The tech billionaires talk excitedly about “existential risk,” but it is abundantly clear that none of them has any conception of systemic risk — the profound dangers that arise when vast complex systems impact one another in unforeseen and uncontrollable ways. But this ignorance cannot continue much longer. Even as AI CEOs continue projecting otherworldly confidence in near-term “10x” growth, the cracks in their world-bending visions are beginning to show. The term “bubble” does not do justice to the gravity of the situation; a failure of AI will be less like a burst than a systemic collapse.
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“The vase is broken, the damage is done,” said Fatih Birol, head of the International Energy Agency, from his organization’s Paris headquarters in late April. “It will be very difficult to put the pieces back together.”
The immediate impact of the Iran war is not simply in fossil energy, but also on a huge range of fossil fuel byproducts on which AI and many other industries depend. The global economy is still very much a fossil fuel economy, and AI is locking us even further into it.
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/65367466
The AI boom has entered an uncharted, perilous new phase.
Just another scam
Yes in the sense that Chornobyl was “just another” powerplant failure.
The fallout will be existentially disastrous especially as leaders are clearly already in denial about how it has failed and they are willing to lock in enormous damage to sustain that denial.
The loss of Gulf states’ capital risk IPO plans by SpaceX, now merged with xAI, OpenAI and Anthropic. All these companies urgently need to go public, as it’s the only place they have left to raise the vast amounts of capital they need. SpaceX plans to go first in June. Its entire pitch to investors hinges on launching its data centers in space for xAI. OpenAI plans to follow soon after, but its chief financial officer, Sarah Friar, has warned that “company isn’t yet ready to meet the rigorous reporting standards required of a public company.” Hardly reassuring for a company worth $875 billion.
Doesn’t it always.