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> To the extent that further improvements to AI remain economically useful, "let's do these other things first" means your economy trails behind those of whoever did work on the AI.

The major question is: at what point will unaddressed climate change nullify these economic gains and make the fact that anyone worried about them feel silly in retrospect?

Or put another way, will we even have the chance collectively enjoy the benefits of that work?

Still, another two big questions are:

- To what extent AI will actually be helpful in solving the climate crisis?

- To what extent the power generation growth fueled by AI will be critical to solving the climate crisis, and conversely, how badly we'll be screwed without it?

"Degrowth" is not an option. It hasn't been for a long time now. We can't just "social solution" our way out this problem anymore.

We can very quickly and reasonably cheaply ‘solve’ global warming without AI. Wind, solar, batteries + existing hydro and nuclear can hit a 95% clean electricity grid with capacity to scale in EV’s and heat pumps.

Electricity + home heating + cars is not 100%, but cutting emissions in half means you double the time before reaching any given threshold. For many problems the last 10% is the most challenging but we get 10x as long to solve it and 10x as long to implement mitigation strategies.

That’s what makes climate change critical, the next year is more important than what happens 10 or 20 years from now.

Electricity is only part of energy use and emissions production. In no way is there a simple and cheap solution, all proposals have tradeoffs and costs

electricity generation is only ~20% of emissions

Replacing gasoline and diesel use in cars and trucks removes 10% directly at the tailpipe and another 3-5% indirectly. But EV’s need electricity thus clean electricity can offset more than its current 20% share. The actual calculation depends on unknown factors like how we ramp down oil production, ethanol use, and how refineries adjust to changing demands.

Add heating for buildings + hot water + industrial processes that can use electricity instead of fossil fuels alongside indirect effects like methane leaks from pipelines and drumroll.

We can get to ~50% reduction while saving money over using fossil fuels.

Electricity can replace the need for gasoline, diesel, natural gas, fuel oil, coal etc across a wide range of applications while saving money. Thus the talk of heat pumps and EV’s in that post. Which then further reduces the need to extract, transport, and refine oil, natural gas, and coal further reducing methane from leaking pipes etc.

However, doing so requires ramping up electricity production and storage.

I think those are the right questions to be asking, with emphasis on the fact that these remain questions.

Too many AI accelerationists are treating these questions as foregone conclusions, which seems like an enormously dangerous bet without a clearer pathway to a truly beneficial outcome.

It may very well be that some form of AI (which form? hard to say - probably not LLMs) are a part of the solution. It may just as well be that they are not. But when building software, the age old advice to “start with the problem, not the solution” comes to mind.

The number of engineers I’ve worked with over the years (I’ve been one of them) who are convinced that the feature they’re building is the right thing to build, only to realize later that it doesn’t solve a problem people care about…is a very large number.

Regarding degrowth, I’m not advocating for it. With that said, that will be the unwanted result forced on us by the realities of the environment if we can’t put a lid on the climate issue.

> "Degrowth" is not an option.

This is not helpful. There are many reasons degrowth won't generally help humanity, but the benefits are particularly aplicable to western nations and their diplomatic relations. Certainly many western nations can bear degrowth without significant loss in quality of life. The wealthy just gotta take a significant cut to their waistlines.

> We can't just "social solution" our way out this problem anymore.

This certainly seems to be the liberal solution. Short of evicting them from our society what better choices do we have?

The fastest way to solve the climate crisis is to DESTROY ALL HUMANS

Well yes, nationalism will be the dagger in the heart of humanity. But AI won't do anything to address this; in fact, leaning into the concept of competing rather than cooperating economies will accelerate pushing the dagger in.

Is generative AI economically useful? More economically useful than switching to renewable energy?

There are notable similarities between a wartime economy and one continually adapting to global warming. While perhaps not sustainable long-term, we may observe short-term economic growth driven by government spending, followed by extended inflationary periods. We might currently be experiencing the first cycle of this kind, with more likely to follow.

That’s why I wonder if a planetary government is inevitable sometime in the future. We can’t address species-wide issues if we’re constantly worried about competition, and if market forces aren’t going to work then the only other solution I can think of is a bigger, more powerful entity laying down the law.