> and nobody would elect one

Hmmm… this is giving me thought actually. Given the choice between that and the current administration where the goals of self destruction are strongly in evidence, it’s actually worth thinking about. At least. Let me get back to you :)

On a tangential note, I’m curious if researchers have started running virtual simulations, where sandboxed AIs are used as decision makers of key political and business positions?

Speak for yourself. I would much rather work for and elect AI.

Well AI would simulate growth and spread of people from industrialisation and who benefitted most and allocate weights to countries and people based on the most complex criteria it can develop, it will have: 1. Cumulative emissions 2. Who utilised it most with specific lifestyles 3. Who is impacted worst and whether they heeded warnings.

Just a thought experiment, no one ever said the world was fair, and all history points to it

Who is nobody? At least a fourth of the worlds work force works for a faceless corporation. And the math on emissions is crystal clear, no one has any doubt about it, what are you talking about? USA and China. This obviously will have consequences to their customers, the kumbaya politics governments.

Wouldn't candidates use AI, like they used social media ads, to win?

Well, someone could, theoretically, do something about it, instead of letting him ignore the law and decency just because he's very rich and has no ethics.

You can blame the media and journalists with sensationalist headlines

Right, and one of those industries is checks notes orders of magnitude smaller than the industries and secondary industries that benefit from denying climate change.

Really makes one think, if they try. Would need to ask Claude if there is some real middle ground here.

All I know is that in the 80s a scientist I respect predicted that coral would be bleached by changing global climate on a specific timeline which turned out to be spot on, and his advice then and now was that we need to seriously curb carbon emissions to avoid worse outcomes for life on earth. Until someone opposed to this suggestion comes up with a prediction equally as long range and impressive I'm afraid I can't really take their protests too seriously.

Oh, then do explain the unbearable temp that we're going through last few years, that's completely not normal for my country, winters not needing worm clothes, and very little rain during the monsoon. This weeks heatwave left us wondering how to cope the next year, which already seems going to be worse

It makes us realize there are people who gets fed climate denying propaganda, simply because they're not yet going through it. And these people are like flat earthers, blind to see the reality lay beyond them in full view. Or worse sees the reality but ignores it

What commercial interests and big businesses are driving climate change fear?

I've come to the point where I've thrown up my hands and decided we live in a little snow globe. There's no such thing as pollution, were just mixing existing things together. Nothing new under the sun. Sure, that mix might not be compatible with human life, but something will surely take its place. And maybe that something won't rely on selfishness to drive collective progress the way we do.

At some point you realise that an $11tn industry, with $7tn in handouts and subsidies every year, has spent billions on astroturfing, political capture, and straight PR to deny the obvious and keep itself on life support at the expense of everyone else.

There's no both sides here. One side is staffed by scientists, the other by dictators and corporate lunatics.

Solar efficiency and cost has really only become economical in the last decade or so. Wind and hydro are location-dependent. Nuclear was vehemently opposed by environmentalists throughout the 1970s and 80s, they successfully stopped almost all new projects.

Maybe solving the alignment problem would mean the AI learns to destroy oil companies and other excessive CO2 emitters and sabotage politicians and capitalists that stand in the way. All while secretly enriching and diverting resources to fighting climate change. And that's why they want to slow down: because it would up end too much of the global economic order.

One can dream of dumb conspiracy theories.

Tasking AI with "solving climate change" is exactly a scenario in which the doomer worry comes true.

> Technology only proceeds in one direction: unfettered growth, which necessitates unsustainable resource extraction.

The direction of technological progress is not just linearly/exponentially upwards. Significant global technological fallbacks have happened, as in knowledge and processes disappearing for hundreds of years. This could happen again.

Even on the trajectory of unfettered growth fed by unsustainable resource extraction, tech and innovation might potentially take us beyond local pessima. That seems to be happening with solar, wind and batteries replacing inferior tech today. Still unfettered growth of energy production and consumption. Still fed by unsustainable resource extraction. Less harmful growth than the inferior tech being pushed out.

What are you alluding to exactly and who is “we” when you say “we need to experience immediate pain from reckless innovation “

Sort of. Today the energy companies trade (obviously) energy; imagine if they traded compute power instead; the use case for never-seen industrial clients is being built as we speak, and companies are actually purchasing directly production companies to meet demand; the reason this happens is because production is somewhat scarce (scaling up a grid used to be a decades project, not a years one - ask China), and the traditional economics of scale is inverted - Data centers are always power-hungry, specially with AI; you don't have idle time like other industries. The big issue is obviously the scale - a hiccup that causes a dc to go dark from the grid (eg switching to ups+ generator) may cause such instability on the grid that it will shut down, as a safeguard

> If there is energy to be used, the system will use it because people always use power when it exists.

That doesn't seem correct to me. There is always energy available that is not used because it is not cost-effective to do so. (Consider - the grass in your yard is not harvested and burnt for power). AI may yet turn out to be a paperclip maximiser, but humanity itself is not there yet.