Starmer's vision quest

[C R]

AI is going to more than cancel out any green positive gains.
That just means that we need even more green energy, and water maintenance, and absorb the costs. For what?

How else would our betters buy their second yacht?

 

[briantrumpet]

To be fair, the article also highlights the role previous Tory govts played in setting up infrastructure. It also shows how canny a political operator Ed Miliband actually is (in spite of media representations of him).

It also contains a great quote on clean energy vs fossil fuels “Sunlight has to travel 93 million miles to reach the Earth, but none of those miles go through the Strait of Hormuz”.

I think Miliband is probably good at getting stuff done in a field he cares about, with his experience of politics at the coal face, even if he doesn't have what it takes to be PM.

 

[Pblakeney]

For what? Without it, we don't have a sustainable planet in about 60-80 years time in all likelihood. I am not so sure about AI, it is a bubble, whereas clean energy is underpinned by sound economic and environmental data.

Have you read the full article PB? If not, give it a read, it really does provide a pretty comprehensive picture of what action now can do for global and local benefit to us all.

The "For what?" was referring to AI.
In this new Industrial Revolution there will be more unemployed, more benefits, more taxes, more resources used etc, etc, etc.

 

[briantrumpet]

The "For what?" was referring to AI.
In this new Industrial Revolution there will be more unemployed, more benefits, more taxes, more resources used etc, etc, etc.

 

[Pblakeney]

View attachment 15499

Yup! You can also add on Luddite.

 

[Ian H]

To the bit I put in bold, who said they did. I was using it to show that higher taxes don't necessarily put people off living somewhere. In fact some of the countries with the highest taxes are also some of the countries where people are the happiest.

For that to work, the 'happiness' has to be widely shared and registered by enough people, and the financial cost perceived to be sustainable to the electorate.

I wonder if there's any correlation between high taxes and greater equality, or low taxes and greater inequality?

 

[midlandsgrimpeur]

The "For what?" was referring to AI.
In this new Industrial Revolution there will be more unemployed, more benefits, more taxes, more resources used etc, etc, etc.

Are you talking about AI again here?

That's why you should read the article.

"Some of the figures are truly mind-blowing. Global investment in the clean energy transition rose eight per cent last year to a record $2.3 trillion, while fossil fuel supply investment fell for the first time since the pandemic. New wind and solar installations jumped 17% to over 800GW, making the two technologies the “fastest-growing sources of electricity generation in history”, according to think tank Ember. Fossil fuel power generation has now peaked in every OECD country. The International Energy Agency (IEA) predicts the global market for key clean energy technologies, such as solar panels, heat pumps, and electric vehicles (EVs), is set to grow from nearly $1.2 trillion today to around $2 trillion by 2035, surpassing the size of the global oil market. In terms of both its scale and its impact, the surge in demand for clean technologies is easily the equal of the AI boom, and yet it gets a fraction of the attention"

Obviously it is by no means a guarantee, but clean energy has the potential to match AI. As AI is a bubble (a very worrying one if it bursts!), and clean energy is a much more deeply embedded shift in how we inhabit our world, it has far greater possibilities to outlast AI and curb some of the possible damage it may do.

 

[Psamathe]

That just means that we need even more green energy, and water maintenance, and absorb the costs. For what?

For what?" Crucial needs of society like creating pics of Starmer in a bikini or for creating hypothetical non-existent scientific research just to throw off those doing useful research, etc. Apparently very important to us all despite the cost to us in terms of £, $, climate damage, environmental destruction, etc.

 

[Pblakeney]

Are you talking about AI again here?

That's why you should read the article.

"Some of the figures are truly mind-blowing. Global investment in the clean energy transition rose eight per cent last year to a record $2.3 trillion, while fossil fuel supply investment fell for the first time since the pandemic. New wind and solar installations jumped 17% to over 800GW, making the two technologies the “fastest-growing sources of electricity generation in history”, according to think tank Ember. Fossil fuel power generation has now peaked in every OECD country. The International Energy Agency (IEA) predicts the global market for key clean energy technologies, such as solar panels, heat pumps, and electric vehicles (EVs), is set to grow from nearly $1.2 trillion today to around $2 trillion by 2035, surpassing the size of the global oil market. In terms of both its scale and its impact, the surge in demand for clean technologies is easily the equal of the AI boom, and yet it gets a fraction of the attention"

Obviously it is by no means a guarantee, but clean energy has the potential to match AI. As AI is a bubble (a very worrying one if it bursts!), and clean energy is a much more deeply embedded shift in how we inhabit our world, it has far greater possibilities to outlast AI and curb some of the possible damage it may do.

Yes, I am referring to AI. I thought that I had made that perfectly clear in my follow up post.
For the record, I agree with you. Except for AI being a bubble. The financial bubble will burst but AI is here to stay.

 

[briantrumpet]

Are you talking about AI again here?

That's why you should read the article.

"Some of the figures are truly mind-blowing. Global investment in the clean energy transition rose eight per cent last year to a record $2.3 trillion, while fossil fuel supply investment fell for the first time since the pandemic. New wind and solar installations jumped 17% to over 800GW, making the two technologies the “fastest-growing sources of electricity generation in history”, according to think tank Ember. Fossil fuel power generation has now peaked in every OECD country. The International Energy Agency (IEA) predicts the global market for key clean energy technologies, such as solar panels, heat pumps, and electric vehicles (EVs), is set to grow from nearly $1.2 trillion today to around $2 trillion by 2035, surpassing the size of the global oil market. In terms of both its scale and its impact, the surge in demand for clean technologies is easily the equal of the AI boom, and yet it gets a fraction of the attention"

Obviously it is by no means a guarantee, but clean energy has the potential to match AI. As AI is a bubble (a very worrying one if it bursts!), and clean energy is a much more deeply embedded shift in how we inhabit our world, it has far greater possibilities to outlast AI and curb some of the possible damage it may do.

I think PB is falling into the trap, which is an aim of the right wing anti-green-agenda, of persuading people that everything is hopeless, therefore there's no point in doing what we can and fighting back or taking the wins where we can. In the former, I'd put AI (at least the way it's being framed at the moment), and in the latter, 'Net Zero'.

As for AI, I think there is growing resistance to the way it's being oversold and the way the industry is not only trying to get all sectors to get hooked on it, but then to accept massive actual and environmental costs. It's still early days, but I think the industry is trying to recoup its investment much too quickly from the customers they've hooked.

As for Net Zero, well, even the maths is starting to add up on that, and the Iran episode has come at the right time to further cement the political benefits of not being hooked on oil.

 

[Psamathe]

As for AI, I think there is growing resistance to the way it's being oversold and the way the industry is not only trying to get all sectors to get hooked on it, but then to accept massive actual and environmental costs. It's still early days, but I think the industry is trying to recoup its investment much too quickly from the customers they've hooked.

There is a recent BBC World Service Podcast "From campus to the Vatican, is an AI backlash growing stronger?" (https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3ct8m8s) from a few days ago (recent creation not a repeat from years ago) which discusses the increasing rejection of AI. 30'ish mins and downloadable (ie don't have to use BBC tracking apps to listen).

 

[First Aspect]

I mean, if you remember the riots when self-service checkouts were first introduced, just imagine what will happen with AI.

 

[briantrumpet]

I mean, if you remember the riots when self-service checkouts were first introduced, just imagine what will happen with AI.

I'm quite sure it will have lots of uses/applications, but with any luck won't be as ubiquitous or destructive of human input as the AI industry is gunning for.

Even where there are self-service tills, there are still quite a fe humans about, not least to sort out when the interactions between the tills and actual humans don't work out.

 

[Shortfall]

I mean, if you remember the riots when self-service checkouts were first introduced, just imagine what will happen with AI.

Fair comment but to paraphrase what someone said on the Triggernometry podcast recently, If you're wondering what might happen with AI, just look at Facebook which started as a bit of a student wheeze to compare pretty girls on the university campus and in 20 years has almost destroyed democracy.

 

[briantrumpet]

Re self-service tills, it does actually annoy me that thanks to les Luddites in my bit of France, they either don't have them at all (Lidl), or close them off apart from the height of the summer hols (Intermarché). Seems like they'd rather queue behind someone filling out a cheque and chatting to the person on the till while the cheque gets passed backwards and forwards, and then while the customer fills out the cheque stub, instead of just getting the paying bit done as quickly as possible and getting out of the shop. But it is also an area where people go around burning down mobile phone masts and junction boxes because they'd like to be disconnected from the 21st century.