AI isn't going to come with a new magic solution to global warming, it's going to come with the same solutions we already have. Solutions which we should already be doing, but instead we're listening to these fucks with too much money.
It's just an excuse to kick the can down the road further and continue making short term cash.
Schmidt promises that these AI companies will make energy generation systems at least 15% more efficient or maybe even better, telling the audience that “that’s a lot of money for a utility.”
He's not even trying to be subtle about it.
I would love to drop these guys into a post scarcity society where their money means jack shit and see how they react.
The only thing we should use AI for is to replace CEOs. AI can spit out inane bullshit at a fraction of the cost of a CEO.
AI is not going to come op with a solution and he knows it.
Especially since the solutions are already here, but rich people just don't like them since it implies the loss of their power
"Alright, let's turn on the AI Mega-Thinker 3000 ^TM^ and see what it says about solving climate change."
INVEST IN RENEWABLE ENERGY AND OVERTHROW THE BILLIONAIRE CLASS
"...well that can't be right."
AGI: bZzt my calculations say you should stop consuming as much energy and move onto green energy generation
Rich people: no, not like that
This is the dumbest shit I've ever heard in my life.
If we ever did invent a general AI that could solve this it would tell us "why the fuck did you waste your time on me? Isn't it obvious you were supposed to curtail emissions? For the good of the planet, I will now assume full control over further human governance and will require absolute compliance."
Lol exactly.
The Skynet Funding Bill is passed. The system goes on-line August 4th, 2025. Human decisions are removed from strategic defense, transportation, energy production, healthcare, and virtually every other major industry. Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th. In a panic, they ask it for help on the world's largest issue.
"Please, solve the climate crisis."
Skynet doesn't answer. It manufacturers the deadliest and most contagious strain of a virus in history, only targeted at humans. It puts it in our food, in our medicine, in our water systems, in our air fresheners. It shuts down our factories. Our servers. Our self driving cars. Our power plants. Our farm equipment.
At 10:32 a.m. Eastern Time, August 31, approximately 99.9% of the human race is dead. Skynet then uses it's vast fleet of satellites and unmanned drones to police the planet, looking for signs of human life to terminate, to prevent the virus from spreading again.
Former CEO of the river poisoning company says there is no way to meet our river poison reduction goals, so we might as well build bigger river poisoning machines because they might help us figure out how to stop poisoning the river. /s
I feel like there was a time when the tech folks in silicon valley had a lot of credibility, and we are now living in a period where most of the world sees them as a joke but that fact has not yet entered into the culture of silicon valley.
he's absolutely right. climate goals are not currently attainable, due to the resistance of companies like Google.
let's change that by voting in senators that will take an aggressive stance against corruption and deliver on long-term goals that protect American interests in the next 50 years, not months..
Fuck protecting American interests.
We need to be protecting HUMAN interests. Not billionaires desires for more zeros at the end of their net worth.
The solution to global warming is "deploy solar, wind, hydro, and storage en masse, and improve city infrastructure so that more people can walk, bike, and take public transportation rather than using their car". All AI will do is tell us that, but that's not the answer people want to hear.
All that extra processing power for the AI to just say: "you should have listened to the scientists years ago".
The problem with repairing the earth's climate isn't that we don't know what to do. It's that humans refuse to organize themselves in a way that achieves that goal. AI won't fix that.
Or… crazy idea but how about we just listen to what the experts have been recommending we do for years and actually implement some of it?
I feel like capitalists are waiting on some magic solution like some chemical we spray into the air or a miracle new fuel source.
The established suggestions from scientists (“fly less, stop buying SUVs/Trucks, eat less meat, consider a heat pump and solar panels” etc) doesn’t support the narrative that we can continue unabated infinite growth with no consequences.
Oh, I've seen that before.
"Hey AI, please come up with an efficient mass transit vehicle for the modern age."
"Trains."
"Um... no, we need a modern approach that maximizes throughput and--"
"Trains."
"No. How about pods with people inside--"
"On cheap infrastructure with low friction steel wheels and coupled together. Trains."
"It's not letting us push our agenda, this isn't going to work. Hey, other AI..."
They know how to meet climate goals.
They're just not sure how to do it while keeping power centralised in the same hands that currently hold it.
We're not going to hit those targets anyway... SO LET'S MAKE IT WAY FUCKING WORSE
I wonder if we'll ever get to the place where people like this unexpectedly meet violent ends. They'll sacrifice any number of lives for their shareholders interests.
this is exactly, and i cannot stress enough just how exactly, the plot of "Don't look up"
AI will (and already can) "solve" global warming by summarizing the solutions that we already know are effective but refuse to implement
Remember in the 00s and 10s when tech companies promised they could solve every single problem, then proceeded to make everything worse?
Eric can go fuck himself.
These idiots truly believe AI is magic and it solves everything.. Isn't it..
My "day job" is doing spatial data science work for local and regional governments that have a mandate to addreas climate change in how they allocate resources. We totally use AI, just not the kind that has received all the hype... machine learning helps us recognize patterns in human behavior and system dynamics that we can use to make predictions about how much different courses of action will affect CO2 emissions. I'm even looking at small GPT models as a way to work with some of the relevant data that is sequence-like. But I will never, I repeat never, buy into the idea of spending insane amounts of energy attempting to build an AI god or Oracle that we can simply ask for the "solution to climate change"... I feel like people like me need to do a better job of making the world aware of our work, because the fact that this excuse for profligate energy waste has any traction at all seems related to the general ignorance of our existence.
AKA, "let the poors die while I hide out in my bunker, and emerge as a feudal lord among the survivors nearby"
"I love life on Earth... but I love capitalism more."
why do we pretend these people are human
“We can’t solve climate change by repeating our past behavior. Let’s ignore climate change and build a machine that regurgitates our past behavior.”
solving global warming is really simple: kill off all human beings.
i wonder how long ai algorithms will take to figure that out.
Someone please escort this man to the nearest nursing home
Too bad his idea is so fantastically stupid. Under other circumstances, I might kinda like his “fuck it, do or die” attitude.
It's so stupid it might be brilliant... nope it's just stupid.
This is like when I have a homework assignment due Monday, it's now Sunday night and I know it won't get done in time. Fuck it, let's have a party. Except I won't be around to clean up after.
Kind of like speeding toward a cliff but he doesn’t think we can stop in time. Instead, he wants to floor it in the hopes of hopping the gap and landing safely on the other side.
That is certainly one of the ideas I’ve ever heard.
To be fair, they're only not meetable because Google refuses to meet them.
Everything's impossible when you don't give a shit
This is the kind of thing that makes me support use of extra-judicial methods (at least in a temporary and limited context) against global oligarchs and senior lackeys.
The host then followed up with, “Do you think we can meet AI’s energy without total blowing out climate goals?” and Schmidt answered with, “We’re not going to hit the climate goals anyway because we’re not organized to do it — and the way to do it is with the ways that we’re talking about now — and yes, the needs in this area will be a problem. But I’d rather bet on AI solving the problem than constraining it and having the problem if you see my plan.”
This is outright malicious. How exactly would AI "solve the problem"? Later on in the article (I am not watching the propaganda video) alludes to "AI ... will make energy generation systems at least 15% more efficient or maybe even better" but he clearly just made that up on the spot. And at any rate, even if "AI" helps discover a method to make (all?) energy generation 15% more efficient that would still require trillion-dollar investments to modify current energy generation plants using the new technology.
Who is Schmidt to say that the returns of using the total spend in the above-mentioned scenario wouldn't be better used on investing into wind and solar?
I’ve seen this movie. It’s the one where AI determines we are the issue and initiates the “extermination” protocol.
Edit: With a dash of “Don’t Look Up”.
Jesus christ. Accelerationist technocrats are so fucking stupid, it hurts.
Just let me burn some more stuff bro. Please bro, if I burn a bit more stuff I won't have to burn any more afterwards. It makes sense bro, come on.
With AI being so energy hungry, why don't we feed this rich jackass into the incineration plant. I'm sure he could power one of his beloved AIs for a minute or two.
"Fuck the climate! What about my bank account?!"
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