The Future is Electric

Amazon is reportedly working on a television adaptation of the Culture, having acquired the rights to Consider Phlebas, the first book in the series of ten. Elon Musk names the SpaceX autonomous barges that catch his descending reusable rocket stages after intelligent ships from the series. This is a podcast version of the article of the same name in the TFIE Medium publication.

Pro-nuclear advocates have a few go-to cliches in their rhetorical kitbag. A big one is that the public has an irrational fear of nuclear energy and it’s led to nuclear shutdowns and excessive regulation. Let’s examine the historical record of nuclear generation to see if it's true. This is a podcast version of the article of the same name in the TFIE Medium publication.

Official statements on the costs of the Fukushima nuclear disaster don’t capture all the costs. When a full accounting is done, the total cost will be closer to a trillion USD than not. That’s $2 billion USD for each of the roughly 500 nuclear reactors operating on Earth today. This is a podcast version of the article of the same name in the TFIE Medium publication.

If the US PWR fleet and their owners could convince regulators to the fleet to bid on day-ahead reserves and draw up new contracts to support it, they could keep more reactors running producing low-carbon electricity longer in the face of competition from cheap gas, wind, and solar. This is a podcast version of the article of the same name on the TFIE Medium publication.

Actual conservatives are poorly represented by parties that are branded as conservative in many countries right now, which is where the problem arises. This is a podcast version of the article of the same name in the TFIE Medium publication.

Nixon was contained by a party which still had integrity despite his early efforts, but his efforts led, through many other culpable leaders, to Trump having no opposition from within the shell of the party he burrowed into like a vulture on a rotting corpse. This is a podcast version of the article by the same name in the TFIE Medium publication.

It’s a game a lot of conservatives are playing these days, trying to pretend that other liberals aren’t really liberals, a No True Scotsman inversion that’s fairly consistent through the Intellectual Dim Web and many young male conservatives today. This is a podcast version of the article of the same name in the TFIE Medium publication.

It’s no longer possible for the developed world to use the developing world as its landfill site and recycling facility. AMP Robotics is at the forefront of systems which are allowing us to sort our own waste more effectively. This is a podcast version of the article of the same name in the TFIE Medium publication.

Regardless of anything else, the primary glue that holds our buildings, bridges, and infrastructure together is going to become more expensive in a low-carbon world. This has fairly significant implications for the cost to build most of the infrastructure we depend on. This is a podcast version of the article of the same name in the TFIE Medium publication.

New Brunswick Power and through them the rate payers of the province of New Brunswick are out at minimum $13 million spent on an obviously non-viable technology. Their due diligence failed. This is a podcast version of the article of the same name on the TFIE Medium publication.

Actual conservatives, people interested in preserving the environment, preserving the progress that’s been made and not that interested in new progress, and working off of solid empirical evidence of what works and what doesn’t, are mostly not in the Conservative Party of Canada today. This is a podcast version of an article by the same name in the TFIE Medium publication.

What is true for every small settlement in rural areas is more true for the Yukon: their ability to survive and thrive in the era of urbanization is deeply challenged. It’s extremely difficult to offer even the basics of living in developed countries: clean water, reliable electricity, a diverse diet and internet connectivity. All of these things are more challenged by climate change. This is a podcast version of the article of the same name in the Medium TFIE publication.

Listening to Trump on wind energy provides such a fact-free experience that anyone exposed to his ranting ends up less informed. Pity the poor students, unless they were psychology students of course, as they would be gaining invaluable case material. This is a podcast version of the article of the same name on the Medium TFIE publication.

The oil industry and Alberta are going to leave Canadians from outside of Alberta with a quarter trillion dollar liability to clean up. And we will. But we’re going to be really pissed at Alberta and Albertans for decades over it. This is a podcast version of the article of the same name on the Medium TFIE publication.

It’s our job to help them. Let no aged, ignorant, mush-brained, conservative man be left behind will be our rallying call. We will celebrate our victories and rue each one who passes into that good night still watching Fox News and reading Breitbart. This is a podcast version of the article of the same name in the Medium TFIE publication.

I've been paying attention to climate change deniers and the academic studies around their delusions for years. They used to be able to surprise me, but now they are so far down the rabbit hole of ignorance and bile that it's impossible for them to shock me. This is a podcast version of the article of same name in the TFIE Medium publication.

We have multiple lines of evidence that indicate that Republicans need to win a lot of Independents to win the Presidency, that Independents are increasingly concerned about climate change, and that this is probably even more true in Florida than anywhere else. This is a podcast version of the article of the same name in the TFIE Medium publication.

We are experiencing a period of increasing isolation between left and right in North America, and the data suggests that’s true in Europe as well. Many on the right think that liberal-oriented parties have become too extreme, too left wing. So why do liberals have such different world views than conservatives these days? In general, data and reality. This is a podcast version of the article of the same name on the TFIE Medium publication.

Climate change is the most significant issue of the 21st Century. It’s already causing environmental refugees, economic impacts, health impacts and the impacts are only going to increase over the next 80 and 200 years. Urgent action is required, as the UN IPCC 1.5 degree reports make clear. Yet mass media is significantly challenged in their coverage. What can be done? This is podcast version of the article of the same name in the TFIE Medium publication.

Carbon taxes and cap-and-trade systems are policy tools. Regulation is a policy tool. Picking winners such as wind and solar to incent via tax breaks and feed-in tariffs are policy tools. Picking losers such as coal to eliminate is a policy tool. The answer won’t be either taxes or regulation, but both. This is a podcast version of the article of the same name on the TFIE Medium publication.

Seven concepts — fungibility, ubiquity, loose coupling, electronics outperforming the physical, human nature, economics, and the future already being here — make it clear that the future is electric. They allow us to look across the existing solution sets and see clear winners and losers. This is a podcast version of the article of the same name on the TFIE Medium publication.

There’s no reason to think that Gen IV reactors whenever they actually get to a stage where they might be deployed commercially will end up being cheaper than alternatives. The opposite is likely to be true, that they will be much more expensive than the alternatives and with other unappealing characteristics. This is a podcast version of the article with the same name on the TFIE Medium podcast.

In 2017, Stanford economist Tony Seba and tech investor James Arbib released a co-authored study which made the following claims: “Private car ownership will drop 80% by 2030 in the US" and "The number of passenger vehicles on American roads will go from 247 million in 2020 to 44 million in 2030." Those are compelling numbers, but I’m not buying them. I think the underlying model of human behavior and transportation is too simplistic. This is a podcast version of the article of the same name in the TFIE Medium publication.

Congestion is a serious issue in developed countries, but autonomous cars are likely to be as much a part of the problem as part of the solution. As I look across all of the systemic implications of autonomous cars, I see equal or greater congestion on our roads, not less, and more societal negative externalities than advantages. Autonomous vehicles are not a silver bullet for traffic problems. This is a podcast version of the article by the same name on the TFIE Medium publication.

This story deals with how neural nets learn to pay attention to specific features, giving them priority in a continuum of what they pay attention to. This is referred to as salience, a key aspect of how humans pay attention. Neural nets can be trained to have our saliency biases or they can develop their own, ones that will often surprise us. This is a podcast version of the article of the same name on the TFIE Medium publication.

Some people keep saying one degree Celsius like it’s no big deal. But it’s a very big deal, especially the rapidity with which we are going it. One degree is disruptive. Two degrees is massively disruptive. Three degrees is catastrophic for millions of people globally. This is a podcast version of the article of the same name on the TFIE Medium publication.

There is a core of 100% settled science at the heart of climate change which will not change unless there is a huge paradigm shift in our understanding of the climate, something which is extremely unlikely. None of the precursors Kuhn identified to a paradigm shift are actually apparent in the literature and research that is underway. This is a podcast version of the article of the same name on the TFIE Medium publication.

Harley-Davidson has a racism problem. Even its most progressive brand adherents have challenges with that. And even its most progressive and rational adherents will cherry-pick, deny and obfuscate to avoid confronting unpleasant reality. This is a podcast version of the article by the same name in the Medium TFIE publication.

Global warming disruption is upon us. We have record hurricanes in North America, increasing typhoons in Asia, increasing and changing monsoons around India, increased wildfires in Australia and western North America and sea water in the streets of Miami and other major cities on sunny, calm days. Most people will adapt in place. But many have the means or motivation to find the places which will see lower impacts. Where will they be? This is a podcast version of the article of the same name on the Medium TFIE publication.

Electric cars and other vehicles continue to gain momentum, just as autonomous features are becoming mainstream. But while potential job losses due to autonomy are a strong focus, the multitude of impacts electrification will have on road transportation aren’t as clearly stated. Overall, the impact will be very positive economically, but there will be a lot of disruption and many losers too. This a podcast version of the article of the same name in the Medium TFIE publication.

Climate change deniers are getting angrier and angrier because there is less and less ground that they can even moderately stand upon. They are being forced off of multiple positions and the world is ignoring their opinions en masse. People used to be able to believe that warming wasn’t occurring without much cognitive dissonance. But not any more. This is a podcast version of the article of the same name on the TFIE Medium publication.

Tesla is kicking all of the luxury car manufacturers’ butts up and down the categories they sell in. That’s true of all equivalent brands, but BMW is in the most trouble. BMW’s new electrification strategy is the same as its current strategy — the generic car brand that tries to have a car for everyone. BMW’s documented and communicated strategy is to have every model be available in either a fully internal combustion, fully electric, or hybrid model. This is a podcast version of the article by the same name on The Future is Electric Medium publication.

For the past few years, study after study has been showing a decrease in both conservative support for and rates of vaccination. This appears to be related to the current trend of conservatives toward an anti-science agenda in several countries and possibly the introduction of the human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccine. This is a podcast version of the article of the same name in the TFIE Medium publication.

Bezos is right, but he’s also somewhat banal. This is an insight all CEOs need to have front and center at all times. CEOs today need to have clear strategic sight lines for disruptors in their industry and the internal and external factors which both threaten their businesses, and give them great opportunity. This is a podcast version of the article of the same name from the TFIE Medium publication.

Jordan B. Peterson, clinical psychologist, best-selling author, self-help guru and strong defender of his right to insult people while suing others for insulting him, is many things. One of those things is that he is a favorite of the alt-right and the so called manosphere, including incel and MGTOW groups, as well as the Intellectual Dark Web. What exactly is going on? This is a podcast version of the article of the same name on the TFIE Medium publication.

Conservatives, both voters and party, believe and assert so much that is disconnected from reality that it’s painful to listen to. It’s hard to think of a time in history when such a large group has been so privileged for so long in their ability to be completely and absurdly wrong about so many things and yet succeed. They have so much power and influence globally, and they are squandering it because they have no adherence to empirical reality. This is the podcast version of the article of the same name on the TFIE Medium publication.

Does Peterson really believe that global warming and climate change are faked, or not an issue, or not understood? Yes, he’s that intellectually arrogant, and is rewarded richly for being so, so he’s sticking with it. Is he right about climate change? No, even less so than on most of the other topics he spouts off about. But it won’t stop him until his audience stops listening and roaring their approval. This is a podcast version of the article of the same name in the TFIE publication.

Cognitive science is helping us understand how to communicate more effectively with people who don’t currently accept the science behind global warming and climate change. There’s hope. Find influencers and convince them. Play up “the climate is changing” angle and play down “the humans are causing it” angle. Find people inside the tribe who can be effective influencers. Talk about the hurricanes and wildfires. Don’t broadcast and expect to be effective. This is an oral version of the article of the same name in the TFIE Medium publication.

Postmodernism is mostly just a form of artistic criticism, but conservative intellectuals are constantly attacking it these days. Liberals are perplexed by the attacks, if they think about them at all. What the heck is going on? This TFIE culture piece is an oral version of the article of the same name on the TFIE Medium publication.

Our fictional, machine-learning, neural-net, robotic velociraptor learns to open doors through massively parallelized simulation while 'asleep'. This is strongly related to the recent success of open.ai in teaching a pair of neural nets to manipulate a robotic hand to solve Rubik's Cube one-handed, showing that the state of the art for neural net control of sophisticated robots is a lot closer than it appears. This podcast is of the article of the same name on the TFIE Medium publication.

I spend a lot of time critiquing solutions for low-carbon transformation, and that leads, inevitably, to people asking me: what works? What should we be doing? Most recently, that came in the form of a question on Quora that was well enough formed to trigger me to write down the solution set: “What exactly is the current scientific consensus on steps to combat climate change?“ This podcast has a written version in the TFIE Medium publication. 

Peterson is merely the current front-man for the recurrent and always mythical crisis of masculinity. Last time around it was Robert Bly, Joseph Campbell, and Robert Johnson who were the foci. This crisis of masculinity occurs in relatively affluent younger, white males with too much time on their hands. The focal points for action are always older white father figures. The repetition is merely tiresome and predictable. This podcast is the oral version of the article of the same title.

Two groups with billions at stake are pouring money into disinformation campaigns at a time when media is facing the 20th year of an existential crisis. Well-funded PR machines are taking advantage of the vulnerabilities of the press, and Tesla and Elon Musk are at the intersection of their attacks.

What follows are suggested guidelines for techno-optimism. They are imperfect, but are the start of riverbanks to suggest the flow of thinking and to be able to articulate what solutions are worth being optimistic about. As with all good lists, it has exactly 7 items, not 12. The full text is available on the Future is Electric in the article A manifesto for pragmatic techno-optimism.

This is a story from the evolution of Plastic Dinosaur aka PD, a fictional robotic velociraptor that the authors, David Clement and Michael Barnard, are using to explore aspects of machine learning. Read the first articles in the series for the mechanical and neural net architecture of the robot. 

PD and its creators have been playing a game. The game is simple. PD is the goal keeper. The goal is a soccer net. The balls are tennis balls hurled from tennis ball machines. PD is rewarded when it intercepts a ball before it hits the net and gets a tiny punishment when a ball hits the net. Yes, punishing an AI dinosaur is going to go well.

This podcast continues the exploration that David Clement and I are making into machine learning via Plastic Dinosaur, a robotic velociraptor guided by neural nets. It’s a fictional exercise to introduce and play with concepts of robotics and machine learning, and to explore aspects of where machine learning is today. The first piece was about PD’s physical body. This piece is about his brains, what makes him tick and also occasionally lunge at small dogs with his rubber teeth.

Plastic Dinosaur is a fictional robotic velociraptor guided by a set of machine-learning neural nets. David Clement and I are using him as a foil in our exploration of the current state of the art in machine learning, a way to make some interesting corners of the space more accessible to a general audience. After all, what's more accessible than an AI predator with teeth? This episode is the narration of the first article in the series, on the physical structure of the robot. Other articles deal with the neural net architecture, training the robot to play goalie and perceptual gaps we have in understanding what neural nets are doing. 

This is another article in the series David Clement and I are collaborating on to introduce interesting aspects of machine learning in its current state. Our foil is a fictional neural net driven robotic velociraptor, because what’s more fun than a terrifying AI predator? Articles so far have introduced its mechanical body and sensorium, its neural net architecture and explored how it might learn to play goalie. And now, it’s turned out to be a racist. What could possibly go wrong?