"Schmidt, somewhat fatalistically, said that “we’re not going to hit the climate goals anyway,” and argued that rather than focus on reducing emissions, “I’d rather bet on A.I. solving the problem.”" https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/22/climate/ai-big-tech-emissions.html

I'd replace "fatalistically" with "disingenuously": the basic economic theory to stabilise climate has been around a century: #Pigou, #Coase... We don't implement it because we prefer to cash in the future now. AI can't fix our preferences. #climatechange #economics #econsky

The A.I. Power Grab

Big tech companies say A.I. can help solve climate change, even as it’s driving up their emissions and raising doubts about their climate goals.

The New York Times

“One thing seems certain: we need to pass beyond the information scaling threshold. This means finding new ways to think together with the internet. And a future where we own our second brains seems brighter than one where we don’t.”

— Thinking together, @gordon

https://subconscious.substack.com/p/thinking-together

#subconscious #noosphere #secondbrain #coase #dunbarsnumber

Thinking together

While analyzing a global history databank spanning 10,000 years, Shin, et al found a disconcerting pattern. Civilizations scale until they are overwhelmed by the information environment they create. This is The Information Scaling Threshold.

Subconscious
- all social costs are reciprocal in nature. #Coase argues that a factory emitting smoke is not entirely responsible for the social harm of smoky air. If the factory were not there, no one would suffer from smoky air, if people were not there, no one would suffer from smoky air.
#Ostrom "She was a scholar who looked out the window, to adapt a phrase from her fellow #Nobel laureate Ronald #Coase, and she showed empirically and experimentally how institutions evolve to manage #commonpool resources “without any regulation by central authorities or privatization.” In other words, effective, context-specific governance of common-pool resources is not planned and imposed from above by wise rule-makers."
#commons
https://www.forbes.com/sites/artcarden/2019/08/07/elinor-ostrom-tragedy-of-the-commons-birthday/
How Tragic is the Tragedy of the Commons? A Birthday Appreciation of Elinor Ostrom

Elinor Ostrom was born this day in 1933. She looked out the window, went out the door, and explored how small communities govern common property without top-down planning.