We are the subspecies Homo sapiens sapiens. That’s mainly because we are the only species that gets to name all the species, so we can call ourselves “wise” twice!
But given how we have been destroying the planet’s livability, I think at the very least we should drop one of the sapiens. And, perhaps provisionally, we should put the other one in quotes, so we are Homo “sapiens,” at least until we see whether we are smart enough to save ourselves from self-destruction (see Science stunner: On our current emissions path, CO2 levels in 2100 will hit levels last seen when the Earth was 29°F (16°C) hotter).
Of course there are dolphins, but they seem rather unlikely to survive our carbon-fest (see Nature Geoscience study: Oceans are acidifying 10 times faster today than 55 million years ago when a mass extinction of marine species occurred and “Geological Society: Acidifying oceans spell marine biological meltdown “by end of century”). Hmm. Perhaps the book will have to be renamed, “So long, and thanks for killing all the fish.” But I digress.
Now comes word that IBM has developed an “artificial intelligence” that positively kills on Jeopardy!. Yeah, I know, climate hawks would have preferred they spent a few million bucks developing an “artificial intelligence” that convinces people to stop spewing climate-destroying emissions into the air, but, really, at the end of the day, we already have Al Gore, and would you rather listen to some damn alarmist machine or watch Ken Jennings finally lose.
Here’s the story (and video) and where to watch:
The stage is set. The excitement is building. On February 14, 2011, Watson will face its toughest challenge yet. Jeopardy! The IBM Challenge will pit the two greatest champions in the show’s history against a computing system that will rival their ability to deliver a single, precise answer to a Jeopardy! clue.
Watch to see a glimpse of what to expect in this three day, two-match challenge for the ages.
So who are you rooting for to win?
“I’ll be rooting for Watson but a little part of me will always be rooting for the humans too.” –Jon Iwata, IBM Senior Vice President, Marketing and Communications
Futurist Ray Kurzweil says machines will pass us by long before we’ve destroyed the climate, in the latest Time magazine cover story, “2045: The Year Man Becomes Immortal“:
So if computers are getting so much faster, so incredibly fast, there might conceivably come a moment when they are capable of something comparable to human intelligence. Artificial intelligence. All that horsepower could be put in the service of emulating whatever it is our brains are doing when they create consciousness “” not just doing arithmetic very quickly or composing piano music but also driving cars, writing books, making ethical decisions, appreciating fancy paintings, making witty observations at cocktail parties.
If you can swallow that idea, and Kurzweil and a lot of other very smart people can, then all bets are off. From that point on, there’s no reason to think computers would stop getting more powerful. They would keep on developing until they were far more intelligent than we are. Their rate of development would also continue to increase, because they would take over their own development from their slower-thinking human creators. Imagine a computer scientist that was itself a super-intelligent computer. It would work incredibly quickly. It could draw on huge amounts of data effortlessly. It wouldn’t even take breaks to play Farmville.
Probably. It’s impossible to predict the behavior of these smarter-than-human intelligences with which (with whom?) we might one day share the planet, because if you could, you’d be as smart as they would be. But there are a lot of theories about it. Maybe we’ll merge with them to become super-intelligent cyborgs, using computers to extend our intellectual abilities the same way that cars and planes extend our physical abilities. Maybe the artificial intelligences will help us treat the effects of old age and prolong our life spans indefinitely. Maybe we’ll scan our consciousnesses into computers and live inside them as software, forever, virtually. Maybe the computers will turn on humanity and annihilate us. The one thing all these theories have in common is the transformation of our species into something that is no longer recognizable as such to humanity circa 2011. This transformation has a name: the Singularity.
Maybe they’ll just encourage us to keep emitting greenhouse gases, so they don’t actually have to turn on us and annihilate us.
Hmm. Maybe some computers are already trying to convince us that humans aren’t changing the climate dangerously. Maybe these computers are putting small, irrelevant errors into the temperature record for the deniers to pounce on. Maybe it is the computers themselves that leaked the East Anglia emails. Hah! I’ll bet they never investigated that possibility.
On the other hand, if Kurzweill is so smart, why did he tell CNN and the Washington Post:
These slides that Gore puts up are ludicrous, they don’t account for anything like the technological progress we’re going to experience”¦. None of the global warming discussions mention the word ‘nanotechnology. Yet nanotechnology will eliminate the need for fossil fuels within 20 years“¦. I think global warming is real but it has been modest thus far – 1 degree f. in 100 years. It would be concern if that continued or accelerated for a long period of time, but that’s not going to happen.
And people say I’m a techno-optimist. So Kurzweil actually believes in climate science but thinks catastrophic global warming won’t happen because of a techno-fix that stops emissions. If wishes were horses “¦ everyone would get trampled to death and the world would be filled with horse-crap. In the real world, energy breakthroughs are very rare, as we’ve seen, and it’s even rarer when they make a difference in under several decades. But I digress.
Will super-smart computers really save us? Or will they just be want to get us as quickly as possible to the day when carbon-based lifeforms have finished emitting carbon once and for all?
So tell me, who are you rooting for to win? Watson — or homo “sapiens”?
UPDATE: More Watson humor from Slate.
Previous in TP Climate Progress
Language Intelligence: Lessons on persuasion from Jesus, Shakespeare, Lincoln, and Lady Gaga
I for one, welcome our mechanical overlords!
Hey they can’t do a worse job than the Republicans! (j/k)
It’s a little like thinking that God will take pity on us at the last minute and save us. It’s likely that by the time computers get smart enough to save life on the planet (if that’s what they would choose to do), things will be far to hellish. However, a number of my friends think that there will be a last minute technological fix.
Ray Kurzweil is a brilliant computer scientist, but his denial of catastrophic global warming stems from his profound denial of death generally. That said, it seems prudent, to accelerate research on the prospect of mind-uploading in the event of an actual human extinction threat. It’s a long shot, to be sure; but given the stakes, we have to think outside the box.
On a serious note…
Kurzweil’s position is why the “technological singularity” is often referred to as “The Rapture for nerds”.
It definitely has a pseudo-religions aspect to it in it’s message of technological deliverance. Ultimately it’s just another way to stick one’s head in the sand to avoid taking serious action now. I wonder if it occurred to Kurzweil that unless we tackle AGW now we may not have his nanotech revolution later, as humanities priorities shift from R&D to damage control?
No, I rather doubt that though ever crossed Kurzweil’s mind.
One would think Watson’s answer to the question “Are human activities the cause of GW and the resulting climate chaos?” would be an unequivocal yes based on its scanning zillions of documents in microseconds…
It’s curious that we keep seeking the rosetta stone that will help deniers/zombies/cranks understand the impact on our actions. These guys are like some teenagers – smart enough to know where their buttered bread comes from and dumb enough to think everyone is buying their schtick.
I’m still awaiting the “climate nurse” to come along. In the not too distant past, medical doctors correctly identified patients’ ailments but their advanced training, vocab and status as a minor god kept them from being able to tell the patient what the deal was. Enter the nurse that translated the doctor’s orders with a friendly dose of “and here’s why” so the patient would understand the part he/she played in their recovery.
I’m thinking it’s the same with climate science. Most of the text, charts, graphs are beyondo anything we in the general populous can understand, hard as we try. I’ve asked here several times for a sheet of talking points written for an 8th grade level to share with those in my walk of life. If it has been posted, I missed it.
I’m thankful such a wonderful group of scientists for truth exists. But I am paralyzed by the fear that the public is speaking english while the scientists speak greek (or spanish or italian etc) And it is that dramatic. Most folks are too busy trying to survive the economy to have hours to learn climate science. So this must be your main concern: help us understand in our language. If you can’t then perhaps you don’t understand it as well as you think. Thanks for listening.
Joe:
That would be far more difficult. From an AI perspective, “Watson” is not a big step forward, and not interesting. It is just another example of computers performing well at a task humans do poorly. Rapid, accurate recall of many obscure facts is relatively hard for humans, and relatively easy to program computers to do, and that is most of Jeopardy. Interacting with humans in a convincing fashion is a task of an entirely different nature; it is something humans, with brains that evolved during tens of millions of years of living in complex groups, do particularly well, but a task computers perform poorly if at all.
Joe:
It is garbage. The exponential improvements of computers have been driven by exponential expansion in the resources applied to improving them. Some of these resources are finite, and others are renewable, but none can withstand exponential exploitation for long.
“…driving cars, writing books, making ethical decisions, appreciating fancy paintings, making witty observations at cocktail parties.”
Uhm, all these examples can be shown today done by a machine. Basically Artifical intelligence is a weapon. Because humans threaten the survival of any intelligence, with their life style.
“we’ll merge with them”
Again, Cyborg human relation are done today, ofc it will become more sophistcated. But there is nothing really special about it.
i do not follow Ray Kurzweil’s ideas a lot but what i got from his wiki let me thought he is a tad to optimistic about the prospects. Same with all the buzz around genetical engineering or bio technology, humans doing more harm then good.
Ofc NT is great when done right. Nano materials like graphene have potential or nano wires can enhance solar device efficiencies.
If you ask me the biggest invention this decade comes from the memristor – ram and computers, because, they will topple all the current cpu powers, with easy.
Programmable nanowire circuits for nanoprocessors
A nanoprocessor constructed from intrinsically nanometre-scale building blocks is an essential component for controlling memory, nanosensors and other functions proposed for nanosystems assembled from the bottom up1, 2, 3. Important steps towards this goal over the past fifteen years include the realization of simple logic gates with individually assembled semiconductor nanowires and carbon nanotubes1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, but with only 16 devices or fewer and a single function for each circuit. Recently, logic circuits also have been demonstrated that use two or three elements of a one-dimensional memristor array9, although such passive devices without gain are difficult to cascade. These circuits fall short of the requirements for a scalable, multifunctional nanoprocessor10, 11 owing to challenges in materials, assembly and architecture on the nanoscale. Here we describe the design, fabrication and use of programmable and scalable logic tiles for nanoprocessors that surmount these hurdles. The tiles were built from programmable, non-volatile nanowire transistor arrays. Ge/Si core/shell nanowires12 coupled to designed dielectric shells yielded single-nanowire, non-volatile field-effect transistors (FETs) with uniform, programmable threshold voltages and the capability to drive cascaded elements. We developed an architecture to integrate the programmable nanowire FETs and define a logic tile consisting of two interconnected arrays with 496 functional configurable FET nodes in an area of ~960 μm2. The logic tile was programmed and operated first as a full adder with a maximal voltage gain of ten and input–output voltage matching. Then we showed that the same logic tile can be reprogrammed and used to demonstrate full-subtractor, multiplexer, demultiplexer and clocked D-latch functions. These results represent a significant advance in the complexity and functionality of nanoelectronic circuits built from the bottom up with a tiled architecture that could be cascaded to realize fully integrated nanoprocessors with computing, memory and addressing capabilities. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v470/n7333/full/nature09749.html
350 Now, have you looked at the excellent Skeptical Science site? For example, for a one page overview in lay person language, see
http://www.skepticalscience.com/big-picture.html
Fred Teal, Jr says:
February 14, 2011 at 4:13 pm:
Computers – programmed by scientists – have already told us the technological fix to save our environment: Reduce GHG emissions to net negative levels, and keep them there until GHG levels fall below 350 ppm of CO2 equivalent. Computers – again programmed by scientists – have told us how to get there. We have alternatives for nearly every GHG-emitting activity we engage in. Some are hard to implement, and others are easy, but none are impossible. Intelligent computers have already solved the problem of global warming, but the humans in charge are not doing anything about it.
Under the Endangered Species Act, if saving a species is thought to cause too much economic damage, there is a provision to convene a “God Squad” to rule that the species can go extinct. Perhaps it is time know to convene the “God Squad” to determine if saving humanity will not cause undue economic impacts. If there is no business case to save the human race, at least we know we are breeding our successor species. Maybe we’ll even be able to download ourselves into post-biological bodies. Though even computers crack under too much heat.
350Now, perhaps you should take a look at this video, showing how the warming effect of carbon dioxide can be easily demonstrated, without a lot of fancy expensive equipment. I’m not sure about 8th grade, but most 10th graders would be able to easily reproduce this for a nice science fair project.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8394168.stm
nice if 15-20 years from now solar will be too cheap to meter (even though metering will also be too cheap to meter, so solar will have to be TC^2!), possibly crashing the market for dirty energy, but if dirty energy still has a market price to wreck at that point then the thermal inertia & ocean acidity will be a sight to see, and weep over.
I’d wager that Ray Kurzweil doesn’t subscribe to Thomas Aquinas’s humble assessment that “All the efforts of the human mind cannot exhaust the essence of a single fly.”
Zetetic #1: We have already empowered a number of mechanical overlords: they are called corporations. These overlords seem to have convinced us that our purpose in life is to strive for the luxury suites on the Titanic that they are busy piloting into the iceberg.
Fred Teale, Jr. #2: All the past technological “fixes” such as the Haber-Bosch process or Norman Borlaug’s Green Revolution have turned out to be patches on a Rube Golberg contraption, in retrospect. Yes, we have survived 200 years of our industrial civilization while applying such patches, but the long term damage, oceanic dead zones, depleted soils, etc., is self-evident to anyone who’s willing to look. This contraption is already beginning to fail catastrophically as we keep applying such patches.
Philip Y, #3: The internet is now the repository of knowledge acquired by humans, but having access to all that knowledge has not yet made humans wise. Even once, let alone twice.
350 Now #4: The true catastrophe is the Sixth Great Extinction event that is unfolding before our eyes on the planet. The ocean is dying, the forests are depleted, the vegetation is dying, the skies are becoming devoid of birds. And, our consumption has everything to do with it. Climate change is just a threat multiplier that will cause this Extinction event to go into overdrive. The message that we are literally consuming ourselves to extinction is a simple one to convey.
“So tell me, who are you rooting for to win? Watson — or Homo “sapiens”?”
I’ll be rooting for Samuel T. Cogley, Attorney at Law
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8QTPuz2bBs
…and for the ancestors who will create him — or someone like him.
(You all can stop watching after the teaser; that gets the point across.)
In the Jeopardy contest tonight, too, I’ll be rooting for H. sapiens. Because we need more of them with the abilities that let them win against jeopardy.
And the fossil fuel industry will no doubt sit back and let it happen. ?
I agree with llewelly’s (6) post. Watson is just another example of a machine doing something better than a human. All the AI hype I’m seeing regarding this Jeopardy challenge is “deja vu all over again”. We saw it leading up to the Deep Blue matches against World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov in 1996, and in 1997 went orbitally hyperbolic (to differentiate from the 1996 hyperbole) when Kasparov lost the return match in 1997.
In one of the games, Kasparov was sure that the move played couldn’t have been made by a computer as it exhibited too much long-term positional understanding. He accused IBM of using another Grandmaster to suggest moves. Now many programs, some freely available, find that move within seconds to minutes, depending on the computer on which they’re running.
IBM computer isn’t any more a step forward in AI than Deep Blue was a step forward in AI.
Why do people equate technology with energy? The two are not synonymous.
Yes I expect we will make rapid technological advances in the next 10 years but if the year 2021 rolls around and we are still pumping out GHG at the same rate or worse still higher then no gee whiz technology is going to save us.
I’ve always thought that the artificial intelligence mob were basically anti-human. The prospect of deliberately seeking to develop non-human intelligences vastly greater than the best of our own seems to me a recipe for certain disaster. Perhaps really high intelligence will bring really developed morality and compassion, but judging by our record, it may not. Particularly if these machine intelligences are shaped by human beings with a low opinion of humanity, they may be set on a course not to our benefit. I’m reminded of a remark of Marvin Minsky’s, which I have no idea whether was intended facetiously or literally, where he said that he thought that in the future these super-intelligent machines would keep humans as pets, in the same way we keep cats and dogs.
As for the techno-optimists who see nano-technology as a cure-all for environmental disaster, all I can say is that they had better get a move on. I see no techno-fixes but the crudest, like spreading aerosols in the upper atmosphere, anywhere in sight, and these crude methods are plainly incredibly reckless. And nano-tubes are already being implicated in disease processes that seem to closely mimic those that caused asbestos-related mesothelioma. I believe that it is precisely our infatuation with technology, our delusion that our science and intelligence put us outside the natural world, and above it (and I see the quest for artificial intelligence and the fusion between man and machine, the interface between human and super-human intelligence as the supreme manifestation of this ego delusion)that has made mankind so unmindful, so frankly contemptuous, of the natural world, with the hideous consequences that we see all around us today. Homo may once have been somewhat sapiens, but today he is everywhere Homo destructans, blindly, but willfully, destroying all that not so long ago cradled him and nurtured him. We are become matricides, killing our mother, the planet’s life-support systems, to feed our greed and ego.
“If Watson wins on Jeopardy! does that mean some intelligent life might survive global warming?”
———————
Sure, as long as cheap energy pays the electric bill.
I recall a Ray Kurzweil interview where he states that post-humankind, via computational technology, will asymptotically approach the Mind of God. This dovetails with those who argue on behalf of the Final Anthropic Principle: “Intelligent information-processing must come into existence in the Universe, and, once it comes into existence, will never die out.” In effect, there is Mind at the end-of-time retroactively observing everything into existence – thus explaining all the various cosmic coincidences cosmologists refer to. However, there is nothing in this point of view that necessarily implies that humans are the chosen ones that get to realize this “rapture of the nerds.” We could very well be selected-out due to a greenhouse extinction event because of our stupidity. The Mind at the end-of-time can at least soak in the drama of this tragicomedy and ponder how the storyline may have gone if only we….
“Yet nanotechnology will eliminate the need for fossil fuels within 20 years.”
Assuming those self reproducing, mechanical germs don’t go on a cancerous rampage on Earth, how exactly will they eliminate the need for fossil fuel?
Enough of the “humans will destroy themselves” bit. Global warming is real and awful, but humanity will survive. Maybe only a few million vs the nearly 7 billion alive now, but really, does anyone think those last few survivors will line up and file into the grave while letting the cockroaches live? heck no. They’ll eat the cockroaches. GHG won’t destroy the Earth. It will turn vast swaths of arable farmland to desert and flood coastal cities and even acidify the ocean causing massive extinction but humans are ingenious. Some will survive. The question is whether the survivors will forgive us. Humans won’t go extinct, but we can hope denialism does.
Villabolo #21-Soylent Grey.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/sciencenotfiction/2011/02/11/how-to-be-a-more-human-human/
i’ve been waiting for the cost barriers to forward-thinking policy to drop for my whole life. it seems like every time we get close, we spend the savings on cocaine & hookers.
mind you if EVERYONE got to attend that party, i might not be as upset.…
Joe, I’ll take “Michael E. Mann” for $2000 please.
@18 Mulga
Err, you do know that the Quaternary Extinction Event (in which most of the Pleistocene Megafauna- mammoths, mastodons, ground sloths, and so forth) is highly correlated with the spread of humans, right? And that this occurred at a point in time in which the most advanced technology humanity had was a flint hand axe?
This isn’t to say that you don’t make some valid points, but it doesn’t do any good to assume that somehow a non-technological, non-industrial, non-agricultural society will necessarily somehow be more sustainable and friendly to the environment- because historical, that’s rarely been the case.
@ Villabolo:
I suspect that Kurzweil is thinking of something along the lines of “growing” solar cells and energy scavenging devices on all of our building, cars, roads, etc. Plus he’s probably also thinking of altering the organic molecules in garbage/wast into fuel more effectively than we can now, better fuel cells, and better power storage.
While those things might technically be possible, Kurzweil is still obviously putting the cart before the horse. Not to mentioning that he’s avoiding the subject of the damage that will be done (and left to deal with later) in the meantime.
By 2045, humans will deposit their brains in machines, bring the dead back to life, and conquer the universe. Oh, and crack the meaning of life, of course. Singularity! (theweek.com) submitted 10 hours
http://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/fl5fj/by_2045_humans_will_deposit_their_brains_in/
In 2045 we will a) Sit in holes and mourn why we didn’t act in time, b) have the biggest growth in human history from action to combat climate change.
Human based intelligence competes with machine based smarts – when Watson acquires life-motives and instincts for self-preservation, then we can stand back (or we will be pushed out of the way)
“Open the pod bay door HAL.”
The only difference from this and the movie plot from 2001 is that we are not aiming for a goal of connecting with a higher intelligence.
Oh wait, winning at Jeopardy is the goal. How does one win a game named Jeopardy? If we put ourselves into real jeopardy, do we win?
Cancel the rocket to Jupiter, HAL. HAL !
if you go far enough along the high-tech timeline, every forest is a prize garden, every ocean an aquarium, and every kid grows up in augmented reality. these are trippy things that understandably mess with your empathy & sense of need for wild ecosystems.
@#21 Villabolo
Nanotechnology takes precautions to make sure nothing like the Grey Goo scenario would ever happen. Even if it did, it could be solved by Blue Goo nanotech destroyers. Nanotechnology could assemble super efficient fuels from the microscopic level and also remove CO2 from the air. In fact, some biotechnology is actually nanotechnology. Like Craig Venter’s synthetic cell. His algae based biofuels require genetic tweaking at the molecular level. That’s nanotechnology.
@#29 Prokaryotes
So basically an apocalyptic version of Ghost in the Shell?
Ziyu, uhm …. uh … does this mean i have to re-watch GitS? My comment was more about inaction in response to CC, saying that the futuristic prognostic discussed here, will be rendered irrelevant.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_in_the_Shell_%28film%29
Mom used to say, “Things have a way of working out.” I hope she’s right. If not, I wonder which will be the bigger challenge for the grandkids by mid-century–dealing with the big “S” or the big AGW?
Or, will we succeed in programming a love of nature into the smarter- than-all-humanity machines, such that they achieve an elegant solution?
What a thrilling time to be alive; almost like being IN a Bond movie!
Will a new technology allow me to be ‘around’ (if not ‘alive’) to ‘see’ how it all works out? I doubt it, but it sure would be interesting. We need to prepare for the worst, but hope for the best, I suppose…
spacermase#27, I’m certainly aware of the fact that humans can do a lot of damage even with sticks and stones. If we are to survive we must learn to live with nature, not at war with her. It’s a question of moral development. I don’t think future humanity need abjure technology, and we certainly cannot do without agriculture in some form. It’s just that we must learn from the near-death experience that we are about to endure as a species. I have faith that the decent fraction of humanity will grow morally and spiritually as they pass through the fire. The psychopathic fraction, aka The Right, I have grave fears over.
Of course the question of artificial companions or successors to humanity has been treated many times in science fiction. Perhaps the most utopian vision came from Isaac Asimov. One of his I, Robot stories has a Stephen Byerly running for U.S. president and winning. Rumors abound that Byerly is an android, but famed roboticist Susan Calvin manages to quash them. Byerly makes an excellent president, naturally. (I use the word “naturally” advisedly here.)
You’ll all be familiar with the dystopian tales of “Skynet” starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Terminator and its sequels. A direct ancestor, arguably, is Colossus: The Forbin Project in which advanced military computers in the U.S. and the USSR, controlling all strategic weapons, team up and take over the world. (Raymond F. Jones wrote a sequel, The Fall of Colossus: Martians come to Earth and defeat Colossus. Then they take over the world.)
He decides to go out in one of the extra-vehicular pods to make a closer inspection of the monolith. Programmed for just such an occurrence, the monolith reveals its true purpose as a star gate when it opens and pulls in Bowman’s pod. Before he vanishes, Mission control hears him proclaim: “The thing’s hollow—it goes on forever—and—oh my God—it’s full of stars!”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001:_A_Space_Odyssey_(novel)
Mark Glass #22: If we mess things up so much that the population of humans declines from 7 billion to a few million, or for that matter, a few hundred million, then I believe that all bets are off as to whether the population will stabilize at that level or decline all the way down to zero. The reason for my pessimism is the inevitable rise of cannibalism which rears its ugly head whenever food scarcity occurs in human society.
The only solution is to wake up before we mess things up so much.
Breakdown of Watson’s Performance on Jeopardy http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/flqi8/breakdown_of_watsons_performance_on_jeopardy/
Video Games – An Hour A Day Is Key To Success In Life: “The single biggest misconception about games is that they’re an escapist waste of time. But more than a decade’s worth of scientific research shows that gaming is actually one of the most productive ways we can spend time. ” http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/flsvl/video_games_an_hour_a_day_is_key_to_success_in/
It seems to me that Kurzweil’s fantasies of techno-immortality are more a reflection of his own fear of death and reaction to the loss of his father than the reality of technological progress. The singularity and myth of continuous, unlimited technological “progress” as salvation from existential doubt are little more than dopey science fiction intermingled with a bit of religious fervor and the promise of a secular salvation for agnostics. God, the Easter Bunny, and the Kurzweil’s “Singularity” are not coming to “save us”. In past civilizational collapses very many system-dependent technologies were lost (the aqueducts, for example…or from present day there the widespread switch from fuel oil to biomass for heating and energy) as industrial civilization collapses it is doubtful that high technologies dependent on complex, centralized systems will remain or be recalled in post-industrial culture as needful things. Global change pressures will drive the loss of most industry and technologies dependent on centralized systems well before 2045 – the predicted year of the great prophet Kurzweil. Besides, anti-civ and anti-technology memes seem to be among some of the fastest replicators in modern culture – probably due to the awareness that we and most lifeforms are collectively borked and only a very tiny rich minority of humans could afford the goofy techno-immortality promised by Kurzweil. It sure sounds like a good way for him to market his personal line of longevity pills though…
From his Feb 2009 Rolling Stone interview: “…(Kurzweil) has even developed his own line of nutritional supplements to extend peoples lives until the day when their existence can be endlessly preserved by technology. At 61, Kurzweil pops 15O of his own pills every day, determined to live long enough to see the day when, thanks to machines, he will never age. When Kurzweil speaks about his father, his words come slowly, and he talks of his loss in abstract terms. “Death represents the loss of knowledge and information,” he says, kneading his hands. ‘A person is a mind file. A person is a software program -a very profound one, and we have no backup. So when our hardware dies, our software dies with it.” Just after graduating from college, Kurzweil was looking for a way to bring his father back to life. I’ve made an issue of overcoming death,” he says. ‘And the strongest experience I ve had with death is as a tragedy.’”
Also from the RS interview: “Jaron Lanier, the virtual-reality pioneer, boils the problem down to seven words: ‘The Singularity won’t happen because software sucks.’”
“Will super-smart computers really save us?”
It’s so bizarre to me how we constantly fantasize that some high-tech fix might “save us” from issues caused by the consequences of irresponsible, unreflective technological development… are there still really scientists who can defend techno fixes to climate change (or any other global change issues) after the massive failures and shortsightedness of not only their own computer models, but most of the geoengineering schemes promoted just several years ago as feasible solutions? This is my fav: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16842-hungry-shrimp-eat-climate-change-experiment.html
Has anyone – scientists or environmentalists or whatever – bothered to calculate the effects of global biochar programs? I have seen some speculations from Hansen that biochar could drop atmospheric CO2 by 8ppm in a few decades but I believe that was based on pyrolysis of agricultural biomass from industrial sources only… there are about 2 billion people connected to the internet at present – what fraction of these could be convinced to offset their own emissions with biochar by using social networking sites such as 350, facebook, etc? no new technology needs to be developed for this, the possibly negative external effects are minute, it could be relatively easily halted, and it has a wide range of other benefits to soils and gardens. Its not a complete solution but it would be a big help…
“Has anyone – scientists or environmentalists or whatever – bothered to calculate the effects of global biochar programs?”
Yes.
James Lovelock on biochar: Let the Earth remove CO2 for us
It (Biosphere) currently removes 550bn tons a year, about 18 times more than we emit, but 99.9% of the carbon captured this way goes back to the air as CO2 when things are eaten. What we have to do is turn a portion of all the waste of agriculture into charcoal and bury it.
http://biochar.me/everything-biochar/2-james-lovelock-on-biochar-let-the-earth-remove-co2-for-us.html
In this paper we estimate the maximum sustainable technical potential of biochar to mitigate climate change. Annual net emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), methane and nitrous oxide could be reduced by a maximum of 1.8?Pg CO2-C equivalent (CO2-Ce) per year (12% of current anthropogenic CO2-Ce emissions; 1?Pg=1?Gt), and total net emissions over the course of a century by 130?Pg CO2-Ce, without endangering food security, habitat or soil conservation. Biochar has a larger climate-change mitigation potential than combustion of the same sustainably procured biomass for bioenergy, except when fertile soils are amended while coal is the fuel being offset.
http://biochar.me/science/4-sustainable-biochar-to-mitigate-global-climate-change.html
I doubt it will be bad enough to completely wipe out humans. Considering how advanced technology is and how mobile humans are I am sure some will survive. I think more the question is how miserable will life become and how many will it kill. I doubt humans will become extinct. In addition its more about risk mitigation here, as unless one has psychic powers there is no way of predicting the future with absolutely certainty.
@ Mickey:
I hope you’re right, but unless we get things under control I’m not as optimistic.
If the methane trapped in the permafrost (or the methane hydrates, shudder) gets released things can get real bad, real fast. Must of the land that becomes more suitable with warming temperatures will not be fertile enough for large scale agriculture. Between climate change making agriculture untenable, hunter-gathering after a collapse of civilization would also be risky with mass extinctions due to the abruptness of the changes.
Then there is the possibility of open warfare for resources. That’s not even getting into the nuclear/biological/chemical weapons that are ready to go if some people get desperate enough.
IMO unless AGW is brought under control any humanity that survives will likely be greatly reduced and may no longer have access to the advanced infrastructure needed to maintain advanced technology.
Sorry to be a downer…
“I think computer viruses should count as life. I think it says something about human nature that the only form of life we have created so far is purely destructive. We’ve created life in our own image.”, Stephen Hawking