Silicon Dreams and Carbon Nightmares: The Wide Boundary Impacts of AI with Daniel Schmachtenberger
The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens
Nate Hagens
4.8 • 552 Ratings
🗓️ 17 July 2024
⏱️ 107 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
(Conversation recorded on June 27th, 2024)
Show Summary:
Artificial intelligence has been advancing at a break-neck pace. Accompanying this is an almost frenzied optimism that AI will fix our most pressing global problems, particularly when it comes to the hype surrounding climate solutions.
In this episode, Daniel Schmachtenberger joins Nate to take a wide-boundary look at the true environmental risks embedded within the current promises of artificial intelligence. He demonstrates that the current trajectory of AI's impact is headed towards ecological destruction, rather than restoration… an important narrative currently missing from the discourse surrounding AI at large.
What are the environmental implications of a tool with unbound computational capabilities aimed towards goals of relentless growth and extraction? How could artificial intelligence play into the themes of power and greed, intensifying inequalities and accelerating the fragmentation of society? What role could AI play under a different set of values and expectations for the future that are in service to the betterment of life?
We encourage you to explore the resources and research from The Civilization Research Institute on artificial intelligence compiled in this document:
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/61d5bc2bb737636144dc55d0/t/66958505d89b99287c4ecab3/1721074950447/AI%2C+Climate+and+the+Environment-07-12.pdf
About Daniel Schmactenberger:
Daniel Schmachtenberger is a founding member of The Consilience Project, aimed at improving public sensemaking and dialogue.
The throughline of his interests has to do with ways of improving the health and development of individuals and society, with a virtuous relationship between the two as a goal.
Towards these ends, he's had a particular interest in catastrophic and existential risk, with focuses on civilization collapse and institutional decay. His work also includes an analysis of progress narratives, collective action problems, and social organization theories. These themes are all connected through close study of the relevant domains in philosophy and science.
Watch this video episode on Youtube
Read the Development in Progress paper
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | If there is a non-trivial possibility that the thing that we do will cause irreversible catastrophic harm, |
| 0:08.8 | the burden of proof should be on proving safety, not the other way around. |
| 0:13.9 | Right now, it's the opposite. |
| 0:16.3 | Lead goes into the market, it gets put into the gasoline, it gets aerosolized everywhere, |
| 0:20.5 | and only after a billion IQ points are gone in the gasoline, it gets aerosolized everywhere, and |
| 0:20.9 | only after a billion IQ points are gone in the US and harm has happened everywhere irreparably |
| 0:25.7 | does eventually the law regulate it. But as we're talking about tech that is radically more |
| 0:31.1 | powerful and radically faster moving and scaling, especially as we're passing planetary boundaries, |
| 0:35.9 | you don't get to say, oh, look at all the harm, let's reverse it. That'll never happen. |
| 0:39.7 | So the precautionary principle says, if there is really significant uncertainty and irreversibility of the consequences, then the burden of proof goes on proving safety. |
| 0:53.8 | You're listening to the Great Simplification. |
| 0:57.0 | I'm Nate Hagan's. |
| 0:58.2 | On this show, we describe how energy, the economy, the environment, and human behavior all |
| 1:03.7 | fit together and what it might mean for our future. |
| 1:07.3 | By sharing insights from global thinkers, we hope to inform and inspire more humans to play |
| 1:13.0 | emergent roles in the coming great simplification. |
| 1:21.0 | I would like to welcome my colleague Daniel Schmachtenberger back to the program to take a deep |
| 1:26.9 | dive on artificial intelligence, |
| 1:29.3 | potential impact on the environment and particularly climate change. I have recently gone to some |
| 1:36.1 | energy tech climate conferences where AI is in every other presentation at least talking about |
| 1:43.6 | how it's going to reduce emissions |
| 1:45.3 | and be a general boon for the environment. |
... |
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