Comment by bko
Comment by bko 12 hours ago
> The problems it raises - alignment, geopolitics, lack of societal safeguards - are all real, and happening now (just replace “AGI” with “corporations”, and voila, you have a story about the climate crisis and regulatory capture).
Can you point to the data that suggests these evil corporations are ruining the planet? Carbon emissions are down in every western country since 1990s. Not down per-capita, but down in absolute terms. And this holds even when adjusting for trade (i.e. we're not shipping our dirty work to foreign countries and trading with them). And this isn't because of some regulation or benevolence. It's a market system that says you should try to produce things at the lowest cost and carbon usage is usually associated with a cost. Get rid of costs, get rid of carbon.
Other measures for Western countries suggests the water is safer and overall environmental deaths have decreased considerably.
The rise in carbon emissions is due to Chine and India. Are you talking about evil Chinese and Indians corporations?
Emissions are trending downward because of shift from coal to natural gas, growth in renewable energy, energy efficiencies, among other things. Major oil and gas companies in the US like Chevron and ExxonMobil have spent millions on lobbying efforts to resist stricter climate regulations and fight against the changes that led to this trend, so I'd say they are the closest to these evil corporations OP described. Additionally, the current administration refers to doing anything about climate change a "climate religion", so this downward trend will likely slow.
The climate regulations are still quite weak. Without a proper carbon tax, a US company can externalize the costs of carbon emissions and get rich by maximizing their own emissions.