There is good news. Our other massive technological oops suicide - ecosphere destruction, will lead to a huge drop in the availability of electricity, and AI and robots will have to compete for it with trivial functions like lighting, heating, air conditioning, etc. Mitigating the damage already cooked in from climate change will go on for centuries. Regardless of the fossil fuel catastrophe, there is not enough vanadium, cobalt, lithium, gold, etc etc etc to make and keep making all the (mostly unrecyclable) hardware to run AI, cryptocurrency, or our other technocontrolling devices. The religion of conventional economics is based on the magical thing that if something is not available, the price will rise, and it will be found, or some clever scientist will invent a workaround. The physical world does not work like that, we were cursed in 2006-8 when we were running out of fossil fuels in the US, and fracking came along to save us, bu running up an impossible debt. Everything mentioned in the excelllent article consumes enormous amounts of energy to make, to run, and to maintain. We have been living (for about 200 years) in a "free energy " world , where fossil fuels (solar energy stored for millions of years) have been so cheap, that we are blind to energy demands - digital engineers may think that nuclear fusion, or hydrogen, or some technosave will allow the techno-future to continue to seduce us, but it can' it. We cannot survive without a relatively healthy, stable, functioning ecosystem and adding more energy, from whatever source will crash the ecosphere, andquantum computers won't save us. Les jeux son fait.
Thank you for articulating a future that is no doubt dystopian. There is no way to stop what is happening—like most things, humans will be faced with how best to react and respond to events “we” had a direct hand in bringing about—this is our forever destiny. Love the classification of the Four Horsemen, btw—I’m doing everything in my power to opt out of buying anything from Amazon, I don’t have a Facebook page, I don’t invest in Microsoft, and I will NEVER own a Tesla. Small things, I know. And given how ubiquitous tech companies are in our lives, one can no longer live without needing some connection to tech in some way, so I cannot be perfect at my desire to become a Luddite (heck, I am on Substack afterall). Maybe the Amish are truly on to something (I’m certain they live happier and simpler lives).
Thank you for the depth of knowledge you have on these issues AND your effort to communicate them. May your work continue, and may they land on eyes and ears of people who can make a difference.
Like Kert, I appreciate your research and perspective. I too eschew Amazon and Facebook, but remain firmly jacked into IT by maintaining several blogs and a newsletter (but not on fascist-friendly Substack).
Working as a tech journalist way back at the turn of the century, I saw dark forces massing. This memoir from six years ago describes that experience and zeroes in on Apple's strategy of planned obsolescence. It includes Apple's famous "1984" video, with an assist by Woody Allen.
All the investing in and cheerleading for AI and biotech that Tom describes show what we're up against. I love that lawsuits by creatives against Openai and other purveyors are piling up, but am not optimistic that they can stem the tide. Humans need to think more critically about being led by the nose into distraction, redundancy, and political impotence, menaced by robocops.
There is good news. Our other massive technological oops suicide - ecosphere destruction, will lead to a huge drop in the availability of electricity, and AI and robots will have to compete for it with trivial functions like lighting, heating, air conditioning, etc. Mitigating the damage already cooked in from climate change will go on for centuries. Regardless of the fossil fuel catastrophe, there is not enough vanadium, cobalt, lithium, gold, etc etc etc to make and keep making all the (mostly unrecyclable) hardware to run AI, cryptocurrency, or our other technocontrolling devices. The religion of conventional economics is based on the magical thing that if something is not available, the price will rise, and it will be found, or some clever scientist will invent a workaround. The physical world does not work like that, we were cursed in 2006-8 when we were running out of fossil fuels in the US, and fracking came along to save us, bu running up an impossible debt. Everything mentioned in the excelllent article consumes enormous amounts of energy to make, to run, and to maintain. We have been living (for about 200 years) in a "free energy " world , where fossil fuels (solar energy stored for millions of years) have been so cheap, that we are blind to energy demands - digital engineers may think that nuclear fusion, or hydrogen, or some technosave will allow the techno-future to continue to seduce us, but it can' it. We cannot survive without a relatively healthy, stable, functioning ecosystem and adding more energy, from whatever source will crash the ecosphere, andquantum computers won't save us. Les jeux son fait.
Thank you for articulating a future that is no doubt dystopian. There is no way to stop what is happening—like most things, humans will be faced with how best to react and respond to events “we” had a direct hand in bringing about—this is our forever destiny. Love the classification of the Four Horsemen, btw—I’m doing everything in my power to opt out of buying anything from Amazon, I don’t have a Facebook page, I don’t invest in Microsoft, and I will NEVER own a Tesla. Small things, I know. And given how ubiquitous tech companies are in our lives, one can no longer live without needing some connection to tech in some way, so I cannot be perfect at my desire to become a Luddite (heck, I am on Substack afterall). Maybe the Amish are truly on to something (I’m certain they live happier and simpler lives).
Thank you for the depth of knowledge you have on these issues AND your effort to communicate them. May your work continue, and may they land on eyes and ears of people who can make a difference.
Like Kert, I appreciate your research and perspective. I too eschew Amazon and Facebook, but remain firmly jacked into IT by maintaining several blogs and a newsletter (but not on fascist-friendly Substack).
Working as a tech journalist way back at the turn of the century, I saw dark forces massing. This memoir from six years ago describes that experience and zeroes in on Apple's strategy of planned obsolescence. It includes Apple's famous "1984" video, with an assist by Woody Allen.
https://progressivepilgrim.review/notes-from-inside-a-glass-prison/.
It's gotten much, much worse since than. Last December I updated my take on tech's "progress" in a newsletter dispatch:
https://perfidy.press/a-slave-to-the-machine/
All the investing in and cheerleading for AI and biotech that Tom describes show what we're up against. I love that lawsuits by creatives against Openai and other purveyors are piling up, but am not optimistic that they can stem the tide. Humans need to think more critically about being led by the nose into distraction, redundancy, and political impotence, menaced by robocops.