As the world rushes heedlessly, breathlessly into the AI breach in search of AI dominance (for a sobering take watch this interview with former Google CEO Eric Schmidt), it becomes ever harder to justify to onesself any attempt to limit one's carbon consumption. The world de facto seems to have swallowed the argument that climate change is fake news and not worth thinking about. I mean, hell, Elon's gonna take us to Mars where it will be all better, right?
In fact, now more than ever I think we need to cultivate carbon mindfulness. None of us is perfect. I still eat a burger a week and other meat too, though mostly chicken. I haven't been able to adjust to setting my AC lower than 74 on a consistent basis (though I did just now put a note to get a ceiling fan installed in my study, which will help).
But it is not all over and it is not all bullshit. Glaciers are melting. Sea levels are rising. The life of people on the coasts is under threat (to the eventual benefit of those who own land inland, portending well for our acreage in Roxboro, though this is scarcely cause to celebrate). The game is not over, and it is not a game.
Someone much smarter than me told me over coffee a year or so back that the next financial crisis is on its way as it becomes ever more expensive to insure homes throughout the country due to extreme weather events. When that happens, banks can't issue mortgages. I've probably blogged about it before but don't have time to check right now. Ignoring facts because they "don't align with the priorities of this administration" does not change those facts. And I don't think anyone is going to create an AI that will outsmart Mother Nature.
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One thought that makes me feel worse in the short term and better in the long-term is that GenAI, so far anyway, sure feels like a racket. The scare stories may be right, or they may be a kind of nightmare-advertising that gains attention from imagination versus anything real.
GenAI raises money, but it doesn't make money. Even the best app around, the developer tools like GitHub CoPilot, loses money after expenses. VC money is burning; well, the money of investors into VCs is burning. A little cynicism and talk of bubbles is creeping into the discourse.
Maybe Schmidt is right and AI will take over the world.
Or maybe the AI bubble will pop, and--who knows?--explode crypto with it. Mother Earth can only hope...
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