When we again weigh each sensitivity by the percent-area for the Earth, our global average ECS is 7.2 °C per doubling of CO2, much higher than the most recent IPCC estimates of 2.3 to 4.5 °C and consistent with some of the latest state-of-the-art models which suggest ca. 5.2 °C
2.3c means crop failures and food shortages globally. 5.2c means the end of our civilisation. 7.2c means the end of our species.
there are too many people
This is the root cause of most of our problems.
Climate change is just a symptom of overshoot.
I assume it will be an expensive treatment
Thanks for your support, it’s really appreciated
Weird, I just used the autogenerate title so the wired site must have had it wrong. Updated
Despite reports of it’s death, moores law continues at pace. I’ve already got a computer in my pocket more powerful than the supercomputers of the previous few decades.
We can’t even pay people a decent wage, no way will people vote for parties just giving money away for free.
I left reddit after the API nonsense (which was to stop AI companies scraping their content), and I could see them selling their content for AI (or creating their own AI) coming a mile off. It’s only ever about money
I’m not convinced that ChatGPT is the right way to AGI but watching the demos of GPT4 omni and seeing these cheap robots does make it feel like the next 5 years are going to be … interesting times shall we say.
They are on twitter: https://twitter.com/ModdedQuad
In the weeks following the surgery, a number of threads retracted from the brain, resulting in a net decrease in the number of effective electrodes.
That doesn’t sound great
The text is just copy and pasted from the article. I’ve not spent any time sanitizing it, apologies
Apologies, I’ve edited the post to take these out. I just copy and pasted from top to bottom
The number of groups lobbying the U.S. federal government on artificial intelligence nearly tripled from 2022 to 2023, rocketing from 158 to 451 organizations, according to data from OpenSecrets, a nonprofit that tracks and publishes data on campaign finance and lobbying. Data on the total amount spent on lobbying by each organization and interviews with two congressional staffers, two nonprofit advocates familiar with AI lobbying efforts, and two named experts suggest that large technology companies have so far dominated efforts to influence potential AI legislation. And while these companies have publicly been supportive of AI regulation, in closed-door conversations with officials they tend to push for light-touch and voluntary rules, say Congressional staffers and advocates.
In November 2022, OpenAI released its wildly popular chatbot, ChatGPT. Six months later, leading AI researchers and industry executives signed a statement warning that “the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.” Lawmakers around the world sat up and took notice. U.S. President Joe Biden signed a sweeping AI Executive Order; the E.U. modified its landmark AI law to ensure the models that power chatbots like ChatGPT are regulated; and the U.K. government convened the world’s first AI Safety Summit.
Read More: The 3 Most Important AI Policy Milestones of 2023
While Congress has yet to pass any AI-specific legislation, there has been a flurry of AI-related activity on the Hill, with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer convening “Insight Forums” to educate Congress on the rapidly-evolving technology. As substantial federal AI legislation began to be seen as a possibility, lobbyists flooded into the Capitol to promote their organizations’ interests.
“Obviously Congress has been writing bills on AI for a long, long time—this is not new. What’s new is the scale at which Congress is writing bills and putting them out,” says Divyansh Kaushik, a vice president at D.C.-based advisory firm Beacon Global Strategies. “That’s what’s driving a lot of this engagement.” New faces
Of the 451 organizations that lobbied on AI in 2023, 334—nearly three quarters of the total number—did so for the first time in 2023. Present in the crowd of new organizations pushing for time with staffers and lawmakers on the Hill were the relatively young companies building the most advanced AI models, such as OpenAI, Anthropic, and Cohere.
The OpenSecrets data is an imperfect measure; it tracks AI-specific lobbying by searching the lobbying disclosure forms that organizations are required to file quarterly for the words “artificial intelligence” or “AI.” Two Congressional staffers TIME spoke with suggested that the number of lobbyists they personally had met with remained roughly the same. However, they said AI has become a much more common topic of discussion. “Everybody who comes in and talks to us and wants to talk about AI,” said one Congressional staffer, who asked to remain anonymous as they weren’t authorized to speak about discussions with lobbyists and advocates.
For example, companies such as payment card company Visa, pharmaceutical conglomerate GSK, and accounting firm Ernst and Young began to mention AI in their lobbying disclosure forms. Company interests were also represented by industry trade associations, such as BSA The Software Alliance. Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz and startup accelerator Y Combinator also lobbied on AI for the first time in 2023, according to the OpenSecrets analysis.
Many civil society organizations lobbied on AI issues for the first time in 2023, too. The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations—the largest U.S. federation of trade unions—joined the fray, as did top civil rights organization the NAACP. More tech-focused civil society organizations, such as the Omidyar Network and the Mozilla Foundation also joined the fray. Non-profit organizations focused on threats that future AI systems could pose to public safety such as the Center for AI Policy and the Center for AI Safety Action Fund also filed lobbying disclosures for the first time this year. Finally, a number of universities, such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Yale University reported lobbying on AI in 2023. Big Tech’s deep pockets
All organizations that carry out lobbying, the legal definition of which only includes directly discussing specific laws or regulations, are required to report how much they spent on lobbying. However, this data is only reported as a general total figure, meaning it’s impossible to know how much of this total amount each organization is spending on AI-related lobbying specifically, versus other policy issues. But by this crude metric, many of the newcomers are significantly outspent by the big technology companies, which have been ramping up their lobbying expenditures for a decade.
In 2023, Amazon, Meta, Google parent company Alphabet, and Microsoft each spent more than $10 million on lobbying, according to data provided by OpenSecrets. The Information Technology Industry Council, a trade association, spent $2.7 million on lobbying. In comparison, civil society group the Mozilla Foundation spent $120,000 and AI safety nonprofit the Center for AI Safety Action Fund spent $80,000.
Given that the definition of lobbying only includes speaking with staffers about specific laws, these figures likely underestimate the amounts of money that tech companies are spending to influence lawmakers, says Hamza Chaudhry, a U.S. Policy Specialist at the Future of Life Institute, a nonprofit that focuses on risks posed by advanced technologies.
Multiple advocates and Hill sources suggested that the consistently large amounts spent by the big technology companies has allowed them to build up a sophisticated lobbying apparatus that has so far outgunned the efforts of other organizations. “There’s been a sprouting up of all these AI safety lobby groups and also lots of civil society groups that now are starting up their AI focuses, but by far the best at it are the tech groups,” said another Congressional staffer, who also wished to remain anonymous because they weren’t authorized to speak about discussions with lobbyists and advocates. Tech companies are able to spend more and thus pay for more experienced lobbyists, who better understand the technical details of their brief better and have a more extensive network on the Hill, the staffer said.
“I would still say that civil society—and I’m including academia in this, all sorts of different people—would be outspent by big tech by five to one, ten to one,” says Chaudhry. Public statements vs. private lobbying
What exactly is the tech industry lobbying for? Some in the industry are against regulating AI, arguing that regulation would impede technological progress. In December 2023, Ben Horowitz, co-founder of venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, wrote a blog post that said his firm would support any political candidate who opposed regulation that would stifle innovation.
But, many of the companies involved in the development of AI have, at least in public, struck a cooperative tone when discussing potential regulation. Executives from the newer companies that have developed the most advanced AI models, such as OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, have called for regulation when testifying at hearings and attending Insight Forums. Executives from the more established big technology companies have made similar statements. For example, Microsoft vice chair and president Brad Smith has called for a federal licensing regime and a new agency to regulate powerful AI platforms. Both the newer AI firms and the more established tech giants signed White House-organized voluntary commitments aimed at mitigating the risks posed by AI systems.
But in closed door meetings with Congressional offices, the same companies are often less supportive of certain regulatory approaches, according to multiple sources present in or familiar with such conversations. In particular, companies tend to advocate for very permissive or voluntary regulations. “Anytime you want to make a tech company do something mandatory, they’re gonna push back on it,” said one Congressional staffer.
Others, however, say that while companies do sometimes try to promote their own interests at the expense of the public interest, most lobbying helps to produce sensible legislation. “Most of the companies, when they engage, they’re trying to put their best foot forward in terms of making sure that we’re bolstering U.S. national security or bolstering U.S. economic competitiveness,” says Kaushik. “At the same time, obviously, the bottom line is important.”
There is little time left for Congress to pass an AI-related bill before the presidential election. Whether an AI law is passed in the next few months, or not until the 119th Congress, lobbying efforts from all parties are only likely to increase as the legislation draws nearer.
Limits to Growth predicts collapse though, so I rather hope it’s not accurate
Very sad to hear this. Loved his books and his ideas were visionary at the time and mainstream now.
People who are into technology and the future also tend to enjoy space stuff?
Sorry I didn’t get a paywall. Text here:
A couple feet of sea-level rise may not sound like a lot. But if sea levels rose by 2 feet worldwide, the effects on coastal communities would be catastrophic.
Cities such as New York, Miami, and New Orleans would experience devastating flooding. Across the globe, 97 million people would be in the path of rapidly encroaching waters, putting their homes, communities, and livelihoods at risk.
That’s what would happen if the Thwaites Glacier, nicknamed the “doomsday glacier,” collapsed. But it wouldn’t stop there.
Water is seen streaming off of icebergs. Icebergs from the Ilulissat (Jakobshavn) Glacier melting in Disko Bay, Ilulissat, Greenland. Paul Souders/Getty Images
Right now, this massive Antarctic ice shelf blocks warming sea waters from reaching other glaciers. If the Thwaites collapsed, it would trigger a cascade of melting that could raise sea levels another 10 feet.
Already, the melting Thwaites contributes to 4% of global sea-level rise. Since 2000, the Thwaites has lost more than a trillion tons of ice. But it’s far from the only glacier in trouble, and we’re running out of time to save them.
That’s why geoengineers are innovating technologies that could slow glacial melting.
The latest strategy is curtains. That’s right — underwater curtains. John Moore, a glaciologist and geoengineering researcher at the University of Lapland, wants to install gigantic 62-mile-long underwater curtains to prevent warm seawater from reaching and melting glaciers.
But he needs $50 billion to make it happen. Drawing the curtains on glacial melting
One of the main drivers of glacial melting is the flow of warm, salty sea water deep within the ocean. These warm currents lap against the sides of the Thwaites, for example, melting away the thick ice that keeps the shelf’s edge from collapsing.
As oceans warm because of the climate crisis, these intruding currents are set to increasingly erode the Thwaites, driving it closer to total collapse.
Moore and his colleagues are trying to figure out whether they could anchor curtains on the Amundsen seafloor to slow the melting.
In theory, these curtains would block the flow of warm currents to the Thwaites to halt melting and give its ice shelf time to re-thicken.
diagram of sea curtains This diagram shows how a seabed anchored curtain could block the deep warm water currents from reaching glaciers. Arctic Centre / University of Lapland
This isn’t the first time Moore has suggested this blocking solution. His curtain idea is based on a similar solution he proposed back in 2018, which would block warm water using a massive wall.
But Moore said curtains were a much safer option.
He explained that they were just as effective at blocking warm currents but much easier to remove if necessary.
For instance, if the curtains took an unexpected toll on the local environment, they could be taken out and redesigned.
“Any intervention should be something that you can revert if you have second thoughts,” Moore said.
While Moore and his colleagues are still decades away from implementing this technology to save the Thwaites, they’re in the middle of testing prototypes on a smaller scale. A $50 billion idea
Moore’s colleagues at the University of Cambridge are already in the very early stages of developing and testing a prototype, and they could progress to the next stage as early as summer 2025, according to Moore.
Right now, researchers at the University of Cambridge are testing a 3-foot-long version of this technology inside tanks. Moore said that once they’d proven its functionality, they’d move on to testing it in the River Cam, either by installing it at the bottom of the river or by pulling it behind a boat.
River Cam The River Cam, where University of Cambridge researchers plan to test their sea-curtains prototype. Premier Photo/Shutterstock
The idea is to gradually scale up the prototypes until evidence suggests the technology is stable enough to install in the Antarctic, Moore explained.
If all goes well, they could be testing a set of 33-foot-long curtain prototypes in a Norwegian fjord in about two years.
“We want to know, what could possibly go wrong? And if there’s no solution for it, then in the end, you just have to give up,” Moore said. “But there’s also a lot of incentive to try and make it work.”
With scaling comes an increased need for funding. This year’s experiments are set to cost about $10,000. But to get to the point at which Moore and his colleagues could confidently implement this technology, they’d need about $10 million.
And they would need another $50 billion to actually install curtains in the Amundsen Sea.
“It sounds like a hell of a lot,” Moore said. “But compare the risk-risk: the cost of sea-level protection around the world, just coastal defenses, is expected to be about $50 billion per year per meter of sea level rise.”
map of sea level rise in NYC This map shows the amount of area in and around New York City that would become submerged if sea levels rose three feet (in red). Climate Central / Google Earth Engine
While some coastal cities, such as New York, have the budget to adapt to rising seas, others won’t even come close.
“One of the great driving forces for us is this social-justice point — that it’s a much more equitable way of dealing with sea-level rise than just saying, ‘We should be spending this money on adaptation,’” Moore said. A race against time
Data shows that the Thwaites lacier, and others like it, are melting at unprecedented rates because of the climate crisis. But the question of when they could collapse remains up for debate among glaciologists.
“We really don’t know if [the Thwaites] could collapse tomorrow, or 10 years from now, or 50 years from now,” Moore said, adding: “We need to collect better data.”
Series of satellite images showing glaciers melting. Satellite imagery shows the extent of damage to the Thwaites and Pine Island glaciers and the tearing apart of their shear zones. Lhermitte et al/PNAS
But collecting better data would take time that these glaciers may not have.
Proponents of glacial geoengineering research, such as Moore, believe the time for intervention is now. Other experts disagree, arguing that cutting carbon emissions is the only viable way to slow glacial melting.
While reducing emissions is essential for mitigating the effects of the climate crisis, Moore isn’t confident we’ll cut back drastically or quickly enough to save the Thwaites. Once it reaches a tipping point, “the glacier doesn’t really care anymore about what humans want to do about their emissions,” he said.
“At that point, that’s when you need these other tools in the box.”
We’re really fucked