We revisit, with new research, the astonishing energy appetite of artificial intelligence (A.I.), a reality completely absent from the just-released 18,000 word Executive Order on A.I. Yet the Administration’s “whole-of-government” pursuit of climate policies is seen everywhere else. Meanwhile, fueling A.I. will propel the world beyond today’s zettabyte of digital traffic into the yottabyte era.

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If one feels compelled, and by that, I mean if Congress and state policymakers feel compelled to subsidize ways to reduce the amount of oil used by vehicles on the roads, the facts point to hybrids making far more sense. Sales figures in recent months suggest that consumers think so too.

• Related to this episode’s topic, to watch or listen to the October 2023 “great debate” over EVs between Mark Mills and Rosario Fortugno, click here for that SOHO Forum Debate recording.

The invention of useful artificial intelligence (AI), epitomized by the hype over ChatGPT, is the latest example of a basic truth about technology: There have always been many more inventions that use energy than those that can produce it. Only a few inventions over history are as energy-hungry as AI; it ranks up there with the invention of the automobile and aircraft.

At the core of the belief that EVs inevitably displace conventional cars is the claim that EVs are, inherently, just simpler machines. That means, we’re told, fewer jobs—hence the ostensible reason for the UAW’s anxiety. But the simplicity claim is a canard. EVs entail a complexity swap, not a simplification.

• Electric Vehicles for Everyone? The Impossible Dream, Manhattan Institute Policy Paper, July 2023.

The refrain, the claim, from EV and green-tech advocates is that EVs and the massive alternative energy subsidies will free us from “our geopolitical adversaries” and the “manipulation of the price of oil.” Instead, supply chain realities show just how profoundly misguided those claims are.

• Electric Vehicles for Everyone? The Impossible Dream, Manhattan Institute Policy Paper, July 2023.

The entire motivation for government subsidies and mandates to pursue an all-EV future is the claim that it will result in radical reductions in CO₂ emissions. But known unknowns in EV supply chains show that all EV emission claims are ‘guesstimates’ based on averages, approximations, or aspirations. Pushing an all-EV world is likely to increase CO₂ emissions.

• Electric Vehicles for Everyone? The Impossible Dream, Manhattan Institute Policy Paper, July 2023.

With a dozen states planning to ban the sale of new cars with internal combustion engines and massive subsidies for electric vehicles (EV) from production to infrastructures, it’s time to dig deep into whether the facts support claims about EV emissions reductions and operational superiority. We start with a review of the state of play.

Electric Vehicles for Everyone? The Impossible Dream, Manhattan Institute Policy Paper, July 2023.

We continue our conversation with philosopher Don Howard who has very practical ideas about, and projects engaged in advancing the principles of ethics in robotics and artificial intelligence. For dystopians, prof Howard provides hope that Silicon Valley’s rising innovators are embracing ethics.

One of Hollywood’s favorite SciFi themes, robo-wars, is in the real-world a serious topic with features and implications different from fevered movie scripts and clickbait. In this first of a two-part episode, we are joined by Don Howard, the brilliant Notre Dame professor of philosophy and ethics of technologies.

• “In Defense of (Virtuous) Autonomous Weapons.” Don Howard, Notre Dame Journal on Emerging Technologies, November 2022.
• In Defense of (Virtuous) Autonomous Systems, Don A. Howard, Dakota Digital Review, February 21, 2023
• Real Robots in Our Near Future: The Rise of Capable Industrial Automatons, Dakota Digital Review, Mark P. Mills, March 9, 2023

In part 2, we pick up the conversation with legendary tech analyst Mark Mahaney. “Institutional Investor magazine has ranked him as a top Internet analyst every year for the past 15 years, including five years as number one.” Mahaney and Mills dig deeper into the implications of AI and ChatGPT, and more.

Photo courtesy of Mark Mahoney

It’s one thing to forecast the big picture for a technology future, the “macro,” and quite another to be a successful stock picker. In this first of a two-part episode, we’re joined by Evercore ISI’s legendary stock analyst, Mark Mahaney, to talk technology, ChatGPT, and AI and the implications for tech investing.

The idea that EVs are not only inevitable but have “zero emissions,” or at least radically reduce carbon dioxide emissions, is the central claim justifying governments banning — directly, or indirectly as EPA’s proposed rules would do — the sale of cars with internal combustion engines. But the data show that whatever emissions reductions might happen, they’ll be modest at best and at worst non-existent.