The Last Playlist: Your Guide to Streaming AI Dystopias

Feel free to weigh in with your favorite nightmare, here’s my incomplete list.

My number one is the largely forgotten “Colossus: The Forbin Project”, which I saw at a tiny theater in Frankfort, Michigan in 1970, the year it came out, and just rewatched recently.
Totally holds up, and, if anything, is more terrifying.
What’s unique about it is that the clunky tape and typewriter technology of the era provide jarringly anachronistic visuals, but the story, which starts right out and doesn’t let up, is completely contemporary and immediate.

Fun Fact: Elon Musk perversely named his disastrous Hyperscale project outside of Memphis “Colossus” after the rogue AI in this movie.

Highly, highly recommended if you have not seen, “Ex Machina” is a humanoid robot nightmare scenario, directed by genius Alex Garland (28 Days Later) with a creepy Tech Bro unforgettably played by Oscar Isaac.

The Marvel franchise (if you partake) has a major vein of AI paranoia, best represented by the “Age of Ultron”.

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Traders Win by Shorting Nuclear

More sobering reports about the small nuclear reactor industry, now from the Financial Times. I posted about the Wall Street Journal’s recent reality check here.

In January, I posted similar assessments that appeared in the conservative financial paper Barrons. (If you don’t know Barrons, it makes the Wall Street Journal look like Rolling Stone.)

I’m not anti-nuclear, I’m pro reality.
We have to accelerate solar, wind and batteries not just for the birds, the bees, and our grandbabies, but also because we need to keep the lights on, and these are the lowest hanging fruit and nearest in the pipeline, full stop.

Financial Times:

Short sellers have reaped large profits from betting against small modular nuclear reactor companies, as the collapse of the “hype cycle” that had sent their share prices soaring wipes billions off their market value.
Funds made an estimated $2.1bn shorting three stocks — US-listed NuScale Power, Nano Nuclear and Sam Altman-backed Oklo — over the past year, according to data provider S3 Partners.
The three companies, which are lossmaking and have little or no revenue, surged last year as investors raced to capitalise on growing interest in nuclear energy among AI hyperscalers looking for new sources of power. Regulatory changes and funding announcements from the Trump administration also helped the sector.
But a total of $30.3bn has been wiped off their collective market value since their peak in October last year amid growing concerns over the lack of immediate revenue and the long build-out timelines for the technology.

Only two commercial SMRs are currently operable — in Russia and China, with more than 80 designs in various stages of development.
A key test of investor appetite towards the nuclear sector is expected in the coming weeks, when Holtec International and Westinghouse, two US-based companies with SMR divisions, are expected to list.

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Big Breakthrough with “the Other Kind” of Geothermal

Whenever I say “geothermal” in discussion, I always have to make clear which version of that technology I’m referencing.
One is the “Advanced” Geothermal, which uses cutting edge drilling techniques from the fracking industry to access heat buried deep in the earth’s crust – and I’ve posted recently on how rapidly that is progressing.

The other kind that might be more familiar to homeowners, which is shallow wells or trenches that access the stable temperatures just below the frost line that exist everywhere, and can be cheaply accessed to provide both heating or cooling.
The big barrier has always been the cost of drilling those wells or trenches.
Now, somebody claims to have solved for that.
Big if true.

Farther below, Jesse Jenkins of Princeton University suggests that the applications for cooling Data Centers, one of the toughest technical issues, could by itself be a paradigm shift.

Canary Media:

Dig Energy, a startup on a quest to vastly improve geothermal drilling, has completed its first commercial project, digging seven boreholes for a geothermal heating and cooling system at the headquarters of Boston general contracting firm Suffolk Construction.

Dig first stepped into the public eye almost exactly a year ago, when it announceda $5 million funding round after some five years of developing its technology behind the closed doors of a barn in New Hampshire. At the same time, Dig was selected to participate in Boost, an accelerator program run by Suffolk Technologies, the venture capital affiliate of Suffolk Construction.

Dig’s innovation: a rig purpose-built to drill geothermal boreholes with less noise, less water usage, and far lower cost than conventional drilling equipment.

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Musk Documentary Raises Questions on AI, and US Elections

Above, trailer for a new Documentary about Elon Musk that premiered on September 8 at the Venice Film Festival.

Below, press conference with filmmaker Alex Gibney, and Ashley St. Clair, who is the mother of one of Musk’s children, and has emerged as a sharp and informed critic on social media.

Gibney discusses what he found about Musk’s DOGE project, the theft of American’s personal data, and implications for American elections. Gibney’s comments about possible election interference and DOGE start at about 19 minutes in.

Can We Separate Data Centers from Legit AI Angst?

Data Center paranoia has reached fever pitch, but anxieties about AI are not misplaced.
My concern is that people think that by blocking this or that data center, they are stopping AI. Hyperscalers will build data centers in another state, in Tierra del Fuego, in space, underwater or on the moon to feed this market.
What is needed is federal regulation of both data centers, and critically AI and its components.

Wondering how AI could wipe out humanity? Here’s a clue.

CNN:

Scientists used an artificial intelligence program to create new viral genomes that are different from any known natural viruses and that targeted specific hosts, according to a new study. The development is a hopeful step toward medical advances, but it also raises concerns around the potential for misuse.

The study, published Thursday in the journal Science, says that genetic sequences from millions of sources “from all domains of life” served as the language library for the AI tool Evo, much like ChatGPT and other language models are trained on large sets of existing text material.

It’s a notable scientific milestone, especially as scientists race to combat rising drug resistance within germs such as E. coli.

“The breakthrough achieved is significant,” Jordi García Ojalvo, professor of systems biology at the Pompeu Fabra University of Barcelona, said in a comment to the Science Media Centre.

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Earth Will Exceed 1.5° C Threshold. Then What?

But you knew that.
A creeping sense of dread suggests that even at the current level of warming, the actual effects are more severe than we hoped they would be, and prospects for serious impacts are becoming more real to humanity at large.

The energy transition is proceeding, but not nearly fast enough. Pulling carbon down seems no closer than it ever was.
The current El Niño seems to be heading into uncharted territory, and it’s unclear how much of this, but certainly some, is amplified by climate warming.

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Tariffs Tough on Solar, But US Domestic Producers Soaring

Like everything else, Trump’s trade policy is affecting the price of solar.
Near term, this could affect the spread sheets of clean energy developers. Longer term, as more US manufacturers jump in the space, could negate that objection that I’ve heard so many times, that “solar panels are all made in China”. (they aren’t btw)

Politico:

The trade wars are going electric — and the planet and your pocketbook might be paying the price.

From tariffs on solar panels to export controls on critical minerals, countries are dragging the entire electrification supply chain into growing trade tensions. Just last month, President Donald Trump issued broad restrictions on imported grid equipment — a move widely seen as the latest attempt to keep out Chinese-made technology.

Such trade barriers threaten to raise costs for companies, slow economic growth, and complicate ongoing efforts to address climate change and adopt renewable energy technology.

That isn’t a warning from activists; it’s coming from bankers, utilities and grid operators.

“Trade fragmentation makes green products more expensive worldwide relative to non-green products,” European Central Bank analysts warned earlier this year. “This undermines the adoption of green technologies, leading to higher greenhouse gas emissions in the global economy.”

Rising power demand and efforts to slash planet-warming pollution are boosting clean technology markets. But those much-needed goods are becoming pricier and harder to get as governments throw up trade barriers to protect domestic industries and counter China.

Industry data shows U.S. tariffs on copper have increased costs for wire by 11.4%, for switchgear by more than 4% and for capacitors that store power by more than 6%. Domestically made transformers now cost 10% more to produce than when Trump took office, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics figures.

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Mr Global: The Moment I Knew We’d Lost Our Way (Covid)

NIH: Selfless or Selfish? The impact of message framing and egoistic motivation on narcissists’ compliance with preventive health behaviors during COVID-19

COVID-19 is one of the greatest international health crises in recent years. Due to the highly contagious nature of the virus, the World Health Organization has recommended that people comply with a set of preventive measures to reduce the infection rate (e.g., social distancing, wearing a face mask, thorough personal hygiene). However, people typically differ in the extent to which they are willing to comply with such recommendations, as they imply certain personal restrictions. The present study aimed to investigate whether narcissism levels and message framing strategies affect individuals’ willingness to accept personal restrictions and, consequently, comply with a set of preventive health behaviors. Results reveal that people high (vs. low) in grandiose narcissism are less likely to accept personal restrictions and comply with preventive health behaviors, with negative (vs. positive) message framing constituting a more effective strategy for convincing such individuals to comply with said restrictions and behaviors. This effect can be explained through a more pronounced willingness of participants high in grandiose narcissism to accept personal restrictions to protect themselves (egoistic motivation) but not through a willingness to protect vulnerable people (altruistic motivation). Our findings suggest that individuals who remain uncooperative during pandemics could be more effectively addressed with adapted message framing strategies and incentives tailor-made for their distinct personalities.