He believes another 20th century’s worth of progress happened between 2000 and 2014 and that another 20th century’s worth of progress will happen by 2021, in only seven years. A couple decades later, he believes a 20th century’s worth of progress will happen multiple times in the same year, and even later, in less than one month. All in all, because of the Law of Accelerating Returns, Kurzweil believes that the 21st century will achieve 1,000 times the progress of the 20th century. The AI Revolution: The Road to Superintelligence
'This is the first study to conclude that the severity of this century’s drought could surpass even the worst megadroughts of the last millennium. Such a scenario would affect many more people because of the nation’s growing population. The current drought affects more than 64 million people, according to NASA.
“The report supports a growing body of evidence that links climate change to megadroughts,” said Juliet Christian-Smith, a climate scientist in the Oakland, California, office of the Union of Concerned Scientists, a group that works to develop solutions to global problems such as climate change. “Climate change and global warming will make bad droughts much worse.”' Western states face megadrought, experts warn
I have trouble resolving these highly plausible future trends. AI will reach and surpass human intelligence. The US Heartland and West face decade long mega-droughts. Will AI help figure out where to send climate refugees? Examples from the '2040s' from Future Timeline.net 2040-2049 timeline contents enforces this sense of imbalance.
2042 — Global population reaches 9 billion
2043 — The Ross Sea has lost 50% of its summer ice cover
2044 — A tipping point for permafrost melting | A transglobal highway and rail network has emerged
2045 — Humans are becoming intimately merged with machines | The Chūō Shinkansen high speed maglev route is complete | Gulf Coast cities are being abandoned due to super hurricanes
2045-2049 — Major extinctions of animal and plant life
2049 — Robots are a common feature of homes and workplaces Where will Gulf cities abandon too when the US Heartland and West are in megadrought?
We'll all have robots, fast trains, be fully transhuman, but also have less food for more people with Anthropogenic Global Warming in runaway process phase. Will robots replace the function of extinct animal and plant life? It seems to me that a society capable of developing SuperIntelligence should advance enough to solve its most existential challenge.
Put another way, are robots and automation more essential than a planet no longer able to sustain our existence?
Infrastructure challenges
