Ramez Naam

Climate and clean energy investor. Author of 5 books. Energy & Environment co-chair @SingularityU. Trying to build a better world.

[Ramez Naam @ramez]

Despite this election, I remain an optimist about America and the world. Humanity will continue to produce new ideas and new innovations to improve our lives. Good people will continue to come together to improve the world. And the political tide will turn. We'll make it so.

[Ramez Naam @ramez]

@alexolegimas @alz_zyd_ This is crazy talk. It would never work.

[Ramez Naam @ramez]

@curiouswavefn Very much agree. I use dishwashers as examples as well. Those are real robots.

[Ramez Naam @ramez]

I agree with Martin here. What I've seen does not convince me that humanoid robots are going to change the world anytime soon. Robots are an incredible technology and the world will increasingly be suffused by them - but most will not be humanoid.

[Martin Ford @MFordFuture]

Terrific article by Stephen Witt in the @NewYorker about progress in humanoid robotics. I'd be happy to be wrong, but I fear the people making big investments in building humanoids (including @elonmusk) are making the same mistake that Zuckerberg (@finkd) made with his investments in VR and the metaverse: Someday it will be huge--but just not yet.

However, non-humanoid robots in more controlled environments like warehouses and factories are continuing to become more capable and dexterous and will have a significant impact on jobs. Amazon, for example, has already declared its intention to scale the business via efficiency improvements (#AI and #robotics) rather than hiring large numbers of new workers. I cover all this in more depth in the new edition of my book "Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future."
(Link to article in the reply)
#RiseoftheRobots

[Adi @adi_baradwaj]

There's a motte-and-bailey trick being played between two definitions of "superintelligence"

"Big-S Superintelligence", which is definitionally omnipotent

And "small-s superintelligence", which is the hypothesized end state of the current thread of AI research

It's surprising how uncritically the AI safety community treats these dubious equivalences, especially since one of the most famous treatments of the motte-and-bailey fallacy comes from none other than Scott Alexander, who's quite prominent in the community

[Ramez Naam @ramez]

@annhafter New nuclear is quite expensive outside of China and S. Korea. Already built nuclear is cheap.

[Ramez Naam @ramez]

Nuclear restarts, uprates, and preventing reactor shutdowns altogether are no-brainers. Some of the cheapest clean electricity possible.

[John Raymond Hanger  @johnrhanger]

"For the first time, US operators are racing to bring two shuttered nuclear plants back online, targeting 2026 and 2027 restarts"

Plants in Michigan and Pennsylvania.

Both will avoid substantial amounts of polluting gas electricity production.
https://t.co/s6ZoDCsDf8

[Ramez Naam @ramez]

@elicont @hodlipson Hod is wise!

[Ramez Naam @ramez]

@AndyMasley That's crazy.

[Hunter📈🌈📊 @StatisticUrban]

One of my favorite Deng anecdotes.

[Ramez Naam @ramez]

Brb, hacking my wearables to always tell me I slept well.

[Max Lugavere @maxlugavere]

Just telling people they slept poorly led to impaired cognitive function. Telling them they slept fine preserved it.

[Ramez Naam @ramez]

@Perrid13 @tenobrus The limiting factor on how many spousal murders there are is not whether or not you have access to an LLM to help you think through how to hide it.

[Ramez Naam @ramez]

@Perrid13 @tenobrus Lol at equating AI to nukes. Not serious.

[Ramez Naam @ramez]

@Anthurium_xanth I believe that government should have the same power to restrict AI content as they do to restrict what can be published on the internet or in books. And that is nearly zero.

[Ramez Naam @ramez]

"No matter how high quality your tokens are, they cannot turn lead into gold."

Pleasantly unhinged and overall correct: https://t.co/MZ3GiIM0Vz

[Ramez Naam @ramez]

@packyM I loved this.

[Ramez Naam @ramez]

It's true. In 2019 Apoorv was talking about how software could reduce the stress on transformers and the distribution grid. Proud investor in Weave Grid.

[Apoorv Bhargava @apoorv_bh89]

Good thing some of us built a company whose fundamental premise was protecting grid assets esp due to load growth

[Ramez Naam @ramez]

@sean_from_earth I have faith in you.

[Ramez Naam @ramez]

@Anthurium_xanth That's the unhinged part. And it is darkly amusing. And it's correct from a civil liberties perspective.

[Sam Altman @sama]

so far at least, i'm pretty sure AI has been net job-creating.

this was not what i expected--although i was much less pessimistic than others, i thought by this level of capability we'd have seen some impact.

it is possible this direction keeps going!