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Fastest rate of natural carbon dioxide rise over the last 50k years

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Re: Fastest rate of natural carbon dioxide rise over the last 50k years

#351

Post by trashtester »

short_sells_poo wrote: post #260
trashtester wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AGI has nothing to do with consciousness, unless consciousness is for some reason required to attain it (which doesn't seem like it's the case). AGI simply means that we can create a type of machine that can do any kind of mental task that a human can, at least at a human level.

Consciousness appears to be a form of intelligence. Is it required for general intelligence (whatever that means)? We don't know. Would humans be classified as having general intelligence if we weren't conscious? In any case, I perhaps worded that poorly. I wasn't saying that consciousness is the same as intelligence, it was just an example of how little we actually understand intelligence. > AGI simply means that we…

> I wasn't saying that consciousness is the same as intelligence, it was just an example of how little we actually understand intelligence.

I would say that current AI's do have a kind of intelligence. It's just not generic enough that we label it AGI.

Add an ability to form, optimize an execute plans while also increasing the physical world model, and we're getting really close.

Both of these abilities are already being developed.

Re: Fastest rate of natural carbon dioxide rise over the last 50k years

#352

Post by goatlover »

duozerk wrote: post #267
trashtester wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's really been such a long period of time that if runaway climate change were going to happen, why hasn't it happened already? I don't think runaway climate change or even something like a reversal of the Gulf Stream were ever any of the mainstream scenarios from IPCC. The worst scenarios, IIRC, were a global warming of +6 to 10C. And that is over several centuries, provided we do nothing to stop it. This cent…

At 4C of heating, you cannot grow food in any reasonable quantity with any reliability, period. 4C is the collapse of modern civilization at the very least (in fact likely earlier due to increased geopolitical instability and tensions due to dwindling resources, combined with the availability of nuclear weapons), with a massive die-off of humans along with it.

Source for these claims?

Re: Fastest rate of natural carbon dioxide rise over the last 50k years

#353

Post by mrguyorama »

trashtester wrote: post #282
duozerk wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At 4C of heating, you cannot grow food in any reasonable quantity with any reliability, period. 4C is the collapse of modern civilization at the very least (in fact likely earlier due to increased geopolitical instability and tensions due to dwindling resources, combined with the availability of nuclear weapons), with a massive die-off of humans along with it.

Many places could increase food production to twice what it is today if 5C warmer.

"5C warmer" doesn't mean a uniform increase in temperature of 5 degrees at all times. It means "5 * the thermal mass of the earth's biosphere" worth of extra energy in an extremely chaotic system that is currently in a local stable point, but doesn't have to stay there.

Re: Fastest rate of natural carbon dioxide rise over the last 50k years

#354

Post by trashtester »

Filligree wrote: post #340
trashtester wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sure. we may have to chose whether or not plastics should be biodegradable. Cant have your cake and eat it, too.

Wood is biodegradable, but wood houses work anyway. Ditto cotton. So long as you keep things dry they don’t tend to rot.

Exactly. Plastic will be the same at some point. Natural selection would probably lead to plastic-eating bacteria anyway. DeepMind's enzymes are just a way to speed it up.

Re: Fastest rate of natural carbon dioxide rise over the last 50k years

#355

Post by darby_eight »

belter wrote: post #3

We are in the multilayered race between - The risk of the rise of AGI - The risk and madness of Nuclear conflict - The risk of runaway Climate change My money is on Mother Gaia. She will brutally and swiftly discipline her puppies.

> The risk of the rise of AGI

can someone explain what the risk of this actually is? I just assumed it was a regulatory capture ploy.

IMO it is massively distracting from the very real and very measurable impact the global industry has on our climate.

Re: Fastest rate of natural carbon dioxide rise over the last 50k years

#356

Post by goatlover »

GenerWork wrote: post #245
Symmetry wrote: post #239

With each new IPCC report the chances of us keeping global warming below 1.5 C become more and more remote as emissions are locked in. But at the same time the really bad scenarios where we go well over 4 C also become more remote. Every half degree is worse than the last and each is worth righting for but it does look like our civilization will make it through this intact, even if not all people individually.

>it does look like our civilization will make it through this intact Has anybody ever seriously believed that we wouldn't make it through? This just seems like an alarmist take to me.

Lots of people on the internet and some in the media. Some activists as well, and a few politicians, although it's unclear to what extent they really believe climate change is truly existential.

Re: Fastest rate of natural carbon dioxide rise over the last 50k years

#357

Post by baq »

duozerk wrote: post #261
trashtester wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn't seem to agree with IPCC predictions. What's your source?

Despite the IPCC being very conservative/optimistic in their scenarios, this is in fact in line with their reports; admittedly my comment above might be badly worded - when I said "near-term", I meant "in the upcoming two centuries or so". The IPCC reports say we might reach 4C, 5C or even more; based on the historical record, such a major change in such a short time - several orders of magnitude faster than previous…

The IPCC also consistently underestimated sulphur in the atmosphere because if you look at this and previous years we've reached their 2030-2035 goal of warming this year.

> GHG emissions will lead to increasing global warming in the near term, and it’s likely this will reach 1.5°C between 2030 and 2035.

https://climatechampions.unfccc.int/the-ipcc-just-published-...

> Global temperatures have been exceptionally high over the past three months – at around 1.6C above pre-industrial levels – following the peak of current El Niño event at the start of 2024.

> The past 10 months have all set new all-time monthly temperature records, though the margin by which new records have been set has fallen from around 0.3C last year to 0.1C over the first three months of 2024.

https://www.carbonbrief.org/state-of-the-climate-2024-off-to...

Re: Fastest rate of natural carbon dioxide rise over the last 50k years

#358

Post by riedel »

iamthirsty wrote: post #323
feoren wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spiders have been a human fear for two million years, but I'm not too worried about them causing our downfall as a species. Just because we're afraid of AI doesn't mean it's actually worth fearing.

Spiders don't, won't and couldn't control almost all aspects of human life. This is a false equivalence.

I guess you will surely find a movie to prove you different

Re: Fastest rate of natural carbon dioxide rise over the last 50k years

#359

Post by flir »

krainboltgreene wrote: post #244
flir wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neuromancer. I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream. Erewhon.

You have massively confused "AGI as a plot point" with "is what the literary work is about". For example Neuromancer is about trauma and identity. If I'm being charitable I could give you Erewhon, but that's only because a major theme is anthropocentrism. A vast majority of the book is a criticism of victorian society. Ellison's analysis of his own work is pretty well known and while not specifically about AGI is def…

If not Neuromancer (although I feel differently) then Queen of Angels (Greg Bear). It's the most fascinating take on AI I've ever read - the entanglement with the themes of justice and punishment is thought-provoking.

The Turing Option (Harry Harrison, Marvin Minsky). I can't stress strongly enough, do not read this book. It's terrible. But it does exist.

Re: Fastest rate of natural carbon dioxide rise over the last 50k years

#360

Post by azemetre »

nullstyle wrote: post #329
_yb2s wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fiction is much more than just entertainment... science fiction has been pivotal in both shaping and preparing our society for changes caused by technology. Much of the best science fiction has been so prescient that it's hard for modern audiences to even understand that these things were written before the world was like this. When I share a lot of old sci-fi with my young son, he finds it unremarkable, as they seem…

Out of curiosity, could you recommend any Science Fiction written before the nuclear age that talks about nuclear proliferation? Or to take something from our present world, what Science Fiction stories would you recommend to talk about the effect of drone tech on trade and shipping?

Alas, Babylon was written in 1959. Not exactly before nuclear proliferation but before the Cuban Missile Crisis.
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