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This type of thing used to scare me a lot more. But after the events of the last few years, the latest IPCC climate report, and the fact that AI has fallen on i

This type of thing used to scare me a lot more. But after the events of the last few years, the latest IPCC climate report, and the fact that AI has fallen on its face repeatedly despite expectations, I'm more convinced that we'll destroy ourselves before AI has the chance to take us out. But now that I think about it, the idea of a super intelligent AI simply waiting for humanity to die off naturally instead of going to war with us would be a funny premise for a short story.

JamesBarney 4y ago
Why does the latest IPCC climate report scare you so much? While we're still not on a great path the worst case scenario has gotten better.
- fancy_hammer 4y ago
  It’s been a while since I looked at IPCC report. Is the worst case still apocalyptically bad? We’re nearing 1.5 degrees above average and the results are bad enough already. (Not looking forward to another summer of fires like Australia had a couple of years ago.)
  - eloff 4y ago
    We're still not only increasing emissions, but accelerating the increasing emissions. I don't think we'll avoid a rise of 4 degrees over the average. On the bright side we may have killed the cycles of glaciation that would have been awkward in the future, to put it mildly. The cost is going to be so heavy though.
- salt-thrower 4y ago
  The worst case scenario is still a mass extinction event unlike anything witnessed by the human species, plus global food and water shortages, and certain areas of the world becoming unsuitable for human life during the hot months. That means mass migration and conflict over resources, and a deteriorating ecosystem that we still very much rely on to produce food and healthy living conditions. https://www.vox.com/22620706/climate-change-ipcc-report-2021-ssp-scenario-future-warming https://www.vox.com/22620706/climate-change-ipcc-report-2021... Basically, scenario 4 or 5 outlined in that article is what I see happening. Sure, it's not a guaranteed extinction, but it will devastating, and it's far more likely than a GAI takeover.
tablespoon 4y ago
> This type of thing used to scare me a lot more. But after the events of the last few years, the latest IPCC climate report, and the fact that AI has fallen on its face repeatedly despite expectations, I'm more convinced that we'll destroy ourselves before AI has the chance to take us out. I don't think we'll destroy ourselves, but I am starting to think it might be a good thing for humanity of technological civilization falls on its face. I think fears about AGI are overhyped by people who've read way too much sci-fi, but there are a lot of technologies out there or that are being developed that seem like they could be setting us up for a kind of stable totalitarianism that uses automation to implement much tighter control than was ever possible before. The people in the 90s who hyped computers as tools of liberation will probably be proven to be very badly wrong. Analog technologies were better, since they're more difficult and costly to monitor. IMHO, a real samizdat is impossible when everything's connected to the internet. And the internet has proven to be far easier to block and control than shortwave radio.
hn_version_0023 4y ago
Off topic, but perhaps likely to find the answer here… there’s a short story about an AI that continually asks for more input from humanity, and humans oblige, devoting more and more resources to the AI until finally, it has enough input, and disappears leaving humans helpless and without what has become their one true god. I’d love to know if anyone has read this; I don’t recall where I did… perhaps on old copy of Analog? If this rings any bells I’d be grateful for a title and author. Thank you kindly :)
- smashers1114 4y ago
  Sounds kinda like "The Last Question" by Asimov, but not quite. I might have thought about it partly because of the anecdote about it being hard to remember. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Question#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Question#History
  - hn_version_0023 4y ago
    Its quite similar, I agree! Unfortunately not the same story. I appreciate it nonetheless!
323 4y ago
Even the scariest climate warnings predict some 10% of people dying over 100 years. Hardly world extinction event. In fact, today we have the opposite current, where climate people start talking about how the future is not that scary after all, after realizing that they scared everybody out of having children: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/05/opinion/climate-change-should-you-have-kids.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/05/opinion/climate-change-sh...
- salt-thrower 4y ago
  Paywall; unable to comment on that article. I don’t think humanity will literally go extinct in 100 years. But no action is being made against climate change. None. The conferences and non-binding pledges made so far are political theater, with deadlines far enough in the future that the people making the pledges will be dead or out of power by the due date. Not only are we failing to decrease emissions, we are actively increasing them year over year. The CO2 that already exists in the atmosphere has guaranteed a difficult future on its own, and we keep adding to it. The worst case scenarios outlined in the IPCC report are therefore pretty likely to happen, and I think they’re much more apocalyptic than you give them credit for. 10% of humans dying in a century might not be an extinction in and of itself, but it certainly brings us closer, and will have countless side effects that will disrupt society as we know it. In a nutshell, it's far more likely that climate change will bring humanity to its knees before some kind of GAI takeover. Not saying it's guaranteed (though it's gonna be very bad); just saying Skynet isn't what I'm worried about.

JamesBarney 4y ago

Why does the latest IPCC climate report scare you so much? While we're still not on a great path the worst case scenario has gotten better.

fancy_hammer 4y ago
It’s been a while since I looked at IPCC report. Is the worst case still apocalyptically bad? We’re nearing 1.5 degrees above average and the results are bad enough already. (Not looking forward to another summer of fires like Australia had a couple of years ago.)
- eloff 4y ago
  We're still not only increasing emissions, but accelerating the increasing emissions. I don't think we'll avoid a rise of 4 degrees over the average. On the bright side we may have killed the cycles of glaciation that would have been awkward in the future, to put it mildly. The cost is going to be so heavy though.
salt-thrower 4y ago
The worst case scenario is still a mass extinction event unlike anything witnessed by the human species, plus global food and water shortages, and certain areas of the world becoming unsuitable for human life during the hot months. That means mass migration and conflict over resources, and a deteriorating ecosystem that we still very much rely on to produce food and healthy living conditions. https://www.vox.com/22620706/climate-change-ipcc-report-2021-ssp-scenario-future-warming https://www.vox.com/22620706/climate-change-ipcc-report-2021... Basically, scenario 4 or 5 outlined in that article is what I see happening. Sure, it's not a guaranteed extinction, but it will devastating, and it's far more likely than a GAI takeover.

tablespoon 4y ago

> This type of thing used to scare me a lot more. But after the events of the last few years, the latest IPCC climate report, and the fact that AI has fallen on its face repeatedly despite expectations, I'm more convinced that we'll destroy ourselves before AI has the chance to take us out. I don't think we'll destroy ourselves, but I am starting to think it might be a good thing for humanity of technological civilization falls on its face. I think fears about AGI are overhyped by people who've read way too much sci-fi, but there are a lot of technologies out there or that are being developed that seem like they could be setting us up for a kind of stable totalitarianism that uses automation to implement much tighter control than was ever possible before. The people in the 90s who hyped computers as tools of liberation will probably be proven to be very badly wrong. Analog technologies were better, since they're more difficult and costly to monitor. IMHO, a real samizdat is impossible when everything's connected to the internet. And the internet has proven to be far easier to block and control than shortwave radio.

hn_version_0023 4y ago

Off topic, but perhaps likely to find the answer here… there’s a short story about an AI that continually asks for more input from humanity, and humans oblige, devoting more and more resources to the AI until finally, it has enough input, and disappears leaving humans helpless and without what has become their one true god. I’d love to know if anyone has read this; I don’t recall where I did… perhaps on old copy of Analog? If this rings any bells I’d be grateful for a title and author. Thank you kindly :)

smashers1114 4y ago
Sounds kinda like "The Last Question" by Asimov, but not quite. I might have thought about it partly because of the anecdote about it being hard to remember. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Question#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Question#History
- hn_version_0023 4y ago
  Its quite similar, I agree! Unfortunately not the same story. I appreciate it nonetheless!

323 4y ago

Even the scariest climate warnings predict some 10% of people dying over 100 years. Hardly world extinction event. In fact, today we have the opposite current, where climate people start talking about how the future is not that scary after all, after realizing that they scared everybody out of having children: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/05/opinion/climate-change-should-you-have-kids.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/05/opinion/climate-change-sh...

salt-thrower 4y ago
Paywall; unable to comment on that article. I don’t think humanity will literally go extinct in 100 years. But no action is being made against climate change. None. The conferences and non-binding pledges made so far are political theater, with deadlines far enough in the future that the people making the pledges will be dead or out of power by the due date. Not only are we failing to decrease emissions, we are actively increasing them year over year. The CO2 that already exists in the atmosphere has guaranteed a difficult future on its own, and we keep adding to it. The worst case scenarios outlined in the IPCC report are therefore pretty likely to happen, and I think they’re much more apocalyptic than you give them credit for. 10% of humans dying in a century might not be an extinction in and of itself, but it certainly brings us closer, and will have countless side effects that will disrupt society as we know it. In a nutshell, it's far more likely that climate change will bring humanity to its knees before some kind of GAI takeover. Not saying it's guaranteed (though it's gonna be very bad); just saying Skynet isn't what I'm worried about.