I also get the impression that whether land is scarce during takeoff is not a settled question, but I don’t have a strong argument on this.
My expectation is no, at least not until after the point where humans don’t get to make the decisions if AI refuses. Mineral and energy scarcity, sure. Insufficient equipment and infrastructure of various sorts, yes. But I don’t imagine AGI or early ASI needing more than 1% of the planet’s surface on the very high end, probably 1-4 OOMs less, and that’s not enough to make land itself scarce.
Yes, this is true. Unfortunately these lands require active management, so one has to ask where the capital and labor is coming from.
I think the answer is “more AI.” At least in the sense that if AI can’t handle that, then we’re probably not far enough into takeoff that it’s a pressing urgent need.
I do agree on recognizing the different sources of value, and think people stay vague precisely because they all overlap in messy ways and because building a quorum of stakeholders behind conservation efforts has historically required some strange compromises and contortions. Tourism is often an easy sell at local scale. Ecosystem services are big in aggregate but too diffuse in most cases to be compelling to real decision makers. Existence value appeals to appreciation of the sacred if you can credibly claim such social high ground in the face of near-mode counterarguments. I think option value gets underrated because most people don’t have enough imagination and foresight to anticipate future capabilities or challenges and the needs they might generate.
My expectation is no, at least not until after the point where humans don’t get to make the decisions if AI refuses. Mineral and energy scarcity, sure. Insufficient equipment and infrastructure of various sorts, yes. But I don’t imagine AGI or early ASI needing more than 1% of the planet’s surface on the very high end, probably 1-4 OOMs less, and that’s not enough to make land itself scarce.
I think the answer is “more AI.” At least in the sense that if AI can’t handle that, then we’re probably not far enough into takeoff that it’s a pressing urgent need.
I do agree on recognizing the different sources of value, and think people stay vague precisely because they all overlap in messy ways and because building a quorum of stakeholders behind conservation efforts has historically required some strange compromises and contortions. Tourism is often an easy sell at local scale. Ecosystem services are big in aggregate but too diffuse in most cases to be compelling to real decision makers. Existence value appeals to appreciation of the sacred if you can credibly claim such social high ground in the face of near-mode counterarguments. I think option value gets underrated because most people don’t have enough imagination and foresight to anticipate future capabilities or challenges and the needs they might generate.