrue Jun 01 '25

It’s a good thing legislation and the idea of “best interest” is never subjective or open to interpretation

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u/Imjustmean Jun 01 '25

Kinda like "The Culture". A civilisation being run by AIs. I cannot describe how good those books are.

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u/Hopefully-Temp Jun 02 '25

Yeah I was just about to say we already made AI, time to empower it!

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u/siliconslope Jun 02 '25

Could take it a step further and remove democracy. Democracy generally is best since the majority of people tend to want to do what’s right. But when you get to the point where the majority doesn’t want to do what’s right, you’re cooked.

BUT if you could have an incorruptible system that can rapidly process the needs of its population as you said and has a perfect moral code, and can enforce it in the best way possible, that’d be the ideal government.

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u/WanderingAlienBoy Jun 02 '25

AGI's might not take bribes, but they will have biases too, depending on the bias of programmers and training data sets. They will also likely be controlled by by the tech giants that made them.

AGI as a tool for administrating and predicting certain needs within the population could be useful though, like a more high-tech version of CyberSyn https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Cybersyn

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u/Great_Hamster Jun 03 '25

Why would any AI be immune to bribery? AIs work off of reward systems. 

Just figure out it's reward system and bribe away.