The Real Cost of Climate Change ⋆ AI of the week ⋆ Manage anxiety like a stoic
Severe economic impacts of climate change, the latest advancements in AI technology, including OpenAI's GPT-4o, and stoic advice on managing anxiety in these challenging times.
Covering some serious topics today...
Thing 1 - The Real Cost of Climate Change
Thing 2 - AI of the week
Thing 3 - Manage anxiety like a stoic
3 things in 3 minutes. Let's go!
Thing 1 - The Real Cost of Climate Change
I came across some eye-opening insights from a recent NBER working paper on climate change and its economic impact.
Here's the gist:
- Global Temperature Impact
A 1°C increase in global temperature could cause a 12% drop in world GDP. That's massive! - Social Cost of Carbon
They estimated the true cost of carbon emission to be $1,056 per ton of CO2 - way higher than we thought. - Welfare Loss
If we keep going as we are, we could see a 31% loss in overall welfare value. - Unilateral Policy
Big players like the U.S. could save money by implementing their decarbonization policies. - Long-term Economic Impact
By 2100, in a scenario where the world's temperature increases by 3°C above pre-industrial levels, output could decline by 50%, and consumption could see a comparable decline. This results in a long-term welfare loss that could reach 52%. - Missed Economic Growth
Without the observed 0.75°C increase in global temperatures from 1960 to 2019, world GDP per capita would be 37% higher today. This represents a significant reduction in economic growth due to climate change.
These findings, if confirmed, imply that the economic damage from climate change is way more significant than we thought.
Thing 2 - AI of the week
tl;dr Google announced a bunch on I/O '24. OpenAI announced a bunch of similar stuff. Other things happened as well. (Wow, Z, that's some summary!)
- OpenAI launched GPT-4o model (that's "four oh", not forty) AND it's available to free users as well.
- Ilya and a bunch of other people left OpenAI. Is this tying the loose ends from the drama earlier in the year?
- Apple announced iOS 18 will introduce Eye Tracking
- OpenAI announced a ChatGPT Mac App
- Gemini 1.5 Flash (Preview) is Google's fastest and most cost-effective multimodal AI model. It is designed for lower-cost, high-volume tasks and latency-sensitive applications that require quick responses
- Google demoed Project Astra running on a Google Pixel phone and a prototype glasses device, showcasing its capabilities.
It's a multimodal AI assistant that combines speech, vision, text, and memory capabilities to enable natural interactions - Meta published a paper on Chameleon - Mixed-Modal early-fusion foundation models - models capable of understanding and generating images and text in any sequence
- OpenAI and Reddit announced a partnership
- OpenAI will bring Reddit content to ChatGPT and new products
- Reddit will let users and mods use some AI-powered features
- OpenAI will become a Reddit advertising partner
It's been a busy week so many things didn't make it to this email...
Thing 3 - Manage anxiety like a stoic
After how this email started, you might need a way to manage anxiety. Stoics to the rescue! 🙌
You must be trolling me, Z...
(h/t Daily Stoic)
Make the best use of what is in your power, take the rest as it happens.
- Epictetus
We suffer more in imagination than in reality.
- Seneca
It's not things that upset us, it's our judgment about things.
- Epictetus
Cheers, Zvonimir