Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by odnes 1411 days ago
Surprised no one has said the following; study AI and try make a meaningful contribution to the field. It may sound trite, but the most likely way we solve the climate crisis is by solving AGI first, hoping it doesn't cause a doomsday scenario itself, and subsequently hoping 'it' will coordinate an effort to reverse the damage we have done.
5 comments
querez 1411 days ago
As an AI researcher, I feel like this is misguided advice. The field is overrun with people, and it's almost impossible to make a meaningful dent anymore. Even if you have a group of experienced researchers and large compute reserves, most people are content with chasing SOTAs, because the green-field low-hanging fruit of yesteryear is over (and has been over for a while). Sure, you can learn some AI and then look for climate-applications[0], but then again, why not enter that field as a software engineer in the first place. Learning AI and is just an unnecessary detour if you want to end up in climate change.

[0] https://arxiv.org/abs/1906.05433

link
POPOSYS 1411 days ago
Does the meaning of SOTA appear here?

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=SOTA

If no, please explain, thanks!

link
gkbrk 1411 days ago
No, because that's not the right way to search for meanings. You probably need to help out the search engine and provide the context that you would like to know the meaning.

The correct answer appears if you search for "sota abbreviation" [1] or "sota meaning" [2].

[1]: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=sota+abbreviation&ia=web

[2]: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=sota+meaning&ia=web

link
Scarblac 1411 days ago
So you make a brilliant AGI, it points out the obvious -- we should stop consumerism and lower rich countries' standard of living before physics forces us to. How then does it get any political power to achieve that? It won't be taken more seriously than any individual human.
link
jhugo 1411 days ago
Seems quite likely to me that the AGI hucksters won't deliver the goods before we're able to make the planet inhospitable for ourselves. Risky bet, in any case.
link
dougmwne 1411 days ago
Your AGI recommends depopulation and decarbonization.

Unless you use a brain computer interface to hijack everyone’s brains, I don’t think this is going to help much.

link
POPOSYS 1411 days ago
The answer is already known and is very simple: stop emission of CO2 now.
link