It has become impossible to tell managers mesmerised by artificial intelligence that the tools are not, in fact, helpful. So employees just play along with the fiction to keep their jobs, writes our tech columnist
  • melfie@lemmy.zipEnglish
    241·
    19 days ago

    If AI data centers drastically accelerate us towards a point of no return for climate change, then they will in fact have “changed everything”.

    • HostilePasta@lemmy.mlEnglish
      141·
      19 days ago

      I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but we’re already past the point of no return.

      The climate is changing more drastically every year. Hurricanes and typhoons are more severe and the season lasts longer than just a couple years ago. Thunderstorms are more severe, with longer and hotter periods between them and fewer regular rain events. Ocean currents are changing and stopping, meaning the flows that sea life use aren’t there. There is no longer a constant polar ice cap on the north pole.

      We will not be staying under 2°C average warming, which was the target back in 2010.

      • naught101@lemmy.worldEnglish
        10·
        19 days ago

        The question isn’t where the point of no return is - we’ve been beyond those the whole time. The question is how bad we want to let it get. Ever fraction of a degree extra warming means worse impacts.

        Agree that less than +2°C is unlikely (though not completely impossible). But still, better that than +2.5°C, etc.

    • Communist@lemmy.frozeninferno.xyzEnglish
      101·
      19 days ago

      In the near future an ai company will turn on their ASI and ask it what to do about climate change and it will say “first off shut me down, second off eat the rich” and only then will we know we did it

      • PhilosoDOOM@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        19 days ago

        The Author’s Note section of State of Fear, Michael Crichton made numerous predictions that some of which have come true thus far.

        It was published in 2004

        One of which is that any climate change related legislation implemented by one party, will eventually overturned / reversed when the other party takes power.

        Nothing is more inherently political than our shared physical environment, and nothing is more ill served by allegiance to a single political party. Precisely because the environment is shared it cannot be managed by one faction according to its own economic or aesthetic preferences. Sooner or later, the opposing faction will take power, and previous policies will be reversed. Stable management of the environment requires recognition that all preferences have their place: snowmobilers and fly fishermen, dirt bikers and hikers, devel-opers and preservationists. These preferences are at odds, and their incompatibility cannot be avoided. But resolving incompatible goals is a true function of politics

        He also predicted that in around 2100, people will be far richer, use lots of energy than ever before, and the global population will be much smaller.

    • aesthelete@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      18 days ago

      In this way AI reminds me of when Elon was saying we should build a giant vacuum tube instead of a train in California.

      They all pretend this AI god that they’re sure will surface will solve the climate crisis partially because they already know what needs to be done and don’t want to do it. They’d rather baffle you with bullshit instead of trying to fix the problem.