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.
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.