by Thomas Moynihan at BBC.com…..Perhaps the lesson for AI is that the dramatic risks should command our attention, but so too should the more tangible, less attention-grabbing, ones. Neither should cancel the other out, especially when – once again – our world is possibly at stake.
More from this author
America is using up its groundwater like there’s no tomorrow
By Mira Rojanasakul et al, in The New York Times…..“From an objective standpoint, this is a crisis,” said Warigia Bowman, a law professor and water expert at the University of Tulsa. “There will be parts of the U.S. that run out of drinking water.”
What the fossil fuel industry doesn’t want you to know
In TedX with Al Gore……In a blistering talk, Nobel Laureate Al Gore looks at the two main obstacles to climate solutions and gives his view of how we might actually solve the environmental crisis in time. You won’t want to miss his searing indictment of fossil fuel companies for walking back their climate commitments — and his call for a global rethink of the roles of polluting industries in politics and finance.
RISD’s center for complexity developing design manual for maintaining life on earth
by Tim Maly on RISD.org…RISD’s Center for Complexity (CfC) has served as a think tank bringing together transdisciplinary experts and academics with real-world practitioners and policy makers. This summer the group is expanding its nuclear security research to include other threats to the planet and human civilization. Here CfC Senior Lead Tim Maly discusses the insights they have uncovered.
The actual risks of generative AI – extended quotes
by Peter Leyden in The Great Progression….I would say that probably even 10 years from now, if you want to get the most objective and comprehensive advice or information on any subject, you’re going to consult a machine, not a human being.
Canada in the year 2060
by Anne Shibata Casselman in Maclean’s….“Some years we’re going to have to restrict water and essentially ration it. And there’ll be other years when we’ll perhaps be one of the few places in the world that can still produce food reliably.”
Degrowth: The awakening of consciousness before an alternative
by Juan Ignacio Marin in Resilience.org….It is important to emphasize that the ideals of degrowth do not advocate a defense of economic poverty, but rather call for sufficiency. The emphasis on the true meaning of the term consumption — distinguishing it from consumerism — seeks to introduce a change in our way of life that reflects sufficiency, what we truly need.
Climate-changing human activity could lead to 1 billion deaths over the next century, according to new study
by Jeff Renaud in Phys.org…..”If you take the scientific consensus of the 1,000-ton rule seriously, and run the numbers, anthropogenic global warming equates to a billion premature dead bodies over the next century. Obviously, we have to act. And we have to act fast.”
We are witnessing the first stages of civilization’s collapse
by Michael T. Klare in The Nation….Will our own elites perform any better than the rulers of Chaco Canyon, the Mayan heartland, and Viking Greenland?
How Musk, Thiel, Zuckerberg, and Andreessen—four billionaire techno-oligarchs—are creating an alternate, autocratic reality
by Jonathan Taplin in Vanity Fair…..In an excerpt from his new book, The End of Reality, the author warns about the curses of AI and transhumanism, presenting the moral case against superintelligence.