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Assuming no AI takeover, massive technological increase, civilizational collapse due to dysgenics and lack of cheap energy, etc.
by concordDance 4y ago
Assuming no AI takeover, massive technological increase, civilizational collapse due to dysgenics and lack of cheap energy, etc.
- roenxi 4y agoEven with all those things, the canals might still be used in 1,000 years. None of those things change the likely truth that floating physical goods is cheaper than land transport and those canals are at globally strategic points. The AI will have to move goods, technology change will still need to move goods, civilisations will rise and fall and still need to move goods. Even if energy gets more expensive, trade will still occur.
- ben_w 3y agoFor every point except AI takeover, I agree. AI takeover isn't well defined, and by extension it isn't assured to be sensible — if a narrow AI is made to optimise the heck out of [high contagious, short latency period, long incubation period, high lethality, can form stable reservoirs in other species], it can be good at that without any long term planning about what happens next. Conversely, we can also consider one that solves Von Neumann replication, and then it's less than a century to disassemble the planet Mercury, and from there a week or two for each of Venus and Earth. Assuming it had that as a goal.