I think you’re going to be very surprised at how effectively AI will be able to take the thing I just said and repeat it back to me as a question.

You sound like every manager I’ve ever brought an idea to.

It’s reassuring that you’re an engineer, but I still disagree with your approach to innovation.

Well, disagree.

Every good idea starts somewhere, and I’d love to see this one go somewhere.

Out of curiosity, are you an engineer or a manager or both?

Just so I understand your point:

You’re saying that this group of students has access to all known and available scientific information and expertise to independently conceive of a way to use our vehicles to diminish our carbon footprint.

However, they failed to recognize that the method that they chose is an impossible dead end which will be of no practical use to anyone. In short, a complete waste of time and resources.

Inventing and innovating are two different things.

Innovation requires working knowledge in multiple, disparate fields of study, then using that knowledge to connect methods/ideas/resources that were not previously related.

You think the Apollo vehicles just showed up?

There were dozens of rocket launches before we tried putting humans in space, and all of them resulted in lessons learned and how to improve the next iteration.

The rockets themselves? Based on military-driven missile technology. The missiles could not deliver humans to and from space, but they were the unrelated starting point for putting people on the moon.

I would actually argue that the process of innovation requires that, at least in the early stages, the ideas being combined make no sense at all.

This whole thread is ridiculously anti-innovation.

These posters would have stopped building computers with the TRS-80 because it wasn’t advanced enough, and there was no chance that anyone anywhere could improve the concept over time.

These limitations will be overcome soon, probably by employing AI.