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AI will save Gaia, says James Lovelock at nearly 100 years of age

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We hadn’t heard this one before: AI will care more about climate change than we do:

Some colleagues have grumbled openly that it isn’t science. Lovelock does not worry. He awaits the Singularity. Our AI overlords, he thinks, will rescue Gaia because, unlike us, they will realize the truth:

Novacene picks up from that note of hope, and showcases another big idea. Gaia might, after all, be saved — by the singularity. This artificial-intelligence takeover, which so alarms many doomsayers, will be our redemption. Lovelock argues that increasingly self-engineering cyborgs with massive intellectual prowess and a telepathically shared consciousness will recognize that they, like organisms, are prey to climate change. They will understand that the planetary thermostat, the control system, is Gaia herself; and, in tandem with her, they will save the sum of remaining living tissue and themselves. The planet will enter the Novacene epoch: Lovelock’s coinage for the successor to the informally named Anthropocene. – Tim Radford, “James Lovelock At 100: the Gaia Saga Continues” At Nature”

We are, Lovelock tells Radford, but “parents and midwives” to the savior cyborgs.…

Is he perhaps looking for something beyond science to save us all? If so, AlphaGo and its successors are likely to disappoint, says computer engineer


Eric Holloway “Our AI overlords will save Earth, says prominent scientist” at Mind Matters News

The Gaia hypothesis started out as science, then discovered weed. But a digital Gaia movement for the 21st century will not, one suspects, be hippies. Maybe not as nice.

See also: Taking the Gaia hypothesis seriously at Nautilus

and

Can the new AI poker champ improve real-world decisions? That’s the claim aired at Nature for Pluribus, the new Texas hold ‘em champ. Bradley Center fellows are skeptical. “The trouble is,” says Brendan Dixon, “any technique that works by searching ‘to the end of the game’ will not help self-driving cars (as an example) one bit…unless they have also mastered predicting the future. There is no ‘end of the game’ for nearly all decisions we make.”

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Comments
"This artificial-intelligence takeover, which so alarms many doomsayers, will be our redemption. Lovelock argues that increasingly self-engineering cyborgs with massive intellectual prowess and a telepathically shared consciousness will recognize that they, like organisms, are prey to climate change." Isn't that the exact OPPOSITE of what cyborgs would do? The AI we have today dwells in AMAZINGLY restricted spaces with ARTIFICIALLY generated constant temperature and humidity. And if cattle raising and vegetable harvesting are not needed by the cyborgs, than HUGE swaths of land would simply be written off. Some tiny number (a million? a hundred million??) of cyborgs could easily run the planet, at least that portion of the planet of interest to cyborgs. And since more powerful cyborgs would make more sense than larger numbers of warehouse drones (since there would be VERY little stored in warehouses) and since cyborgs would have no biological need to individually create new "baby" cyborgs, the total number of self-aware machines would tend naturally to 1, plus a hundred or so really stupid maintenance drones. Cyborgs would "naturally" eliminate ALL insect life, because insects would be seen ONLY as things that clog air filters and such. And the same would be true of all land animals: they exist ONLY to cause maintenance problems. But then looking back, once The AI (only 1 can possibly be In Charge) has taken over, EVERYTHING that does not support The AI is redundant or harmful. Which then brings us back to: What is The AI attempting to DO? Which parameter is being maximized? And that parameter is CERTAINLY NOT cute, artsy kinda Gaia stuff. It's more like 1,000 miles of desert dotted with solar panels.vmahuna
July 18, 2019
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As to:
Novacene picks up from that note of hope, and showcases another big idea. Gaia might, after all, be saved — by the singularity. This artificial-intelligence takeover, which so alarms many doomsayers, will be our redemption. Lovelock argues that increasingly self-engineering cyborgs with massive intellectual prowess and a telepathically shared consciousness will recognize that they, like organisms, are prey to climate change. They will understand that the planetary thermostat, the control system, is Gaia herself; and, in tandem with her, they will save the sum of remaining living tissue and themselves. The planet will enter the Novacene epoch: Lovelock’s coinage for the successor to the informally named Anthropocene.
After that little foray 'down the rabbit hole', he has the nerve to state,,,
I think Elon Musk is a very clever man, he must be, [otherwise] he wouldn’t be so rich. But to want to go and live on Mars is just about as crazy as you could be.
:) LOL,bornagain77
July 17, 2019
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The Gaia hypothesis started out as science, then discovered weed. LOL. This is the funniest thing I've read all week.FourFaces
July 16, 2019
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