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Headline (10–14 words): Tech leaders embrace exponential resource consumption to maintain linear artificial intelligence performance gains

TL;DR (120 words): Nick Bostrom’s 2003 "paperclip maximizer" thought experiment warned that an AI might destroy the world while chasing a single goal. Today, this scenario applies to the humans building AI. Current neural networks follow a logarithmic scale: maintaining steady improvement requires exponential increases in resources. To gain tiny advantages, executives like OpenAI’s Sam Altman and xAI’s Elon Musk are committing massive amounts of energy, water, land, and chips to development. Musk recently merged xAI with SpaceX, aiming for space-based scaling. This monomaniacal pursuit suggests that industry leaders will exhaust Earth’s resources and move into space to sustain AI growth, treating all physical and digital assets as raw material for a winner-take-all race.

Key Points (5 bullets, each ≤20 words):

Nick Bostrom’s 2003 theory describes an AI destroying the world to maximize paperclip production through single-minded resource harvesting. Current AI development requires exponential resource increases to achieve only linear improvements in model performance and intelligence. Sam Altman identifies the intelligence of a model as the logarithm of resources used to train and run it. Tech leaders compete for winner-take-all rewards by devoting energy, water, and specialized chips to marginal scale advantages. Elon Musk merged xAI with SpaceX to pursue space-based AI scaling, extending resource harvesting beyond Earth's limits. Timeline (ISO dates):

2003-01-01 — Nick Bostrom publishes "Ethical Issues in Advanced Artificial Intelligence" introducing the paperclip maximizer. 2023-09-01 — OpenAI CEO Sam Altman observes that AI intelligence equals the log of resources used. 2024-05-18 — Elon Musk announces merger of xAI into SpaceX to facilitate space-based AI scaling. Notable Quotes (speaker — quote ≤20 words):

Nick Bostrom — "a superintelligence whose top goal is the manufacturing of paperclips... starts transforming first all of earth..." Sam Altman — "The intelligence of an AI model roughly equals the log of the resources used to train and run it." Donald MacKenzie — "The more resources you put in, the better the results, but the rate of improvement steadily diminishes." Elon Musk — "In the long term, space-based AI is obviously the only way to scale." Numbers to know (value — what it measures):

Logarithmic — The function characterizing the relationship between AI intelligence gains and resource inputs. Exponential — The rate of resource growth required to maintain linear AI performance improvements. Implications (next 0–3 months): Executives will likely increase capital expenditures on energy, water, and hardware to sustain marginal gains in AI model performance.

What's missing/uncertain: The specific monetary or social cost thresholds at which current AI scaling becomes unsustainable are not defined.

Source meta: New Cartographies; Nicholas Carr; 2024-05-24 (ISO, localize to Europe/Berlin); Not stated.