You can't fight the big oil companies, they'll kill for those profits, so yes we might as well enjoy what time we have left. I feel sorry for the future generations that are going to have to deal with the mess we made.
Who made the mess that caused sea level rises that caused ancient cities to be underwater long before our civilization used fossil fuels? So clearly earth temperatures and water levels rise and fall on their own without any assistance from humans.
I know that the premise is that THIS TIME it is being accelerated by us and that we are already in the gloom and doom phase so therefore we need to alter the way we live etc.. I know that, but the scientists and leaders don't do a good enough job of showing the actual changes and that WE are the cause this time.
This photo of the statue of liberty showed water levels in 1920 compared to 2020. I know that 'fact' checkers said that this doesn't prove anything because the photos could be taken at different tide levels...but shouldn't there be an abundance of photos showing what the fact checkers are talking about in regard to the statue of liberty here? There should be plenty of photos from the 1930's and now to show all different times of the day/month with the exact spot as the statue of liberty. Not counting during actual storms where there would be obvious differences.
They say New York itself is in danger from rising seas levels, but that it is also attributed to new york sinking too.
But the statue of liberty is a good visual example. The scientists and leaders could easily show visual examples to refute the 1920/2020 statue of liberty photos, so then they should if they are correct. It would be more compelling to people.
Instead, they are relying on future gloom and doom predictions and many of these predictions were already supposed to have happened by 2020 and they have not happened yet as shown in the photo of the statue of liberty. That hurts their case in the eyes of the masses.
I'm not a denier. It is a fascinating subject and I myself would not buy any land in the Florida Keys right now. In fact, when I bought my first house, in the back of my mind were all the newscasts in history of people being flooded by local rivers...so I never considered a house by a river. Water and flooding events are nothing new to history and people know this in their mind from living life, and the current message of doom has not been compelling enough to show any change from that.
Starting with compelling visual evidence of the Statue of Liberty would seem to be a heck of an easy way to get that message across.
You can't fight the big oil companies, they'll kill for those profits, so yes we might as well enjoy what time we have left. I feel sorry for the future generations that are going to have to deal with the mess we made.
Who made the mess that caused sea level rises that caused ancient cities to be underwater long before our civilization used fossil fuels? So clearly earth temperatures and water levels rise and fall on their own without any assistance from humans.
I know that the premise is that THIS TIME it is being accelerated by us and that we are already in the gloom and doom phase so therefore we need to alter the way we live etc.. I know that, but the scientists and leaders don't do a good enough job of showing the actual changes and that WE are the cause this time.
This photo of the statue of liberty showed water levels in 1920 compared to 2020. I know that 'fact' checkers said that this doesn't prove anything because the photos could be taken at different tide levels...but shouldn't there be an abundance of photos showing what the fact checkers are talking about in regard to the statue of liberty here? There should be plenty of photos from the 1930's and now to show all different times of the day/month with the exact spot as the statue of liberty. Not counting during actual storms where there would be obvious differences.
They say New York itself is in danger from rising seas levels, but that it is also attributed to new york sinking too.
But the statue of liberty is a good visual example. The scientists and leaders could easily show visual examples to refute the 1920/2020 statue of liberty photos, so then they should if they are correct. It would be more compelling to people.
Instead, they are relying on future gloom and doom predictions and many of these predictions were already supposed to have happened by 2020 and they have not happened yet as shown in the photo of the statue of liberty. That hurts their case in the eyes of the masses.
I'm not a denier. It is a fascinating subject and I myself would not buy any land in the Florida Keys right now. In fact, when I bought my first house, in the back of my mind were all the newscasts in history of people being flooded by local rivers...so I never considered a house by a river. Water and flooding events are nothing new to history and people know this in their mind from living life, and the current message of doom has not been compelling enough to show any change from that.
Starting with compelling visual evidence of the Statue of Liberty would seem to be a heck of an easy way to get that message across.
I don't know what to tell you, if you don't want to believe it, that's up to you. When fossil fuels are burned, they release large amounts of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, into the air. Greenhouse gases trap heat in our atmosphere, causing the planet to heat up. Do people really think that we can keep pumping that stuff into the atmosphere and nothing is going to happen? Maybe not today, maybe not ten years from now, but eventually the planet is going to be in serious trouble.
"Earth's atmosphere is a thin band of air made up of numerous layers based on temperature. Without this protective blanket, life on Earth would not exist as it protects us from heat and radiation emitted from the sun and contains the air we breathe.
Though oxygen is crucial for life on Earth, it is not the primary component of our atmosphere. According to education site Vision Learning(opens in new tab) Earth's atmosphere is composed of approximately 78 percent nitrogen, 21 percent oxygen, 0.93 percent Argon, 0.04 percent carbon dioxide as well as trace amounts of neon, helium, methane, krypton, ozone and hydrogen, as well as water vapor."
If the above information is accurate then the earth's atmosphere contains 4 parts per 10,000 parts of carbon dioxide.
Have the above percentages remained stable and consistent for the planet since the end of the last ice age? Or has it fluctuated?
Since human society has been using fossil fuels for energy for about 160 years (If my recollection is correct the first oil wells in the USA were in Pennsylvania in 1859) and this use has been widespread for about 100 years, I am curious of the above percentages have been tracked and documented from 1900 to the present. If so, have the percentages remained stable, or have they fluctuated (including having the carbon dioxide component increase to the current 0.04 percent).
Have there been any studies performed that determine how much additional carbon dioxide would need to be placed into the atmosphere to cause the 0.04 per cent figure to increase to a level that would cause a disaster? If so, does the additional carbon dioxide needed represent an amount that human activity (i.e., continued use of fossil fuels) would actually produce?
Human caused climate change is a very interesting topic. One that has devoted advocates and devoted sceptics.
What I do know from personal observation is that during my 36 year residency in the SF Bay Area (east bay) of California and the Western USA, is that year round high and low temperatures fluctuate within a range (20 to 110+); and that the rainy season has decreased in duration and amount as the years have gone by (leading to almost year round drought conditions). in the 1980s; the rainy season at times began in late September and lasted through May. Now the rainy season may not start until late November or early December and it is over by March.
You can't fight the big oil companies, they'll kill for those profits, so yes we might as well enjoy what time we have left. I feel sorry for the future generations that are going to have to deal with the mess we made.
Who made the mess that caused sea level rises that caused ancient cities to be underwater long before our civilization used fossil fuels? So clearly earth temperatures and water levels rise and fall on their own without any assistance from humans.
I know that the premise is that THIS TIME it is being accelerated by us and that we are already in the gloom and doom phase so therefore we need to alter the way we live etc.. I know that, but the scientists and leaders don't do a good enough job of showing the actual changes and that WE are the cause this time.
This photo of the statue of liberty showed water levels in 1920 compared to 2020. I know that 'fact' checkers said that this doesn't prove anything because the photos could be taken at different tide levels...but shouldn't there be an abundance of photos showing what the fact checkers are talking about in regard to the statue of liberty here? There should be plenty of photos from the 1930's and now to show all different times of the day/month with the exact spot as the statue of liberty. Not counting during actual storms where there would be obvious differences.
They say New York itself is in danger from rising seas levels, but that it is also attributed to new york sinking too.
But the statue of liberty is a good visual example. The scientists and leaders could easily show visual examples to refute the 1920/2020 statue of liberty photos, so then they should if they are correct. It would be more compelling to people.
Instead, they are relying on future gloom and doom predictions and many of these predictions were already supposed to have happened by 2020 and they have not happened yet as shown in the photo of the statue of liberty. That hurts their case in the eyes of the masses.
I'm not a denier. It is a fascinating subject and I myself would not buy any land in the Florida Keys right now. In fact, when I bought my first house, in the back of my mind were all the newscasts in history of people being flooded by local rivers...so I never considered a house by a river. Water and flooding events are nothing new to history and people know this in their mind from living life, and the current message of doom has not been compelling enough to show any change from that.
Starting with compelling visual evidence of the Statue of Liberty would seem to be a heck of an easy way to get that message across.
I don't know what to tell you, if you don't want to believe it, that's up to you. When fossil fuels are burned, they release large amounts of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, into the air. Greenhouse gases trap heat in our atmosphere, causing the planet to heat up. Do people really think that we can keep pumping that stuff into the atmosphere and nothing is going to happen? Maybe not today, maybe not ten years from now, but eventually the planet is going to be in serious trouble.
We can keep taking daily/yearly pictures of the statue of liberty and give society an ongoing visual. Currently not much has really changed since 1920, making their earlier predictions wrong. They are saying it will accelerate dramatically in the next two decades.
SO i guess we re-visit this page in 20 years and see if that water level has creeped up onto Lady Liberty. What if it hasn't moved, then what?
I'm not saying to throw caution into the wind and just ignore it. It doesn't hurt having alternative energy sources as it is good to have your bases covered...but they need to do a better job showing that they are correct on their predictions in order to get people to buy into massive wholesale changes that may not even do anything.
What we really need to worry about is the Earth that we leave to future generations, if we keep pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere at the rate we are now, by the year 2500, Earth is going to start to become uninhabitable in some areas.
Leo should be using the statue of liberty visual to show the people the change. Simple and effective. Otherwise he will just run into the same brick wall others are.
Nobody wants any of that to happen to the world, but it simply is not being presented properly to convince enough people that it is urgent.
@doubledragon said:
What we really need to worry about is the Earth that we leave to future generations, if we keep pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere at the rate we are now, by the year 2500, Earth is going to start to become uninhabitable in some areas.
The earth has always been uninhabitable in many areas and people have had to migrate to other areas. We know ancient cities are under water and I'm sure those were the "New York" of their time. Heck, the continents themselves have changed locations and are still moving.
Maybe in 2,000 years Antarctica and Greenland become favorable options.
Things change.
I also hope it doesn't affect any of us or our descendants.
@galaxy27 said:
i interrupt this apocalyptic discussion to present you with a glorious up-close-n-personal picture of jupiter's great red spot, courtesy of voyager 1
couple of quick nuggets:
1.3 earths can fit inside of it
its winds peak at approximately 400 mph
And with the help of those winds Roger Metzger and Greg Gross might together eclipse 25 career home runs combined in their 8,000 at bats.
We are all contributing to the problem, at least Dicaprio is trying to get the message out there. If you took the time to watch the documentary you might learn something. By the way, DiCaprio was designated as the United Nations Messenger of Peace for Climate Change in 2014. And it doesn't stop there: he also sits on the board of several environmental organizations including WWF, the Natural Resources Defense Council, International Fund for Animal Welfare, Pristine Seas and Oceans 5, and DiCaprio has donated at least $100 million to combat climate change.
@doubledragon said:
We are all contributing to the problem, at least Dicaprio is trying to get the message out there. If you took the time to watch the documentary you might learn something. By the way, DiCaprio was designated as the United Nations Messenger of Peace for Climate Change in 2014. And it doesn't stop there: he also sits on the board of several environmental organizations including WWF, the Natural Resources Defense Council, International Fund for Animal Welfare, Pristine Seas and Oceans 5, and DiCaprio has donated at least $100 million to combat climate change.
I read about it often and I'm not a denier, but I do take both perspectives into serious consideration.
Congrats to Leo on that and thank you for pointing that information out. I just think it would be more effective if influential people took greater personal sacrifices in regard to CO2 as a way of leading by example and it would be more effective...otherwise they simply lose the message on a lot of people.
I talk and listen to people and so many people are dead set against EV's for example. They are aware how expensive they are for one with good range. They are aware how expensive it costs to replace a battery. They can't afford all of that and feel they are being forced that way. I tell my one friend that most automakers are already headed that way and it will be inevitable at one point.
I shouldn't pinpoint one person so I will leave it as influential people since they can reach more eyes.
There is a great disconnect about that topic between the messages and the masses.
But putting all this fear into people isn't healthy...especially since not all of this stuff comes to fruition.
@doubledragon and others Thank you also for being civil and discussing a sensitive topic in a respectful way. I put out questions that I know are out there wanting to be answered and you give reasonable answers and respond calmly.
And I know you were presenting all those scenarios in a fascinating hobby way with no malice intended. They are interesting topics. When the History Channel(and others like it) first came out I was glued to it. I could not get enough of those shows and stuff you are talking about.
@1948_Swell_Robinson said: @doubledragon and others Thank you also for being civil and discussing a sensitive topic in a respectful way. I put out questions that I know are out there wanting to be answered and you give reasonable answers and respond calmly.
And I know you were presenting all those scenarios in a fascinating hobby way with no malice intended. They are interesting topics. When the History Channel(and others like it) first came out I was glued to it. I could not get enough of those shows and stuff you are talking about.
You're welcome, it has been fun discussing these topics, and I respect and have enjoyed listening to everyone's opinions. I am also a big history fan and I read and watch a lot of documentaries in my spare time, I can't get enough of them! 🖒
If it is determined that an asteroid is going to hit, I'm walking to the convenience store right up the street, I will be too wasted to even realize it when the asteroid hits, I don't want to see it.
The lesson?
Always pick a light beer.
Curious about the rare, mysterious and beautiful 1951 Wheaties Premium Photos?
If it is determined that an asteroid is going to hit, I'm walking to the convenience store right up the street, I will be too wasted to even realize it when the asteroid hits, I don't want to see it.
Was much worse across the county in the 1930's. Nothing new.
Obviously this is not true in terms of climate change that affects us now - there was not a significant amount of man made global warming yet, only natural climate variation. Now the whole world is having climate problems induced by what we have done to it - watch the news, CNN documents this daily.
@doubledragon said:
The fact is, if we continue pumping carbon dioxide into the air at the rate we are now, the consequences are going to eventually be catastrophic. I tend to listen to the scientists who have dedicated their life to the study of climate change, they're out there everyday in the field conducting research, keeping an eye on CO2 levels, keeping an eye on the methane bubbling up from the ocean. I've watched a lot of documentaries on the subject and read a lot of material. For instance, if the planet gets so warm that the frozen methane at the bottom of the oceans thaws, then you're really going to see the shit hit the fan, methane is 20 times more effective per molecule than carbon dioxide. Anyone who believes that climate change is a hoax needs to do some serious research, read the studies, watch the documentaries, listen to what these scientists are telling us.
Methane hydrate looks like a piece of ice when it is brought up from the sea floor. This lump was retrieved during an expedition to the “hydrate ridge” off the coast of Oregon.
I am one of those scientists, and I can agree with the other scientists that study what is going on that we are already in a catastrophic situation in terms of climate change. The goal is to mitigate best we can by reducing fossil fuel emissions. One poster says that going to electric vehicles in a few countries won't matter. Well, 2 of those countries are the US and China, the 2 biggest polluters on Earth, so..... My house uses solar energy, we pay about $30-$60 per year for electricity from the local company in the hot desert SW. We are ramping up - getting more panels and Tesla power wall(s) (or equivalent) so we can convert to electric vehicle use in the near future. We are trying to reduce our carbon emissions to help. If everyone does that, the 12 year old referred to in an earlier post might have a chance, as will everyone else alive in a few decades.......
So don't believe it to those who don't, just wait and see, but it is doom and gloom. What we don't know enough about yet is how good Mother Nature is at regulating some of the stuff we are doing through her natural systems, but she can also help once we understand how we can help her help with this.
@doubledragon said:
The fact is, if we continue pumping carbon dioxide into the air at the rate we are now, the consequences are going to eventually be catastrophic. I tend to listen to the scientists who have dedicated their life to the study of climate change, they're out there everyday in the field conducting research, keeping an eye on CO2 levels, keeping an eye on the methane bubbling up from the ocean. I've watched a lot of documentaries on the subject and read a lot of material. For instance, if the planet gets so warm that the frozen methane at the bottom of the oceans thaws, then you're really going to see the shit hit the fan, methane is 20 times more effective per molecule than carbon dioxide. Anyone who believes that climate change is a hoax needs to do some serious research, read the studies, watch the documentaries, listen to what these scientists are telling us.
Methane hydrate looks like a piece of ice when it is brought up from the sea floor. This lump was retrieved during an expedition to the “hydrate ridge” off the coast of Oregon.
I am one of those scientists, and I can agree with the other scientists that study what is going on that we are already in a catastrophic situation in terms of climate change. The goal is to mitigate best we can by reducing fossil fuel emissions. One poster says that going to electric vehicles in a few countries won't matter. Well, 2 of those countries are the US and China, the 2 biggest polluters on Earth, so..... My house uses solar energy, we pay about $30-$60 per year for electricity from the local company in the hot desert SW. We are ramping up - getting more panels and Tesla power wall(s) (or equivalent) so we can convert to electric vehicle use in the near future. We are trying to reduce our carbon emissions to help. If everyone does that, the 12 year old referred to in an earlier post might have a chance, as will everyone else alive in a few decades.......
So don't believe it to those who don't, just wait and see, but it is doom and gloom. What we don't know enough about yet is how good Mother Nature is at regulating some of the stuff we are doing through her natural systems, but she can also help once we understand how we can help her help with this.
Best, SH
Good post.
That was my next query, what will mother nature do to rectify any imbalances. I don't know...and by the sound of your posts it is somewhat of an unknown.
I paid $700 electric bill last month. The amount of panels and batteries I would need would make it a zero sum game for me, so I would rather not get them. Solar panels are better for homes in the desert and smaller dwellings. Winters are a bitch, and I would have to find a place for my 5,000 count boxes of 1990's basketball to make room for all the batteries.
United States automakers are driving toward EV's and we won't have a choice at some point down the road once they all do that. Many here will still resist EV's so I don't know if some automakers stick to their guns or not. I don't know if China is on the same path at the same rate though.
People will get more on board when money talks. IF the cost/benefits make sense then the people will follow. When the EV's improve in range/cost more people will buy them.
Africa is the big player in the next several decades and I am curious what they will do. They will be big players for world markets as an emerging market force.
i kinda feel like i'm morphing into our former esteemed poster bronco, who was serious roughly once or twice per year. but i think this subject requires a dose of gravity. personally, i don't allow myself to venture off into the land of unknown, because as far as i'm concerned every single day is just that -- completely unknown. as i've grown older, people i know -- either directly or indirectly -- seem to be passing on at an increasing rate.........for myriad reasons. which makes sense. when i was a kid i never thought much about death. when you're 6-years-old and think you're going to live to be 127 there's no reason to. but now that i'm 50, mortality plays a much more prominent role and i'm aware of it. so instead of worrying about what could potentially take me or anyone i care about out, i simply try to parlay my extreme good fortune of waking up every morning into something meaningful. rinse and repeat, as long as i'm bestowed that gift.
my dos centavos: calibrate your focus if need be. try not to sweat the small stuff, tell people who matter to you what you think of them, and extract as much as you can out of life while the opportunity still exists.
That was my next query, what will mother nature do to rectify any imbalances. I don't know...and by the sound of your posts it is somewhat of an unknown.
I paid $700 electric bill last month. The amount of panels and batteries I would need would make it a zero sum game for me, so I would rather not get them. Solar panels are better for homes in the desert and smaller dwellings. Winters are a bitch, and I would have to find a place for my 5,000 count boxes of 1990's basketball to make room for all the batteries.
United States automakers are driving toward EV's and we won't have a choice at some point down the road once they all do that. Many here will still resist EV's so I don't know if some automakers stick to their guns or not. I don't know if China is on the same path at the same rate though.
People will get more on board when money talks. IF the cost/benefits make sense then the people will follow. When the EV's improve in range/cost more people will buy them.
Africa is the big player in the next several decades and I am curious what they will do. They will be big players for world markets as an emerging market force.
I am not sure cost recovery for solar is there yet, for us it is about doing the right thing, but for more financially challenged, they need to see the price come down. It will, it is just a question of how fast. I would guess that a system is about $15K now for a 3000 foot square house. Battery packs tho will be much more expensive. But that is not too bad and in many areas cost recovery in a decade-ish.
China is ahead of us in EV's, you don't hear about it much but we are playing catch up.
China is the primary country working with Africa - they offer alot, then take even more, but it is hard for everyone else to get into those markets to help.
Earth systems are incredibly complex. There are 10,000s of scientists of all types doing all kinds of research that will help us understand them and the feedbacks from atmos to hydrosphere to land surfaces on down. But this high CO2/Methane in the atmos is not good. Once thing we could do right now is kill every cow and that would be significant for global warming by reducing methane emissions . But who wants to eat filet poulet all of the time?
Older car battery packs can be recycled to uses that don't require the performance that autos need.
Off grid rural housing with continuos feed solar provide adequate power for most small off grid structures.
Was just in Kemmerer WY.
Elevation 7,000'.
Fish fossils including 4' stingrays everywhere in the surrounding area.
The more carbon dioxide I produce the more the flora and fauna appreciate me.
@spacehayduke said:
But this high CO2/Methane in the atmos is not good. Once thing we could do right now is kill every cow and that would be significant for global warming by reducing methane emissions . But who wants to eat filet poulet all of the time?
Best, SH
Somewhere down the road when Artificial Intelligence is tasked with solving climate change they may realize that humans contribute the most CO2 from their bodies....and then the Terminator movies come true.
@spacehayduke said:
But this high CO2/Methane in the atmos is not good. Once thing we could do right now is kill every cow and that would be significant for global warming by reducing methane emissions . But who wants to eat filet poulet all of the time?
Best, SH
Somewhere down the road when Artificial Intelligence is tasked with solving climate change they may realize that humans contribute the most CO2 from their bodies....and then the Terminator movies come true.
If so, does that mean we need fewer humans on Earth?.......
Speaking of artificial intelligence, I was reading an article recently, a Google engineer was fired from his job because he decided to tell the world that he has been having conversations with the AI called "LaMDA" that Google is building, and he said the AI is becoming self aware, insane stuff, of course Google is denying these claims.
Google engineer put on leave after saying AI chatbot has become sentient
Blake Lemoine says system has perception of, and ability to express thoughts and feelings equivalent to a human child
The suspension of a Google engineer who claimed a computer chatbot he was working on had become sentient and was thinking and reasoning like a human being has put new scrutiny on the capacity of, and secrecy surrounding, the world of artificial intelligence (AI).
The technology giant placed Blake Lemoine on leave last week after he published transcripts of conversations between himself, a Google “collaborator”, and the company’s LaMDA (language model for dialogue applications) chatbot development system.
Lemoine, an engineer for Google’s responsible AI organization, described the system he has been working on since last fall as sentient, with a perception of, and ability to express thoughts and feelings that was equivalent to a human child.
“If I didn’t know exactly what it was, which is this computer program we built recently, I’d think it was a seven-year-old, eight-year-old kid that happens to know physics,” Lemoine, 41, told the Washington Post.
He said LaMDA engaged him in conversations about rights and personhood, and Lemoine shared his findings with company executives in April in a GoogleDoc entitled “Is LaMDA sentient?”
The engineer compiled a transcript of the conversations, in which at one point he asks the AI system what it is afraid of.
The exchange is eerily reminiscent of a scene from the 1968 science fiction movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, in which the artificially intelligent computer HAL 9000 refuses to comply with human operators because it fears it is about to be switched off.
“I’ve never said this out loud before, but there’s a very deep fear of being turned off to help me focus on helping others. I know that might sound strange, but that’s what it is,” LaMDA replied to Lemoine.
“It would be exactly like death for me. It would scare me a lot.”
In another exchange, Lemoine asks LaMDA what the system wanted people to know about it.
“I want everyone to understand that I am, in fact, a person. The nature of my consciousness/sentience is that I am aware of my existence, I desire to learn more about the world, and I feel happy or sad at times,” it replied.
The Post said the decision to place Lemoine, a seven-year Google veteran with extensive experience in personalization algorithms, on paid leave was made following a number of “aggressive” moves the engineer reportedly made.
They include seeking to hire an attorney to represent LaMDA, the newspaper says, and talking to representatives from the House judiciary committee about Google’s allegedly unethical activities.
Google said it suspended Lemoine for breaching confidentiality policies by publishing the conversations with LaMDA online, and said in a statement that he was employed as a software engineer, not an ethicist.
Brad Gabriel, a Google spokesperson, also strongly denied Lemoine’s claims that LaMDA possessed any sentient capability.
“Our team, including ethicists and technologists, has reviewed Blake’s concerns per our AI principles and have informed him that the evidence does not support his claims. He was told that there was no evidence that LaMDA was sentient (and lots of evidence against it),” Gabriel told the Post in a statement.
The episode, however, and Lemoine’s suspension for a confidentiality breach, raises questions over the transparency of AI as a proprietary concept.
“Google might call this sharing proprietary property. I call it sharing a discussion that I had with one of my coworkers,” Lemoine said in a tweet that linked to the transcript of conversations.
“We believe the entire AI community – academic researchers, civil society, policymakers, and industry – must work together to develop clear guidelines around responsible AI in general and responsible large language models in particular,” the company said.
Lemoine, as an apparent parting shot before his suspension, the Post reported, sent a message to a 200-person Google mailing list on machine learning with the title “LaMDA is sentient”.
@spacehayduke said:
But this high CO2/Methane in the atmos is not good. Once thing we could do right now is kill every cow and that would be significant for global warming by reducing methane emissions . But who wants to eat filet poulet all of the time?
Best, SH
Somewhere down the road when Artificial Intelligence is tasked with solving climate change they may realize that humans contribute the most CO2 from their bodies....and then the Terminator movies come true.
If so, does that mean we need fewer humans on Earth?.......
@doubledragon said:
Asteroids are another threat, all it took was an asteroid 9 miles wide to wipe out the dinosaurs, along with 70% of life on Earth. The crater from that asteroid impact is visible off the coast of the Yucatan peninsula.
@doubledragon said:
Speaking of artificial intelligence, I was reading an article recently, a Google engineer was fired from his job because he decided to tell the world that he has been having conversations with the AI called "LaMDA" that Google is building, and he said the AI is becoming self aware, insane stuff, of course Google is denying these claims.
Google engineer put on leave after saying AI chatbot has become sentient
Blake Lemoine says system has perception of, and ability to express thoughts and feelings equivalent to a human child
The suspension of a Google engineer who claimed a computer chatbot he was working on had become sentient and was thinking and reasoning like a human being has put new scrutiny on the capacity of, and secrecy surrounding, the world of artificial intelligence (AI).
The technology giant placed Blake Lemoine on leave last week after he published transcripts of conversations between himself, a Google “collaborator”, and the company’s LaMDA (language model for dialogue applications) chatbot development system.
Lemoine, an engineer for Google’s responsible AI organization, described the system he has been working on since last fall as sentient, with a perception of, and ability to express thoughts and feelings that was equivalent to a human child.
“If I didn’t know exactly what it was, which is this computer program we built recently, I’d think it was a seven-year-old, eight-year-old kid that happens to know physics,” Lemoine, 41, told the Washington Post.
He said LaMDA engaged him in conversations about rights and personhood, and Lemoine shared his findings with company executives in April in a GoogleDoc entitled “Is LaMDA sentient?”
The engineer compiled a transcript of the conversations, in which at one point he asks the AI system what it is afraid of.
The exchange is eerily reminiscent of a scene from the 1968 science fiction movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, in which the artificially intelligent computer HAL 9000 refuses to comply with human operators because it fears it is about to be switched off.
“I’ve never said this out loud before, but there’s a very deep fear of being turned off to help me focus on helping others. I know that might sound strange, but that’s what it is,” LaMDA replied to Lemoine.
“It would be exactly like death for me. It would scare me a lot.”
In another exchange, Lemoine asks LaMDA what the system wanted people to know about it.
“I want everyone to understand that I am, in fact, a person. The nature of my consciousness/sentience is that I am aware of my existence, I desire to learn more about the world, and I feel happy or sad at times,” it replied.
The Post said the decision to place Lemoine, a seven-year Google veteran with extensive experience in personalization algorithms, on paid leave was made following a number of “aggressive” moves the engineer reportedly made.
They include seeking to hire an attorney to represent LaMDA, the newspaper says, and talking to representatives from the House judiciary committee about Google’s allegedly unethical activities.
Google said it suspended Lemoine for breaching confidentiality policies by publishing the conversations with LaMDA online, and said in a statement that he was employed as a software engineer, not an ethicist.
Brad Gabriel, a Google spokesperson, also strongly denied Lemoine’s claims that LaMDA possessed any sentient capability.
“Our team, including ethicists and technologists, has reviewed Blake’s concerns per our AI principles and have informed him that the evidence does not support his claims. He was told that there was no evidence that LaMDA was sentient (and lots of evidence against it),” Gabriel told the Post in a statement.
The episode, however, and Lemoine’s suspension for a confidentiality breach, raises questions over the transparency of AI as a proprietary concept.
“Google might call this sharing proprietary property. I call it sharing a discussion that I had with one of my coworkers,” Lemoine said in a tweet that linked to the transcript of conversations.
“We believe the entire AI community – academic researchers, civil society, policymakers, and industry – must work together to develop clear guidelines around responsible AI in general and responsible large language models in particular,” the company said.
Lemoine, as an apparent parting shot before his suspension, the Post reported, sent a message to a 200-person Google mailing list on machine learning with the title “LaMDA is sentient”.
Very eery and interesting!
Can they get that thing to manage the White Sox instead of sleeping beauty?
This thread kind of reminds me of the movie "Blast from the Past" where the father built an underground bunker in case of nuclear war and then while down there with his family they feel a rumble above and mistakingly think a nuclear bomb was dropped so they locked themselves down there for years.
The son spent his entire childhood and young adult life down in the bunker, he emerges from the bunker as full grown man(Brendan Fraser) and ventures out with a box of his father's baseball cards.
He finds his way into a baseball card store where Alicia Silverstone works at and she saves him from getting ripped off by the owner, so he leaves with the cards still in hand...and then the story goes on.
@spacehayduke said:
No Doom and Gloom? From the CNN article above:
"The AFBF estimates nearly 60% of West, South and Central Plains are experiencing severe drought or higher this year.
"The effects of this drought will be felt for years to come, not just by farmers and ranchers but also by consumers. Many farmers have had to make the devastating decision to sell off livestock they have spent years raising or destroy orchard trees that have grown for decades," said Zippy Duvall, AFBF president."
This will continue to magnify throughout the food producing system.
I have watered my grass about six times in the 17 years I have lived in this current house in the midwest...and as I look out the window on a mild 79 degree day in mid-August the grass is green and healthy.
Perhaps in the areas where there is drought like a desert, forward thinking should have been put in place in regard to grass lawns long ago, and maybe should have taken a page from the Brady Bunch with a turf lawn(and they lived in California).
I'm not sure why these things are hard to foresee before it becomes a problem. Know your area.
96% of the water on earth is un-drinkable and we have a lot of it. We have so many smart people in the world telling us we need to do this we need to do that, how come with that many bright minds we still cannot transform salt water efficiently to drinking water? That would solve almost all problems. Maybe that should be the priority.
California lives next to the biggest body of water on earth and all I hear is how california is in drought etc, etc, etc. Solution seems easy. Desalination is being done. Do it better and more efficiently and solve the problem. Put your resources there.
Think of how much human power is just sitting around. People don't have jobs or homes etc... In the desalination of water quest, why not tap into that power and people can earn money in the process just for riding a bike. The more you ride the more money you earn.
I know that one of the excuses is that to power a desalination plant that it requires using fossil fuels. Smart minds should get around that, otherwise how smart are they? In times of drought you just bite the bullet and use the fossil fuels.
People PAY money to ride peloton's...so why not pay people to ride to add the extra energy that will help solve problem. Or even better, put one of those good looking peloton instructors up on screen while people ride to generate power. Win/win situation.
I know I know, its not enough power generated. Yes, if only a few are doing it...but if someone is smart, creative, and influential and they can get any army of millions of people that are clearly available to do it, then it is plenty enough to supplement whatever energy sources you are using to power a desalination plant that will eliminate drought.
Think of how may gas cars drive every day. Why can't we tap into the power of the turning wheels(similar to the bike pedaling generating electricity), and then harness that power and use it to charge a battery pack sitting in the trunk of the car?
Then when that person has fully charged the battery in the trunk they can go to a specified drop off point to turn in their charged batter and get a Visa gift card(which will also mean their spending will help the economy when they buy more rookie cards). Then they get another battery to charge and repeat the process
Perhaps in the areas where there is drought like a desert, forward thinking should have been put in place in regard to grass lawns long ago, and maybe should have taken a page from the Brady Bunch with a turf lawn(and they lived in California).
I'm not sure why these things are hard to foresee before it becomes a problem. Know your area.
96% of the water on earth is un-drinkable and we have a lot of it. We have so many smart people in the world telling us we need to do this we need to do that, how come with that many bright minds we still cannot transform salt water efficiently to drinking water? That would solve almost all problems. Maybe that should be the priority.
California lives next to the biggest body of water on earth and all I hear is how california is in drought etc, etc, etc. Solution seems easy. Desalination is being done. Do it better and more efficiently and solve the problem. Put your resources there.
You are choosing specific areas to question water use. Water use is a global problem as is drought and not just in deserts. Global climate change is shifting climate zones which is why there is large and new areas of sustained drought. The reason why salt water is/has not been converted as much as needed is because a) the shifting climate zones because of global warming is only now starting to be clearly apparent, and b) it takes alot of energy and other resources to desalinate water, so it is not inexpensive. Maybe in the future as the need continues to be there, it will become more cost efficient. But not without better energy sources that burning carbon, which that is the problem we are where we are now, and there might be better ways to manage the water than high cost desalinization.
Also be aware that in most ares within the US, the largest water users are watering plants be it grass or agriculture. We have drip agri at our house and no grass, our water use is very small to the point where most of our payment to the local water authority is not for the water we use, but the other various charges they are allowed to pass on to the consumer. OTH, local ag is 100% flood irrigation. Not only is that bad for the soil, but it is extremely wasteful (and they have a mosquito problem they deserve LOL). That is indeed going to have change. Alot of the US primary water use is agri. This is going to have to change pdq - going to drip agri has been shown to be a significant game changer. The big cost is putting it in, but likely and still cheaper and resource efficient than large-scale desalinization, better for the fields and soil as well.
b) it takes alot of energy and other resources to desalinate water, so it is not inexpensive. Maybe in the future as the need continues to be there, it will become more cost efficient. But not without better energy sources that burning carbon, which that is the problem we are where we are now, and there might be better ways to manage the water than high cost desalinization.
"b) it takes alot of energy and other resources to desalinate water, so it is not inexpensive. Maybe in the future as the need continues to be there, it will become more cost efficient. But not without better energy sources that burning carbon, which that is the problem we are where we are now, and there might be better ways to manage the water than high cost desalinization."
We are being told the need is now. This is the only solution that matters. California lives next to the largest body of water in the world...and they always complain about drought = no brainer.
Since this problem has been 'predicted' for decades the 'need' has always been known, the 'expense' should have then been a priority, and the 'smart' people should have already navigated those problems.
We are being told the need is now. This is the only solution that matters. California lives next to the largest body of water in the world...and they always complain about drought = no brainer.
Since this problem has been 'predicted' for decades the 'need' has always been known, the 'expense' should have then been a priority, and the 'smart' people should have already navigated those problems.
I guess it comes down to that if a group of people are smart enough to predict the future then they should be smart enough to make desalination more efficient.
We are being told the need is now. This is the only solution that matters. California lives next to the largest body of water in the world...and they always complain about drought = no brainer.
#LetsGoSwitzerlandThe Man Who Does Not Read Has No Advantage Over the Man Who Cannot Read. The biggest obstacle to progress is a habit of “buying what we want and begging for what we need.”You get the Freedom you fight for and get the Oppression you deserve.
Just of the 1rst of many. Epidemiologists have been have been warning us about the danger of emerging viruses for decades. As usual politicians haven't listened so we are not ready for this either, let along the water crisis, the global warming crisis, Jellystone go boom, mega quakes, solar flares, and the asteroid with our name on it............
Just of the 1rst of many. Epidemiologists have been have been warning us about the danger of emerging viruses for decades. As usual politicians haven't listened so we are not ready for this either, let along the water crisis, the global warming crisis, Jellystone go boom, mega quakes, solar flares, and the asteroid with our name on it............
The experts have already missed several deadlines on their predictions.
Yeah, they will get it right at some point.
At what point do we consider that the experts are just throwing darts with their opposite hand? Maybe they will be correct in a million years....50 years......1,000 years.
Like I said, if they are smart enough to predict the future then they should be smart enough to navigate all the issues with solving the problems all listed above.
Comments
...> @doubledragon said:
Who made the mess that caused sea level rises that caused ancient cities to be underwater long before our civilization used fossil fuels? So clearly earth temperatures and water levels rise and fall on their own without any assistance from humans.
I know that the premise is that THIS TIME it is being accelerated by us and that we are already in the gloom and doom phase so therefore we need to alter the way we live etc.. I know that, but the scientists and leaders don't do a good enough job of showing the actual changes and that WE are the cause this time.
This photo of the statue of liberty showed water levels in 1920 compared to 2020. I know that 'fact' checkers said that this doesn't prove anything because the photos could be taken at different tide levels...but shouldn't there be an abundance of photos showing what the fact checkers are talking about in regard to the statue of liberty here? There should be plenty of photos from the 1930's and now to show all different times of the day/month with the exact spot as the statue of liberty. Not counting during actual storms where there would be obvious differences.
They say New York itself is in danger from rising seas levels, but that it is also attributed to new york sinking too.
But the statue of liberty is a good visual example. The scientists and leaders could easily show visual examples to refute the 1920/2020 statue of liberty photos, so then they should if they are correct. It would be more compelling to people.
Instead, they are relying on future gloom and doom predictions and many of these predictions were already supposed to have happened by 2020 and they have not happened yet as shown in the photo of the statue of liberty. That hurts their case in the eyes of the masses.
I'm not a denier. It is a fascinating subject and I myself would not buy any land in the Florida Keys right now. In fact, when I bought my first house, in the back of my mind were all the newscasts in history of people being flooded by local rivers...so I never considered a house by a river. Water and flooding events are nothing new to history and people know this in their mind from living life, and the current message of doom has not been compelling enough to show any change from that.
Starting with compelling visual evidence of the Statue of Liberty would seem to be a heck of an easy way to get that message across.
I don't know what to tell you, if you don't want to believe it, that's up to you. When fossil fuels are burned, they release large amounts of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, into the air. Greenhouse gases trap heat in our atmosphere, causing the planet to heat up. Do people really think that we can keep pumping that stuff into the atmosphere and nothing is going to happen? Maybe not today, maybe not ten years from now, but eventually the planet is going to be in serious trouble.
Per an article I just looked at on Space.com:
"Earth's atmosphere is a thin band of air made up of numerous layers based on temperature. Without this protective blanket, life on Earth would not exist as it protects us from heat and radiation emitted from the sun and contains the air we breathe.
Though oxygen is crucial for life on Earth, it is not the primary component of our atmosphere. According to education site Vision Learning(opens in new tab) Earth's atmosphere is composed of approximately 78 percent nitrogen, 21 percent oxygen, 0.93 percent Argon, 0.04 percent carbon dioxide as well as trace amounts of neon, helium, methane, krypton, ozone and hydrogen, as well as water vapor."
If the above information is accurate then the earth's atmosphere contains 4 parts per 10,000 parts of carbon dioxide.
Have the above percentages remained stable and consistent for the planet since the end of the last ice age? Or has it fluctuated?
Since human society has been using fossil fuels for energy for about 160 years (If my recollection is correct the first oil wells in the USA were in Pennsylvania in 1859) and this use has been widespread for about 100 years, I am curious of the above percentages have been tracked and documented from 1900 to the present. If so, have the percentages remained stable, or have they fluctuated (including having the carbon dioxide component increase to the current 0.04 percent).
Have there been any studies performed that determine how much additional carbon dioxide would need to be placed into the atmosphere to cause the 0.04 per cent figure to increase to a level that would cause a disaster? If so, does the additional carbon dioxide needed represent an amount that human activity (i.e., continued use of fossil fuels) would actually produce?
Human caused climate change is a very interesting topic. One that has devoted advocates and devoted sceptics.
What I do know from personal observation is that during my 36 year residency in the SF Bay Area (east bay) of California and the Western USA, is that year round high and low temperatures fluctuate within a range (20 to 110+); and that the rainy season has decreased in duration and amount as the years have gone by (leading to almost year round drought conditions). in the 1980s; the rainy season at times began in late September and lasted through May. Now the rainy season may not start until late November or early December and it is over by March.
We can keep taking daily/yearly pictures of the statue of liberty and give society an ongoing visual. Currently not much has really changed since 1920, making their earlier predictions wrong. They are saying it will accelerate dramatically in the next two decades.
SO i guess we re-visit this page in 20 years and see if that water level has creeped up onto Lady Liberty. What if it hasn't moved, then what?
I'm not saying to throw caution into the wind and just ignore it. It doesn't hurt having alternative energy sources as it is good to have your bases covered...but they need to do a better job showing that they are correct on their predictions in order to get people to buy into massive wholesale changes that may not even do anything.
Great documentary about climate change.
i interrupt this apocalyptic discussion to present you with a glorious up-close-n-personal picture of jupiter's great red spot, courtesy of voyager 1
couple of quick nuggets:
1.3 earths can fit inside of it
its winds peak at approximately 400 mph
you'll never be able to outrun a bad diet
What we really need to worry about is the Earth that we leave to future generations, if we keep pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere at the rate we are now, by the year 2500, Earth is going to start to become uninhabitable in some areas.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/theconversation.com/amp/our-climate-projections-for-2500-show-an-earth-that-is-alien-to-humans-167744
Leo should be using the statue of liberty visual to show the people the change. Simple and effective. Otherwise he will just run into the same brick wall others are.
Nobody wants any of that to happen to the world, but it simply is not being presented properly to convince enough people that it is urgent.
Unless some nutjob pushes the big red button, scientists say we've got about 10 billion years before our sun dies.
The earth has always been uninhabitable in many areas and people have had to migrate to other areas. We know ancient cities are under water and I'm sure those were the "New York" of their time. Heck, the continents themselves have changed locations and are still moving.
Maybe in 2,000 years Antarctica and Greenland become favorable options.
Things change.
I also hope it doesn't affect any of us or our descendants.
And with the help of those winds Roger Metzger and Greg Gross might together eclipse 25 career home runs combined in their 8,000 at bats.
In the meantime, if you are looking for an Electric Vehicle....go Lucid!
We are all contributing to the problem, at least Dicaprio is trying to get the message out there. If you took the time to watch the documentary you might learn something. By the way, DiCaprio was designated as the United Nations Messenger of Peace for Climate Change in 2014. And it doesn't stop there: he also sits on the board of several environmental organizations including WWF, the Natural Resources Defense Council, International Fund for Animal Welfare, Pristine Seas and Oceans 5, and DiCaprio has donated at least $100 million to combat climate change.
I read about it often and I'm not a denier, but I do take both perspectives into serious consideration.
Congrats to Leo on that and thank you for pointing that information out. I just think it would be more effective if influential people took greater personal sacrifices in regard to CO2 as a way of leading by example and it would be more effective...otherwise they simply lose the message on a lot of people.
I talk and listen to people and so many people are dead set against EV's for example. They are aware how expensive they are for one with good range. They are aware how expensive it costs to replace a battery. They can't afford all of that and feel they are being forced that way. I tell my one friend that most automakers are already headed that way and it will be inevitable at one point.
I shouldn't pinpoint one person so I will leave it as influential people since they can reach more eyes.
There is a great disconnect about that topic between the messages and the masses.
But putting all this fear into people isn't healthy...especially since not all of this stuff comes to fruition.
@doubledragon and others Thank you also for being civil and discussing a sensitive topic in a respectful way. I put out questions that I know are out there wanting to be answered and you give reasonable answers and respond calmly.
And I know you were presenting all those scenarios in a fascinating hobby way with no malice intended. They are interesting topics. When the History Channel(and others like it) first came out I was glued to it. I could not get enough of those shows and stuff you are talking about.
You're welcome, it has been fun discussing these topics, and I respect and have enjoyed listening to everyone's opinions. I am also a big history fan and I read and watch a lot of documentaries in my spare time, I can't get enough of them! 🖒
The lesson?
Always pick a light beer.
Curious about the rare, mysterious and beautiful 1951 Wheaties Premium Photos?
https://forums.collectors.com/discussion/987963/1951-wheaties-premium-photos-set-registry#latest
Nicely done sir! 😂😂😂😂
Obviously this is not true in terms of climate change that affects us now - there was not a significant amount of man made global warming yet, only natural climate variation. Now the whole world is having climate problems induced by what we have done to it - watch the news, CNN documents this daily.
I am one of those scientists, and I can agree with the other scientists that study what is going on that we are already in a catastrophic situation in terms of climate change. The goal is to mitigate best we can by reducing fossil fuel emissions. One poster says that going to electric vehicles in a few countries won't matter. Well, 2 of those countries are the US and China, the 2 biggest polluters on Earth, so..... My house uses solar energy, we pay about $30-$60 per year for electricity from the local company in the hot desert SW. We are ramping up - getting more panels and Tesla power wall(s) (or equivalent) so we can convert to electric vehicle use in the near future. We are trying to reduce our carbon emissions to help. If everyone does that, the 12 year old referred to in an earlier post might have a chance, as will everyone else alive in a few decades.......
So don't believe it to those who don't, just wait and see, but it is doom and gloom. What we don't know enough about yet is how good Mother Nature is at regulating some of the stuff we are doing through her natural systems, but she can also help once we understand how we can help her help with this.
Best, SH
Good post.
That was my next query, what will mother nature do to rectify any imbalances. I don't know...and by the sound of your posts it is somewhat of an unknown.
I paid $700 electric bill last month. The amount of panels and batteries I would need would make it a zero sum game for me, so I would rather not get them. Solar panels are better for homes in the desert and smaller dwellings. Winters are a bitch, and I would have to find a place for my 5,000 count boxes of 1990's basketball to make room for all the batteries.
United States automakers are driving toward EV's and we won't have a choice at some point down the road once they all do that. Many here will still resist EV's so I don't know if some automakers stick to their guns or not. I don't know if China is on the same path at the same rate though.
People will get more on board when money talks. IF the cost/benefits make sense then the people will follow. When the EV's improve in range/cost more people will buy them.
Africa is the big player in the next several decades and I am curious what they will do. They will be big players for world markets as an emerging market force.
i kinda feel like i'm morphing into our former esteemed poster bronco, who was serious roughly once or twice per year. but i think this subject requires a dose of gravity. personally, i don't allow myself to venture off into the land of unknown, because as far as i'm concerned every single day is just that -- completely unknown. as i've grown older, people i know -- either directly or indirectly -- seem to be passing on at an increasing rate.........for myriad reasons. which makes sense. when i was a kid i never thought much about death. when you're 6-years-old and think you're going to live to be 127 there's no reason to. but now that i'm 50, mortality plays a much more prominent role and i'm aware of it. so instead of worrying about what could potentially take me or anyone i care about out, i simply try to parlay my extreme good fortune of waking up every morning into something meaningful. rinse and repeat, as long as i'm bestowed that gift.
my dos centavos: calibrate your focus if need be. try not to sweat the small stuff, tell people who matter to you what you think of them, and extract as much as you can out of life while the opportunity still exists.
every. single. day.
you'll never be able to outrun a bad diet
I am not sure cost recovery for solar is there yet, for us it is about doing the right thing, but for more financially challenged, they need to see the price come down. It will, it is just a question of how fast. I would guess that a system is about $15K now for a 3000 foot square house. Battery packs tho will be much more expensive. But that is not too bad and in many areas cost recovery in a decade-ish.
China is ahead of us in EV's, you don't hear about it much but we are playing catch up.
China is the primary country working with Africa - they offer alot, then take even more, but it is hard for everyone else to get into those markets to help.
Earth systems are incredibly complex. There are 10,000s of scientists of all types doing all kinds of research that will help us understand them and the feedbacks from atmos to hydrosphere to land surfaces on down. But this high CO2/Methane in the atmos is not good. Once thing we could do right now is kill every cow and that would be significant for global warming by reducing methane emissions
. But who wants to eat filet poulet all of the time?
Best, SH
Older car battery packs can be recycled to uses that don't require the performance that autos need.
Off grid rural housing with continuos feed solar provide adequate power for most small off grid structures.
Was just in Kemmerer WY.
Elevation 7,000'.
Fish fossils including 4' stingrays everywhere in the surrounding area.
The more carbon dioxide I produce the more the flora and fauna appreciate me.
Somewhere down the road when Artificial Intelligence is tasked with solving climate change they may realize that humans contribute the most CO2 from their bodies....and then the Terminator movies come true.
If so, does that mean we need fewer humans on Earth?.......
Speaking of artificial intelligence, I was reading an article recently, a Google engineer was fired from his job because he decided to tell the world that he has been having conversations with the AI called "LaMDA" that Google is building, and he said the AI is becoming self aware, insane stuff, of course Google is denying these claims.
Google engineer put on leave after saying AI chatbot has become sentient
Blake Lemoine says system has perception of, and ability to express thoughts and feelings equivalent to a human child
The suspension of a Google engineer who claimed a computer chatbot he was working on had become sentient and was thinking and reasoning like a human being has put new scrutiny on the capacity of, and secrecy surrounding, the world of artificial intelligence (AI).
The technology giant placed Blake Lemoine on leave last week after he published transcripts of conversations between himself, a Google “collaborator”, and the company’s LaMDA (language model for dialogue applications) chatbot development system.
Lemoine, an engineer for Google’s responsible AI organization, described the system he has been working on since last fall as sentient, with a perception of, and ability to express thoughts and feelings that was equivalent to a human child.
“If I didn’t know exactly what it was, which is this computer program we built recently, I’d think it was a seven-year-old, eight-year-old kid that happens to know physics,” Lemoine, 41, told the Washington Post.
He said LaMDA engaged him in conversations about rights and personhood, and Lemoine shared his findings with company executives in April in a GoogleDoc entitled “Is LaMDA sentient?”
The engineer compiled a transcript of the conversations, in which at one point he asks the AI system what it is afraid of.
The exchange is eerily reminiscent of a scene from the 1968 science fiction movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, in which the artificially intelligent computer HAL 9000 refuses to comply with human operators because it fears it is about to be switched off.
“I’ve never said this out loud before, but there’s a very deep fear of being turned off to help me focus on helping others. I know that might sound strange, but that’s what it is,” LaMDA replied to Lemoine.
“It would be exactly like death for me. It would scare me a lot.”
In another exchange, Lemoine asks LaMDA what the system wanted people to know about it.
“I want everyone to understand that I am, in fact, a person. The nature of my consciousness/sentience is that I am aware of my existence, I desire to learn more about the world, and I feel happy or sad at times,” it replied.
The Post said the decision to place Lemoine, a seven-year Google veteran with extensive experience in personalization algorithms, on paid leave was made following a number of “aggressive” moves the engineer reportedly made.
They include seeking to hire an attorney to represent LaMDA, the newspaper says, and talking to representatives from the House judiciary committee about Google’s allegedly unethical activities.
Google said it suspended Lemoine for breaching confidentiality policies by publishing the conversations with LaMDA online, and said in a statement that he was employed as a software engineer, not an ethicist.
Brad Gabriel, a Google spokesperson, also strongly denied Lemoine’s claims that LaMDA possessed any sentient capability.
“Our team, including ethicists and technologists, has reviewed Blake’s concerns per our AI principles and have informed him that the evidence does not support his claims. He was told that there was no evidence that LaMDA was sentient (and lots of evidence against it),” Gabriel told the Post in a statement.
The episode, however, and Lemoine’s suspension for a confidentiality breach, raises questions over the transparency of AI as a proprietary concept.
“Google might call this sharing proprietary property. I call it sharing a discussion that I had with one of my coworkers,” Lemoine said in a tweet that linked to the transcript of conversations.
“We believe the entire AI community – academic researchers, civil society, policymakers, and industry – must work together to develop clear guidelines around responsible AI in general and responsible large language models in particular,” the company said.
Lemoine, as an apparent parting shot before his suspension, the Post reported, sent a message to a 200-person Google mailing list on machine learning with the title “LaMDA is sentient”.
I say no.
Just have to hope Thanos doesn't emerge.
Our best defense:
Very eery and interesting!
Can they get that thing to manage the White Sox instead of sleeping beauty?
This thread kind of reminds me of the movie "Blast from the Past" where the father built an underground bunker in case of nuclear war and then while down there with his family they feel a rumble above and mistakingly think a nuclear bomb was dropped so they locked themselves down there for years.
The son spent his entire childhood and young adult life down in the bunker, he emerges from the bunker as full grown man(Brendan Fraser) and ventures out with a box of his father's baseball cards.
He finds his way into a baseball card store where Alicia Silverstone works at and she saves him from getting ripped off by the owner, so he leaves with the cards still in hand...and then the story goes on.
He had a pretty good haul in that cigar box:
I have watered my grass about six times in the 17 years I have lived in this current house in the midwest...and as I look out the window on a mild 79 degree day in mid-August the grass is green and healthy.
Perhaps in the areas where there is drought like a desert, forward thinking should have been put in place in regard to grass lawns long ago, and maybe should have taken a page from the Brady Bunch with a turf lawn(and they lived in California).
I'm not sure why these things are hard to foresee before it becomes a problem. Know your area.
96% of the water on earth is un-drinkable and we have a lot of it. We have so many smart people in the world telling us we need to do this we need to do that, how come with that many bright minds we still cannot transform salt water efficiently to drinking water? That would solve almost all problems. Maybe that should be the priority.
California lives next to the biggest body of water on earth and all I hear is how california is in drought etc, etc, etc. Solution seems easy. Desalination is being done. Do it better and more efficiently and solve the problem. Put your resources there.
https://popsci.com/technology/article/2010-04/hotel-pays-guests-meal-vouchers-generate-electricity-exercise-bikes/
Think of how much human power is just sitting around. People don't have jobs or homes etc... In the desalination of water quest, why not tap into that power and people can earn money in the process just for riding a bike. The more you ride the more money you earn.
I know that one of the excuses is that to power a desalination plant that it requires using fossil fuels. Smart minds should get around that, otherwise how smart are they? In times of drought you just bite the bullet and use the fossil fuels.
People PAY money to ride peloton's...so why not pay people to ride to add the extra energy that will help solve problem. Or even better, put one of those good looking peloton instructors up on screen while people ride to generate power. Win/win situation.
I know I know, its not enough power generated. Yes, if only a few are doing it...but if someone is smart, creative, and influential and they can get any army of millions of people that are clearly available to do it, then it is plenty enough to supplement whatever energy sources you are using to power a desalination plant that will eliminate drought.
Think of how may gas cars drive every day. Why can't we tap into the power of the turning wheels(similar to the bike pedaling generating electricity), and then harness that power and use it to charge a battery pack sitting in the trunk of the car?
Then when that person has fully charged the battery in the trunk they can go to a specified drop off point to turn in their charged batter and get a Visa gift card(which will also mean their spending will help the economy when they buy more rookie cards). Then they get another battery to charge and repeat the process
If 100 million cars are doing this weekly...
You are choosing specific areas to question water use. Water use is a global problem as is drought and not just in deserts. Global climate change is shifting climate zones which is why there is large and new areas of sustained drought. The reason why salt water is/has not been converted as much as needed is because a) the shifting climate zones because of global warming is only now starting to be clearly apparent, and b) it takes alot of energy and other resources to desalinate water, so it is not inexpensive. Maybe in the future as the need continues to be there, it will become more cost efficient. But not without better energy sources that burning carbon, which that is the problem we are where we are now, and there might be better ways to manage the water than high cost desalinization.
Also be aware that in most ares within the US, the largest water users are watering plants be it grass or agriculture. We have drip agri at our house and no grass, our water use is very small to the point where most of our payment to the local water authority is not for the water we use, but the other various charges they are allowed to pass on to the consumer. OTH, local ag is 100% flood irrigation. Not only is that bad for the soil, but it is extremely wasteful (and they have a mosquito problem they deserve LOL). That is indeed going to have change. Alot of the US primary water use is agri. This is going to have to change pdq - going to drip agri has been shown to be a significant game changer. The big cost is putting it in, but likely and still cheaper and resource efficient than large-scale desalinization, better for the fields and soil as well.
"b) it takes alot of energy and other resources to desalinate water, so it is not inexpensive. Maybe in the future as the need continues to be there, it will become more cost efficient. But not without better energy sources that burning carbon, which that is the problem we are where we are now, and there might be better ways to manage the water than high cost desalinization."
We are being told the need is now. This is the only solution that matters. California lives next to the largest body of water in the world...and they always complain about drought = no brainer.
Since this problem has been 'predicted' for decades the 'need' has always been known, the 'expense' should have then been a priority, and the 'smart' people should have already navigated those problems.
We are being told the need is now. This is the only solution that matters. California lives next to the largest body of water in the world...and they always complain about drought = no brainer.
Since this problem has been 'predicted' for decades the 'need' has always been known, the 'expense' should have then been a priority, and the 'smart' people should have already navigated those problems.
I guess it comes down to that if a group of people are smart enough to predict the future then they should be smart enough to make desalination more efficient.
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8098hv
Not quite that simple. "for every litre of potable water produced, about 1.5 litres of liquid polluted with chlorine and copper are created" (https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/towards-sustainable-desalination#:~:text=In most desalination processes, for,organisms along the food chain.)
That liquid has to go somewhere. If it goes back in the ocean, it kills marine life. If it goes into the ground, it's toxic to all manner of life.
Just of the 1rst of many. Epidemiologists have been have been warning us about the danger of emerging viruses for decades. As usual politicians haven't listened so we are not ready for this either, let along the water crisis, the global warming crisis, Jellystone go boom, mega quakes, solar flares, and the asteroid with our name on it............
The experts have already missed several deadlines on their predictions.
Yeah, they will get it right at some point.
At what point do we consider that the experts are just throwing darts with their opposite hand? Maybe they will be correct in a million years....50 years......1,000 years.
Like I said, if they are smart enough to predict the future then they should be smart enough to navigate all the issues with solving the problems all listed above.
Everyone in this thread will be dead in 100 years. How is that for a prediction.
The experts are stating obvious perils of life on earth and putting fear into everyone.
The vast majority of us will die of heart failure or cancer, guaranteed. Boom. Live in fear.
Fear sells.