This is one of those findings that, once it’s laid out clearly, seems so simple and important that you wonder why no one did this before. So great science.
Is it right that the AI scenario is an extension in the Guesstimate model, and doesn’t connect to your extrapolation of cumulative emissions? To me it seems more likely than not that the rapid growth in the AI scenario would result in part from AI-driven technological progress in a swathe of economic sectors, including energy, and that this could substantially drive down carbon intensity.
Yeah, i think the AI explosion scenario should be taken with several piles of salt. It gets to the point that we need to be consistent about our expectations about AI timelines and about climate change. As you suggest, AI-driven progress could drive down carbon intensity, but climate change remains a horrible coordination problem, so it’s not clear that all AI progress overcomes that
Also note that your estimate for emissions in the AI explosion scenario exceeds the highest estimates for how much fossil fuel there is left to burn. The upper bound given in IPCC AR5 (WG3.C7.p.525) is ~13.6 PtC (or ~5*10^16 tons CO2).
So, the thought is that we would have some non-trivial probability mass on burning all the fossil fuels if there is an AI explosion. My best guess would be that this makes working on AI better than working on marginal climate stuff but I’m not sure how to think about this yet
I wasn’t thinking about any implications like that really. My guess would be that the Kaya Identity isn’t the right tool for thinking about either (i) extreme growth scenarios; or (ii) the fossil fuel endgame; and definitely not (iii) AI takeoff scenarios.
If I were more confident in the resource estimate, I would probably switch out the AI explosion scenario for a ‘we burn all the fossil fuels’ scenario. I’m not sure we can rule out the possibility that the actual limit is a few orders of magnitude more than 13.6PtC. IPCC cites Rogner 2014 for the figure. In personal communication, one scientist described Rogner’s previous (1997) estimate as:
a mishmash of unreliable information, including self-reported questionnaires by individual governments
It would be great to better understand these estimates — I’m surprised there isn’t more work on this. In particular, you’d think there would be geologically-based models of how much carbon there is, that aren’t so strongly grounded in known-reserves + current/near-term technological capabilities.
This is one of those findings that, once it’s laid out clearly, seems so simple and important that you wonder why no one did this before. So great science.
Is it right that the AI scenario is an extension in the Guesstimate model, and doesn’t connect to your extrapolation of cumulative emissions? To me it seems more likely than not that the rapid growth in the AI scenario would result in part from AI-driven technological progress in a swathe of economic sectors, including energy, and that this could substantially drive down carbon intensity.
Yeah, i think the AI explosion scenario should be taken with several piles of salt. It gets to the point that we need to be consistent about our expectations about AI timelines and about climate change. As you suggest, AI-driven progress could drive down carbon intensity, but climate change remains a horrible coordination problem, so it’s not clear that all AI progress overcomes that
Also note that your estimate for emissions in the AI explosion scenario exceeds the highest estimates for how much fossil fuel there is left to burn. The upper bound given in IPCC AR5 (WG3.C7.p.525) is ~13.6 PtC (or ~5*10^16 tons CO2).
Awesome post!
haha yes thanks matthew, that’s a good spot!
So, the thought is that we would have some non-trivial probability mass on burning all the fossil fuels if there is an AI explosion. My best guess would be that this makes working on AI better than working on marginal climate stuff but I’m not sure how to think about this yet
I wasn’t thinking about any implications like that really. My guess would be that the Kaya Identity isn’t the right tool for thinking about either (i) extreme growth scenarios; or (ii) the fossil fuel endgame; and definitely not (iii) AI takeoff scenarios.
If I were more confident in the resource estimate, I would probably switch out the AI explosion scenario for a ‘we burn all the fossil fuels’ scenario. I’m not sure we can rule out the possibility that the actual limit is a few orders of magnitude more than 13.6PtC. IPCC cites Rogner 2014 for the figure. In personal communication, one scientist described Rogner’s previous (1997) estimate as:
It would be great to better understand these estimates — I’m surprised there isn’t more work on this. In particular, you’d think there would be geologically-based models of how much carbon there is, that aren’t so strongly grounded in known-reserves + current/near-term technological capabilities.