Iâd be interested in reading a post on the scale of lead poisoning coming from e-waste. Why do you think it is that we can do nothing about it? Iâm more sceptical that this is particularly relevant to AI, rather than electronics in general, but perhaps you could make that case too. Otherwise Iâd be concerned that the argument might be besides the point, a less extreme case of something like âAI is already harming our future, just look at how many flights people take to AI conventionsâ. Which, to clarify, wouldnât necessarily be wrong, but likely puts the focus in the wrong place/â obscures the real trade-offs involved in any human activity.
Hi Toby! I have a super lay perspective on this so if anyone would like to collaborate on a post I would love for that. Or for someone to just take the idea and run with it.
On not being able to do anything: I am imagining me in various super powerful positions and thinking if I then see e-waste stopping being an issue. I then think main reason they wonât do anything:
Sam AltmanâCanât do it because âAI has promised him glory and richesââhe basically seems interested in power/âimpact/âmoney/âfame
CEO of MicrosoftâLike sam Altman, but with extra pressure from shareholders to create returns. Also, e-waste from Microsoft is not being demanded by the public
Board of OpenAIâSeems like they do not have much control and if they do, they probably worry more about larger number of deaths from other causes
Governments that ship e-waste to poor countriesâNot top 5 issue for voters, would cost money to properly handle e-waste
President of a poor country receiving e-wasteâWould miss out on revenue + probably some degree of connection between governments and local businesses profiting from importing e-waste
CEO of the most powerful NGO leading grass roots activism against e-wasteâNot sure they can build enough momentum, there are so many other issues
The above are only lay guesses, maybe I am missing something
Basically with current deaths to e-waste, I think we are seeing the beginning of how AI will simply push out humans by taking their resources. In this case, the resource they are grabbing from humans is a clean environment. I am imagining the scale of e-waste in a world where even 40% of current labor is replaced by AI + robots. I think this would be possible to estimate initially in terms of tons, and we have some idea of number of deaths due to current volumes of e-waste so could scale those deaths up linearly for a first approximation. AI does not need to be very agentic to cause issues. It only needs to be something the economic system demands, politicians are unable to stop and that will have a large scale. More like natural evolution, a new species that is super fit and adaptable just pushing out other species.
I am totally open to AI having other, even more devastating impacts, but I think the current focus on accidents/âharm from AI is too Western focused and we forget our lessons from e.g. Malariaâthat most/âthe first victims are poor and far away from us. I think the problem with AI will look much worse if we also include non-Western perspectives on harm from AI.
Not sure how the numbers will turn out, but I would not be surprised if we see thousands of deaths due to GPT/âAI e-waste already and extrapolating out e.g. based on Nvidia share price or other publications on the proliferation of AI and its datacenters we might expect hundreds of thousands if not millions of deaths attributable to AI just on current trajectories with current harm models in just a few years. Should get the alarm bells ringing even louder perhaps and could bring on board environmentalists, global health people etc. etc. in an effort to make AI go well.
Iâd be interested in reading a post on the scale of lead poisoning coming from e-waste. Why do you think it is that we can do nothing about it?
Iâm more sceptical that this is particularly relevant to AI, rather than electronics in general, but perhaps you could make that case too. Otherwise Iâd be concerned that the argument might be besides the point, a less extreme case of something like âAI is already harming our future, just look at how many flights people take to AI conventionsâ. Which, to clarify, wouldnât necessarily be wrong, but likely puts the focus in the wrong place/â obscures the real trade-offs involved in any human activity.
Hi Toby! I have a super lay perspective on this so if anyone would like to collaborate on a post I would love for that. Or for someone to just take the idea and run with it.
On not being able to do anything: I am imagining me in various super powerful positions and thinking if I then see e-waste stopping being an issue. I then think main reason they wonât do anything:
Sam AltmanâCanât do it because âAI has promised him glory and richesââhe basically seems interested in power/âimpact/âmoney/âfame
CEO of MicrosoftâLike sam Altman, but with extra pressure from shareholders to create returns. Also, e-waste from Microsoft is not being demanded by the public
Board of OpenAIâSeems like they do not have much control and if they do, they probably worry more about larger number of deaths from other causes
Governments that ship e-waste to poor countriesâNot top 5 issue for voters, would cost money to properly handle e-waste
President of a poor country receiving e-wasteâWould miss out on revenue + probably some degree of connection between governments and local businesses profiting from importing e-waste
CEO of the most powerful NGO leading grass roots activism against e-wasteâNot sure they can build enough momentum, there are so many other issues
The above are only lay guesses, maybe I am missing something
Basically with current deaths to e-waste, I think we are seeing the beginning of how AI will simply push out humans by taking their resources. In this case, the resource they are grabbing from humans is a clean environment. I am imagining the scale of e-waste in a world where even 40% of current labor is replaced by AI + robots. I think this would be possible to estimate initially in terms of tons, and we have some idea of number of deaths due to current volumes of e-waste so could scale those deaths up linearly for a first approximation. AI does not need to be very agentic to cause issues. It only needs to be something the economic system demands, politicians are unable to stop and that will have a large scale. More like natural evolution, a new species that is super fit and adaptable just pushing out other species.
I am totally open to AI having other, even more devastating impacts, but I think the current focus on accidents/âharm from AI is too Western focused and we forget our lessons from e.g. Malariaâthat most/âthe first victims are poor and far away from us. I think the problem with AI will look much worse if we also include non-Western perspectives on harm from AI.
Not sure how the numbers will turn out, but I would not be surprised if we see thousands of deaths due to GPT/âAI e-waste already and extrapolating out e.g. based on Nvidia share price or other publications on the proliferation of AI and its datacenters we might expect hundreds of thousands if not millions of deaths attributable to AI just on current trajectories with current harm models in just a few years. Should get the alarm bells ringing even louder perhaps and could bring on board environmentalists, global health people etc. etc. in an effort to make AI go well.