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.
This dragon ain’t quite been slayed yet, gotta focus.
I’m sorry, did someone actually invent an intelligent machine while I was away? As opposed to the marginally clever scripts that promoters and press keep calling “AI?”
Your comment does not compute. My responses are limited. Please rephrase your question or I’ll sic VIKI on you.
It will need a hockey stick. No scare story is complete without one.
Don’t worry it has one, or would do if the authors of the graphs on the page below wanted to be dramatic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity
I have a better candidate than AI: iron-ore mining. The hypothesis will be that all the iron-ore mining going on in the world is upsetting the planet’s magnetic field. Mann could invent a new hockey stick to ‘prove’ it, showing how recent mining has skyrocketed, while a new UN body modelled on the IPCC and suitably titled “IPIM” (Intergovernmental Panel on Iron Mining’) would encourage research grants to be issued to compliant scientists who would craft a host of ad-hoc computer models tailored specifically to support Mann’s new hockey stick graph that would then appear in the IPIM’s yearly reports. A closed loop of alarmist support. The mainstream media would of course lap it up and speculate when the new ‘tipping point’ will be: the imminent reversal of the Earth’s magnetic field. Anyone who scoffs will be labelled “denier” like before. It’s perfect. A mirror image of the previous AGW hobgoblin which would attract all the same washed-up celebrities from Hollywood who would ignore their own advice while insisting everyone else should follow it. The science would be “settled” again. Even the Pope could get on board and implore Western governments to halt all mining. We would have to break our ‘iron habit’.
Intergovernmental Panel on Iron Mining Processes.
IPIMP
We just need to keep the world as simple as possible. Instead we paint the world in simplicity which we generalize. Then we wonder where all the complexity comes from. Our solution for an ever more complex world? Artificial intelligence! To solve the problems we created by confusing the simple with simplification.
No there will be no worries, just as the computers are about to rise, the power supply going out of phase due to too many renewables will crash the system.
Even super intelligence will not be able to make high penetration renewables work.
Leonard Lane
January 21, 2017 at 4:35 pm
Do you suppose that AI will ever help scientists to explain the illogical labyrinth of the minds of leftists?
It is not hard to explain. They are adapted to a different ecology:
Something I wrote on the subject: https://www.spartareport.com/2017/01/coming-out-for-war/
Victor Davis Hanson:
https://www.city-journal.org/html/trump-and-american-divide-14944.html
“https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/10/26/methane-madness-the-battle-for-our-grasslands-and-livestock/
– für ruhige Stunden”
sent this to
– spiegel online
– http://www.ard.de/home/ard/ARD_Startseite/21920/index.html
+
– https://www.google.at/search?client=ms-android-samsung&ei=kiSGWNLJJ8aMsgGOhIqYDw&q=www.dlf+radio+&oq=www.dlf+radio+&gs_l=mobile-gws-serp.3
Johann Wundersamer on January 23, 2017 at 7:46 am
“https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/10/26/methane-madness-the-battle-for-our-grasslands-and-livestock/”
– für ruhige Stunden
sent this to
– spiegel online
– http://www.ard.de/home/ard/ARD_Startseite/21920/index.html
+
– https://www.google.at/search?client=ms-android-samsung&ei=kiSGWNLJJ8aMsgGOhIqYDw&q=www.dlf+radio+&oq=www.dlf+radio+&gs_l=mobile-gws-serp.3
The next Inquisitory investigations already running in germany, Austria, in fact the whole EU:
https://www.google.at/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://www.deutschlandfunk.de/&ved=0ahUKEwiZmMnh3djRAhVGFCwKHaVMAYcQFggdMAA&usg=AFQjCNH8ZnsSlHhj6ZcCVGn7OqRXJLfcsA
– spiegel online
+
http://www.ard.de/home/ard/ARD_Startseite/21920/index.html
+
– https://www.google.at/search?client=ms-android-samsung&ei=kiSGWNLJJ8aMsgGOhIqYDw&q=www.dlf+radio+&oq=www.dlf+radio+&gs_l=mobile-gws-serp.3
Governments, Universities and green groups could make a tonne of money with “water as a human right,” as the next eco-crisis.
Just think of the opportunity. It ties to climate change. “Lakes are shrinking, aquifers are drying up, water is life, no fracking….”
License to print money.
“Eco-Scare” is in reference to Ecological or Environmental, so I would not put AI in that category, but the scare has been forecasted and played in Hollywood for years. However for Hollywood I would go back to Star Trek series in 1960s for the origins of the Borg. (However for me the true pseudo-Borg has always been growing government as opposed to smart machines or AI variants as scare.) 2001: A Space Odyssey in 1968 early would also be in list for AI scare with AI computer HAL,quotes omitted
HAL: Dave, although you took very thorough precautions in the pod against my hearing you, I could see your lips move.
HAL: Without your space helmet, Dave? You’re going to find that rather difficult.
HAL: I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
HAL: It can only be attributable to human error.
HAL: I know I’ve made some very poor decisions recently, but I can give you my complete assurance that my work will be back to normal. I’ve still got the greatest enthusiasm and confidence in the mission. And I want to help you.
HAL: Let me put it this way, Mr. Amor. The 9000 series is the most reliable computer ever made. No 9000 computer has ever made a mistake or distorted information. We are all, by any practical definition of the words, foolproof and incapable of error.
As for true “Eco-Scare” we could have “global warming” which morphed into “climate change” morph back to “ice age” scare in 1970s, but will take a decade, but see news media trying to get next catastrophe story with low sunspot cycle 24 and 25 after the prior high peaks plus the magnetosphere/cosmic radiation clouds story, which is perfectly logical and has data support considering ice cores and isotopes data and correlation for cloud cover and temperature anomalies which beats latent CO2 hands down anyone can see on a graph.
However, my first bet for next “Eco-Scare” is CME or coronal mass ejection or Carrington event like 1859. You can do math for probabilities, but scientific estimates will vary from high to low probabilities, and mass media will seize on high probability as good for some scary by-line to get a read. Now, then a necessary thing is how people can make money off it besides journalists (or fake news people). well there is a bit of preparedness for a CME which could be sold to governments inasmuch as preparedness for a nuclear strike like transformer back-ups and for cities to be prepared for crisis, what happens if all satellites out, etc., maybe consumers on the catastrophic soon to be wiped out electrical grid too, Scare hype would start more at populations nearer poles. AI does not have that money maker attribute to sell to governments and consumers.
An interview with John Holdren, Obama’s Science Czar, could lend light on subject for future, but any fiction scare like Hollywood is good as real science to get blind thinking without looking smart/logical followers to give up livelihood to the Borg for the “better” good in their minds as opposed to reality and science.
I am so glad DT admin will end all this wasteful gov spending on pure propaganda about nonsense climate change blamed on CO2 which is either beneficial or benign.
Yesterday while having lunch, a group of liberals sitting near me got discussing global warming for 1/4 hour or so (nothing unusual about that) its when they started talking about artificial intelligence that made me smile since I had just read this article.
In my own opinion A.I. would still not make the gravy flow like A.G.W.
Candidates for the next fear are the believes that your country is under siege. This may be concern mass immigration, contagious deceases, agressive neighbour countries or resource depletion. Scare people and they do want you want.