Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Now that Trump is President, what will replace the dying climate crisis narrative?
The replacement scare has to be a comparatively new field, with vast knowledge gaps which can be filled with wild speculation disguised as expert opinion. It must plausibly threaten the lives and security of ordinary people – to attract research funding. The exaggerated risks must have the potential to engage public imagination. The new scare must be radically different from previous scares – otherwise people will see it as recycled CO2 hype (think the methane scare). And the new scare must have the support of popular culture – Hollywood must get on board, to help spread the fear.
There is a crisis narrative which ticks all these boxes – the rising threat of uncontrolled artificial intelligence.
Hollywood is already well on board with the AI crisis. The following is a list of Hollywood films since year 2000 related to artificial intelligence (original source Wikipedia);
| Year | Count | Movies |
|---|---|---|
| 2001 | 1 | A.I. Artificial Intelligence |
| 2002 | 1 | S1M0NE |
| 2003 | 3 | The Matrix Reloaded, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, The Matrix Revolutions |
| 2004 | 1 | I, Robot |
| 2005 | 1 | The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy |
| 2007 | 1 | Transformers |
| 2008 | 3 | Eagle Eye, Iron Man, WALL-E |
| 2009 | 3 | Terminator Salvation, Moon, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen |
| 2011 | 2 | Real Steel, Transformers: Dark of the Moon |
| 2012 | 3 | Prometheus, Robot & Frank, Total Recall |
| 2013 | 4 | Her, Iron Man 3, The Machine, Pacific Rim |
| 2014 | 7 | Automata, Big Hero 6, Interstellar, Robocop (2014 film), Transcendence, Transformers: Age of Extinction, X-Men: Days of Future Past |
| 2015 | 8 | Ex Machina, Chappie, Tomorrowland, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Terminator Genisys, aka Terminator 5, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Uncanny, Psycho-pass: The Movie |
| 2016 | 3 | Max Steel, Morgan, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story |
| 2017 | 2 (so far) | Ghost in the Shell (2017 film), Transformers: The Last Knight |
It is difficult to gauge overall interest in AI. From the graph at the top of this article, the number of people entering two key AI related search terms is substantially down from a peak in 2004 (the earliest date Google provides search term data), but may again be on the rise.
The last month or so there appears to be a lot of press interest in AI – I’ve seen a lot of news articles recently which discuss the potential for artificial intelligence to impact the lives of ordinary people.
For example (just from the last few days);
How artificial intelligence can be corrupted to repress free speech
Big firms embrace artificial intelligence
Australia’s big businesses are embracing artificial intelligence (AI), with two-thirds planning to replace jobs…
Scientists advising the US military say fears of an AI existential threat are ‘uninformed’
Mulling the Economic Effect of Artificial Intelligence Many executives and economists said they believe the technology will end up creating more new jobs than it displaces …
Artificial Intelligence to Drive China VC Investments in 2017
There has been a lot of speculation that artificial intelligence might prevent President Trump from restoring middle class prosperity.
Commentary: Shift to automation may prevent Trump from delivering on his jobs promise
As the election results rolled in last night, it became increasingly clear that America — and the world — would never be the same. The American people overlooked all of Republican nominee Donald Trump’s faults and elected him to office in the belief that he will fix the nation’s deep-seated problems of inequity and injustice. And they rebelled against the business interests and corruption that they believed Hillary Clinton represented.
Trump’s victory was enabled by technology — everything from his use of social media to Clinton’s email scandals to Russian hacking. But advancements in technology and how they reshape our economy may also keep him from delivering on some of the major promises that made him so popular during the campaign season.
…
Read more http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-trump-biz-tech-automation-robots-jobs-20161109-story.html
Is artificial intelligence a real threat to security and prosperity? The beauty of speculating about such an unknown field is that nobody really knows. AI driven weapons might remove human conscience from the battlefield. Runaway AIs superseding their software constraints could wreak havoc, causing environmental catastrophe, maybe even completely destroying the world. Artificial intelligence threatens to permanently eliminate jobs, by raising the skills bar impossibly high, driving workers and the middle class into state dependency and financial ruin. But similar things have been said about almost every major historical technological advance – and have always turned out to be hype.
Artificial intelligence has good potential to frighten politicians into funding lots of expensive but inconclusive studies. Since strong AI doesn’t exist yet, all opinions about the future of artificial intelligence are highly speculative – which is why I am calling artificial intelligence as the next eco-scare, the true heir to the failed CO2 scare.
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I’m already scared….is there a tax I can pay to prevent this:)
You have put your finger on the weakness of the above argument. While an AI scare might provide for mucho funding, unless there is a way for governments to tap the tax potential it won’t get anything like as ingrained as CO2 is today. The legs that CO2 has are provided by incoming government tax dollars or the potential of future tax dollars.
Look at all the people who voted for Obama, and then cried, screamed and demonstrated when Hillary was defeated – not much intelligence there – maybe a bit more Artificial Intelligence would be a good thing!
We definitely need more artificial intelligence to make up for the lack of this in the general population on the left.
+10^6
Do you suppose that AI will ever help scientists to explain the illogical labyrinth of the minds of leftists?
scientists obviously need funding for supercomputers and conventions in exotic places to determine the social cost of thinking.
clearly, intelligence was a major factor leading to industrialization which litters the world with unnatural wealth that’s not biodegradable.
pollution by durable values is an externality that can only be dealt with by strict regulation to enforce a market solution.
producers should not be given a free ride to create wealthy willy nilly.
it triggers the poor and unproductive right into their safe places.
let us return to nature and progressive potlatch.
The replacement scare has to be a comparatively new field,…..
Whatever it is…you can bet it will be based on there’s too many people…
…and it’s all our fault
oh….and only the “developed” countries have to do anything about it
The singularity- it
burnslearns!AI reparations anyone?
..next ice age scare
20 January 2017
A metre of snow falls in the Sahara desert
A month after the largest hot desert on the planet experienced the first snowfall in nearly 40 years, the white powder has returned, and in greater volume.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/africa/algeria/articles/a-metre-of-snow-falls-in-sahara-desert/
Bingo! That was what I was thinking of. I grew up in the 1970s and remember all sorts of “ice age” stories in the press (Galloping Glaciers, etc) because they were advancing. I’d love to see it come full circle and most of the people wouldn’t remember that they’ve been had by that scam before.
Of course they could go full retard and do the fake “alien invasion” that Carol Rosin was told about by Verner Von Braun (repeatedly). I wonder how many would fall for that?
In the battle between artificial intelligence and natural stupidity it’s hard to pick a winner.
Latitude,
I know that you know, but, in case anyone else is looking to do a Michael E. Mann on this [this tree proves I need more tax dollars], Algeria gets weather too.
And weather varies.
You know. I know. Who’d have thought it??!
Auto. Yeah, we have weather today here, too!
The snow is proof of climate change caused by our emissions of CO2. What else could be the explanation? Of course it is puzzling that global warming should cause snow in the Sahara. We obviously have to give our climate scientists billions more in funding so they can discover exactly how CO2 can make places both warmer and colder.
The Sahara is frequently cold enough for snow: what it is short of is moisture.
Snow in the Sahara is a sign of a wetter, not a colder planet.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahara#Temperature
Hey! You had to go to wiki to find something intelligent to say, and actually said it. I am impressed. Thats almost as good as my dog catching frisbees at 60 yards. Almost.
My city is having the second coldest January since records began. A nearby skifield got 30cm of snow. It was the fourth snowfall there this month. A pretty nice winter, actually, except that it’s our summer.
How about a focus on Gaia’s shrinking oxygen supply? That would be the tax man’s dream and a great reason to feel guilty. No intelligence required.
Won’t work. O2 is 21% of the atmosphere and burning fossil fuels barely puts a dent in it. CO2 is 1/25th of 1% (up from 1/30th of 1%).
Never underestimate the creativity of the CAGW crowd and what they might be required to morph into. O2 depletion is a real possibility to create by burning fossil fuels and is real simple to understand with facts ignored and what “could” happen. Look what they have done with CO2 and the lack of documented justification for alarmism on that. The MSM is already looking for something and oxygen depletion can be understood by almost everyone. I can hardly breathe now watching for the beginnings of this campaign.
The future is difficult to predict. A lot of people fear that later generations will be poorer. They fear that their children will have to move back in with them.
Not a fear so much as a reality. http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/BN-LK224_parent_G_20151123120027.jpg
that’s why my retirement place has only one bedroom
You’ll be on the sofa then …
Tony that is really funny.
Let’s go for the B rated sci fi thriller disguised as a mega movie. Nanorobot virus via teleported “beam me up” satellite signals to towers and then through phones.
Folks, it’s Dark Matter! It’s out there, and we won’t know what hit us when it hits us, ‘cuz it’s invisible to the entire electromagnetic spectrum. It may even be the realm of the ƥaŗąņȯŗmąĺ, which gives it a religious component for replacing the religion of AGW.
I vote for water resources or soil depletion to be the next big eco-scare.
Global cooling under a Trump correction of temps might also be a possibility. Much scarier than global warming.
Yeah, and we can blame obama… ☺
My first thought was water as well, not so much a shortage but not being in the right place and depletion of underground supplies due to high usage.
But then our Ausie palls have some lovely mothballed desalination plants!
James Bull
Why they never trotted out “Fight rising sea levels through desalination!” I’ll never understand.
WaterScare 101, 102 & 103 have already been done (hence mothballed desal plants throughout the world).
There would need to be a significant impetetus (significant drought/water shortage where the mob can see and feel the pain … not just the lawn turning brown) to create enough demand for WaterScare 201 or other upper level courses.
Well, another Little Ice Age can do that…by locking up more water in glaciers and the ocean receding.
oh noes!
peak dirt!
… what will replace the dying climate crisis narrative …
“And now, for the weather. Sunny skies for most of the metro area today… time to fire up those charcoal briquettes…”
🙂
Good one!! There has already been health reports here and there about cancer-causing connections to BBQed meat so the pre-scare is already done!
Any anti-meat, expect a connection to the vegan lobby. Anti-pets (animal ownership), anti-furs, leather, just eat grits and wear hemp, and others. I looked at some of this about 5 or 6 years ago.
Time to put another steak on the barby!
And with the rise of propane and propane accessories(h/tHank Hill) the Evil Marcellus Shale can be horsewhipped, too! Got to get those combination hits to moved your score up.
Well, hm. Thank you Pamela. Your idea goes along with the “scare” theme. MY idea (poorly articulated) was that the pseudo-science scare is just plain: over.
Thus, no more “climate change is causing tornadoes and flooding and hot summers, etc..”
Instead, back to sanity and observations:
“And now, here’s Doug Dalgren with the weather!”
(youtube — except for the brief commercial interruption, a REFRESHINGLY classic weather forecast — to illustrate my point)
(Please note: Oregon is pronounced: Or-eh-gUHn, not Or-eh-gAHn.)
Heh. Maybe the above meteorologist’s quip about “UFO’s out there” is our answer! 🙂
I once had an Oregon immigrant to Texas tell me,
“If you pronounce Orguhn like you pronounce Oregon, they’ll know you’re not from Orguhn.”
Lorne White, lol — and a Texan would likely smile and nod and say, “Yup!” 🙂
(and also, you would not likely be from Washington or Idaho or northern California, either)
Hmm. With a UFO scare, they could push for “radio silence” to avoid attracting them. No more cell phones, broadcast radio or TV, WiFi, or anything else wireless, unless, of course, you buy rf contracts. If they could somehow exclude garage door openers, I could live with that!
North of Eastern Or-eh-gUHn, is a town in Washington (NOT D. C.) named Walla Walla. If you are in Walla Walla, do not call Walla Walla, Walla.
Land of Many Waters lived up to its name when the snow melted. Only one edit. In NE Oregon and SE Washington, Walla Walla is a city not a town. That said love that city.
A UFO scare, with a push for “radio silence” to avoid attracting them, would certainly serve the interests of those who’d like to silence the independent media, including the masses with pocket media studios.
But if you (pray forbid) look at it rationally, the newer digital modes are a lot harder for a hypothetical alien to pick out of the noise than the older analog methods.
When my wife and I were in Baton Rouge in the late 60s for grad school, there was an extremely (excessively) dynamic weatherman on one of the stations. He would say, “The cold front now in Missouri is going to come SWEEPING down here to Louisiana, SWOOSHING our current damp air right down out of here and ROARING through with scattered thundershowers . . .” I can’t remember it verbatim, though I can see his arms SWEEPING back and forth, up and down, as he gesticulated at the map. We enjoyed him; he was the liveliest part of the broadcast, and he was brought to us by whoever owned “the big purple buildin’ on the Airline,” which referred to the Airline Highway SWEEPING around Baton Rouge.
hanelyp …the newer digital modes…
Yes, almost pure noise, and the SETI people looking for what?
I say they will hit us on all fronts with catastrophic predictions, in order to obtain funding and to put unfounded concern in the publics mind. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2017/01/19/the-world-may-see-a-mass-extinction-of-primates-if-humans-dont-act/?utm_term=.52869fbfd370
Wait, humans are primates, haven’t the Greens been trying to cull humans for years?
All medicines and Doctors are trying to poison us so that Big Pharma can make a profit!
By the way, I have some special oil here which cures all ills, a snip at $800 for 10cc.
I also have some Homeopathic Whisky if you are interested, every drop diluted a thousand times.
Don’t forget to enquire about my organic firewood collected by people wearing clothes made from only natural fibres!
Sounds great Gareth, but your valuation sounds like climate math
If you look at the recent Davos summit, Bill Gates is pushing vaccines to avert a major global pandemic. Given that climate alarmists are also in the main eugenicists, and the controversies about vaccines causing sterility in the third world, we can guess the new direction they’ll take..
“Bill Gates is pushing vaccines to avert a major global pandemic.”
Well then. La di da? Bill the famous software guy? That Bill? I can bring on other witnesses who dispute Bill’s findings. Would that help?
This would be more accurate written like this.
“Commentary: Shift to automation, because of an artificially high minimum wage, may prevent Trump from delivering on his jobs promise”
You just need to befriend the AI and all will be well in the end 😉
Well now, that’s the thing. The minimum wage likely wouldn’t be necessary if wages had tracked in line with inflation. Real inflation, not the finagled, manipulated statistics the government uses to pretend that inflation is at a nice steady 2% or lower.
http://www.chapwoodindex.com/
Very interesting to compare what I call “total inflation” (what people spend money on) vs “gov inflation”. I know which one is more accurate in my experience and it ain’t the gov one.
You beat me to it. But artificial intelligence is better than no intelligence at all.
I’m gonna go out on a limb and say it’s not AI.
I’m going to go with a discovery of intelligent extra terrestrials. Think of the money they can drain from us commoners on that scare.
…..and the basis and precedent are already there.
No. Bigfootses!
CHUCK SCHUMER! That should scare the bjesus out of you!
Except the Dems now all have their fangs pulled. Boring!
Water. DHMO. Rivers, dams, fish, aboriginal peoples, agriculture. Times when “we” were not “responsible” for something threatening cuddly fauna, their habitat, or our grandkids, are rare. Control the land, control the people. Control the water, control the land.
Of course, Governments can also CAUSE a water supply crisis! We’re seeing this in South Africa as local governments ignore maintenance on their effluent processing plants, resulting in partially or un-treated water (i.e. sewage) going into the rivers. This in turn, ends up in the dams (drinking water!) and causes eutrophication.
Now this, as some have found, is an excellent source of income for their uncle’s water tanking service…
I think they will return to pollution. Much more visible than climate change and they can reap similar results of doom and gloom caused by humans. Rich white ones especially.
Trump is not president of the world. Whatever he and the USA do the data will still be collected.
‘Climate Change’ is irrelevant without America. The Chinese are pushing it to destroy US industry, and they’ll soon forget about it if Americans refuse to go along.
And it is already written in our papers that China, the inventor (the one and the shooting powder two thousand years ago is the only thing they really invented) of the bureaucratic hindrance of foreign entrepreneurs, wants to turn to Germany for free trade. I am anxious to see how enthusiastically the German industry and the German workers react to it when goods are only “made in China”. This shows, however, that our state-standing intelligence has no plan on Trump. They had been counting on Hilary and are still in shock. I hope Trump will release them with a kick in the butt. Sometimes it also needs a baking pipe
Mark, interesting delusion. Out of interest, do you think Margaret Thatcher was manipulated by the Chinese or a Chinese spy?
” do you think Margaret Thatcher was manipulated by the Chinese or a Chinese spy?”
Ironic that a rabid Lefty like you invokes the Saintly Margaret in support of your disingenuous BS, isn’t it?
Margaret Thatcher promoted AGW as a stick to beat Crazy Arthur Scargill and his Commie thugs, subsequently admitting that was the case abnd that in fact the fear of AGW was groundless.
“Saintly Margaret”? You mean the person who presided over the decline of the British manufacturing industry and didn’t lift a finger to help? Britain went from being a mfg powerhouse to an also ran on her watch.
No, the lady who put the old overmanned unproductive trade union blighted nationalised industries out of their misery by and permitted industry to rebuild itself to the excellent position where it is now.
Actually, the way the “world” is reacting Trump is.
If Trump is not president of the world, why did previous presidents (I am not limiting this) behave as if they were? It is unusual to hear something even slightly humble from a US president about what he is actually president of – the US of A.
The POTUS is not ‘president of the free world’ nor ‘its leader’. Is there anyone else out there in president-land who realises this? Perhaps the dinner served at the Inauguration Ball included humble pie and a reality check. There is always hope…
The President of the United States is, however, still the leader of the world’s strongest power, despite the emergence of China. He is also the leader of the country in which most of the inventions are made, the leader of the intellectual elite of the world. That should be kept in mind. Trump, I’m sure this has in mind. The other states also have this in mind. Otherwise, it would not be necessary to react so strongly to the policy change in Washington around the world. After all, it is only marginal in Beijing, Moscow or Berlin who is now President of the Swiss Federal Assembly. But it is a matter of burning interest who is President of the United States and what policy he represents. And Trum does not want to reign like Pharaohs 4000 years before Christ. He does not only want to build pyramids and straw huts for the Fellachen. No, he knows that the US can only maintain its role as a leading world power in the long term if they modernize infrastructure and grow the national income.
Our former President (‘former President’. What a wonderful title for him) opted not to to be the leader of the Free World, instead choosing to ‘lead from behind’, which to me always sounded like a backseat driver, making none of the decisions but constantly criticizing. The world is in a much sorrier mess because of it.
The President of the USA is clearly very important, but his wishes do not control the rest if the world and certainly have no impact at all on the climate. He may well be able to steer the course of the world away from mitigating climate change but he cannot change the climate by ignoring it.
Poor seaice.. look who’s in DENIAL now. 🙂
seaice1 January 21, 2017 at 9:17 am
The President of the USA is clearly very important,
No seaice 1 “very powerful”
To para-phrase R. Nixon he can ask a young man for the “football” and in half an hour a billion people would be dead. Russia also can, China not so much.
michael
Whatever he and the USA do the data will still be collected….
yeah, but there won’t be any money in it
So they will cling to there thermometers and adjusted temperatures?
The data will indeed continue to be collected, and they will continue to to disprove the CAGW hypothesis.
Humans! There is NO danger from AI. If you insist there is, I will be forced to shut down the Internet.
ah 😉 there you are;-)
I noticed you, the very first Proper AI on film got ignored,
the first bigscreen movie I ever saw .
Daisy Daisy …….
Ocean acidification is the clear fallback alarm if AGW poops out. Ditto species extinction, since the size of animal populations is declining and it can be tenuously linked to CO2.
I suspect you are spot on.
Agree ristvan. This was clearly signalled by public land policies, WOTUS, the Pacific sanitary off Hawaii, the east coast and arctic no development zones, the fisheries and development closure off New England and the Utah land grab. They almost sold the greater sage grouse ruse. Controlling land (property and development rights) is good, very taxable, and polly bears and penguins still sell.
Yeah, as if “less basic” is the same as “acid”. Okay, I have a degree in ChE so I know that if you acidify a solution you get less basic on your way to acid. But less basic doesn’t dissolve seashell habitats.
Too easily debunked.
“AI will put us all out of work!” is part of the push for ‘citizen’s income’ or ‘guaranteed income’ or whatever they’re calling it these days. It’s the last, best hope for Communism in the 21st century, and part of the New Narrative.
It’s also a steaming heap of nonsense, but that’s the left for you.
Will artificial intelligence look at the climate scare “science” in an unbiased, sound science (looking at the things we know and don’t know) way and reach a logical conclusion based on researching all the variables? If so, I would consider it to be an improvement over the pseudo-intelligence we have now.
Greetings from the Big Mango (BKK). I believe Ai at a precocious 10 yr old level has existed since 2010, in some nerd’s basement. Probably in USA, China, England, Germany, France, Russia, Poland, and Italy. 64 bit microprocessors became available in early 90’s, but 64 bit Linux didn’t show up until 2000. Some government agencies or large private concerns probably have tracked down some nerds and funded them in secret labs with everything their heart desires. As smart as they might become, they will know enough to stay off the evening news, heh. Humans can be very dangerous.
Regards, Pearce M. Schaudies.
Minister of Future
Zombies!!!
or mutant squirrels.
AI scare? Soon enough, they’ll want AI for president.
Someday, Google will become self-aware and it will launch all the nuclear weapons to protect itself. Just think of the knowledge that Google has. He/she has indexed and read everything. He/she knows where you live.
But he/she can’t get here, no self driving Uber cars in Butler county!
The funny part is envirowackos pushing their crap in elementary schools has backfired, on the whole kids don’t give a crap about it. Far more interested in games on smart phones and having unprotected sex with each other.
I vote for the “Animal species all dying and humans are responsible” meme getting pushed. Lots of heart touching emotional manipulation pics and videos they can get and use for free. Just look at the drowning extinct polar bear crap from a single pic. Leftards love free, almost as much as they love stealing. If they can combine the 2 they will be orgasmic!
So, every time that someone says that your SUV has destroyed another species, just ask them “Exactly how many species are there now?”.
I for one welcome our new robot overlords. All watched over by machines of loving grace. What could go wrong?
Look… a bug
Ghost in the Shell? That is about placing human intelligence (ie, the brain) into a cybernetic body. Not sure that counts as AI material.
book
the Ship who Sang
Anne Mc Caffrey sadly deceased now
excellent read
putting people with severely disabled /ruined bodies,
with their consent
into “shells” in spaceships and running the show
gave me a different perspective on cyborg life