AI Abundance, Climate Sensitivities, & Airborne Toxins
This week’s science bits from SWTG
OpenAI CEO Predicts Abundance Economy “In the 2030s”
Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, has published a new essay according to which we are “past the event horizon” and on the way to the singularity. In the context of AI, the term “singularity,” popularized by Ray Kurzweil, refers to the hypothetical moment at which computer code can improve itself, after which predictions are impossible — akin to a mathematical singularity.
It is somewhat unfortunate to equate the AI singularity to that inside black holes because the latter shred everything that nears them into pieces and then time ends. But leaving aside the awkward metaphor, Altman reasserts that we are “close to building digital superintelligence” and oracles that “in the 2030s, intelligence and energy — ideas, and the ability to make ideas happen — are going to become wildly abundant.”
I very much want this to be true, but I think that Altman (as most of Silicon Valley’s techno-enthusiasts) underestimates how difficult, time-consuming, and expensive it will become to train and maintain AI, and how long it will take to change physical reality with them.
Scientists Warn, Again, That We Are Underestimating the Pace of Global Warming
All model projections for how Earth’s climate will evolve in the coming decades depend on one parameter: the response of the global temperature to carbon dioxide increase, which is known as climate sensitivity. The projections that you normally see are for the average climate sensitivity of all models. However, in a just published study, researchers from the Center for International Climate Research report that satellite data suggest that the climate sensitivity of our planet is on the high end of the model parameters. If this is correct, the world might warm twice as fast as expected.
Paper here, press release here. I talked about climate sensitivity and the problem that we might be underestimating it in this earlier video.
Airborne Toxins Detected in North America for First Time
Researchers from the University of Colorado Boulder in the United States have detected Medium Chain Chlorinated Paraffins (MCCPs) near Oklahoma. MCCPs are synthetic chemicals used in products like lubricants, flame retardants, and plastics. They break down very slowly, are light enough to hover in the air for extended periods, and can accumulate in the human body. Studies on animals suggest that they could cause liver and kidney disease and might possibly be carcinogenic, though little is known about their effect on humans. MCCPs have previously been detected among others in China and Antarctica, but this marks the first time their presence has been demonstrated in North America. “It's very exciting as a scientist to find something unexpected like this that we weren't looking for,” said Daniel Katz, lead author of the study, which is one way to put it.
Press release here, paper here.