I very much get a "we just discovered radium and want to put it in everything" vibe from this whole generative AI bubble.
(Including the thing where companies used to slap the word "radium" on existing products even though they thankfully did not actually have any radioactive materials. Like "radium butter".)
"Wrist watch! Now with 3 radiums. Hour minute and seconds!"
@lizzard @rejzor @doctormo @varx tritium is a gas, you can't paint it on watchfaces
You're thinking of radium, and the "Radium Girls"
Tritium is also both radioactive and used for some (rare) dials, but it has to be encased in glass vials, which are produced in tightly regulated factories where you can't just breathe it in
Radium watchfaces and instrument dials are banned for new products, now replaced by plain phosphorescent pigments and, rarely, tritium vials
@0x5c I was wondering earlier why tritium isn't simply covalently bonded into other molecules so they could have a solid-phase version of the indicator.
...and then I realized that that would probably be a greater hazard, as it could be ingested that way, while a broken tube of gas-phase tritium is more likely to dissipate before it can be inhaled.
@rejzor @doctormo Indeed, although I've only heard of medical cases involving radium. (Tritium would have to be inhaled, I believe.)
The negative externalities are more diffuse with AI, but I've had the Radium Girls on my mind a lot recently. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radium_Girls
varx/tech
Martin Owens 
RejZoR
lizzzzard
0x5c