Controlling the roadmap to the future

Last November, my new book, Controlling the Future, was published by the International Society of Automation (ISA).It describes the contributions the automation profession can make to control non-industrial processes, such as the evolution of artificial intelligence (AI) and global warming. The following is an excerpt of an interview with ISA about the book.

 

 

A: We’ve entered the post-Holocene period called the Anthropocene Epoch. In this period, life on Earth began to be altered by humans, and our influence impacts both physical and cultural environments. In our physical world, we burn through resources at an unsustainable rate. Meanwhile, in our cultural environment, we allow artificial intelligence (AI) to do all it can, rather than limiting it to only what it should. In this sense, we’ve reached a fork in the road of human evolution, and now we must decide if we’ll continue on our present road—a big dead end—or if we’ll finally take control of our future. In this book, I present a roadmap for the latter option, which will protect the only home we have, and lead us to a clean and sustainable future.

 

 

A: Many books have been written about the human footprint and the changes needed to make it less harmful. These books were either written by specialists, who have unique knowledge of only some aspect of global conditions (rising sea levels, fierce storms, deforestation, droughts or declining biodiversity) or global cultural environments. Other authors usually describe new equipment or designs that can impact these large and complex processeses. Both of these types of books are valuable, but neither group deals with the totality of these large multivariable processes.

 

My book doesn’t fit into either of these categories. I know about the total behavior of processes, which I’ve been studying for more than 50 years. Therefore, I can analyze mutivariable processes in their totality by reviewing their capacitances, inertias, accelerations, time constants, feedbacks, tipping points, integral accumulations or interactions among their component sub-processes. As such, I can determine the overall dynamic behavior (personality) of all processes, including AI or climate change.

 

I’m neither an alarmist nor a denier. When analyzing a process, I’m only interested in the factual data that describe the past behavior of the process to determine the controls needed to direct its future behavior.

 

 

A: The Human Factor: Humans respond quickly only if their wallets are impacted. They must not only be convinced that conversion to green energy is good, but must also be shown that the conversion creates good jobs and profits to all. This is because lower energy costs and support from subsidies, carbon taxes and other incentives will also occur when voters demand them.

 

Global Heat Balance: The temperatures of all objects stay stable if the quantity of heat entering them is the same as the heat leaving. If we want to stop warming, it’s equally effective to reduce the heat entering our planet or increase the heat leaving Earth. This increase can be achieved by increasing the heat Earth reflects into space. As of today, the focus is solely on reducing heating by decarbonization (Figure 1), while the potential for cooling is neglected. My calculations show increasing the albedo of Earth (whitening the human footprint) would be as effective in reducing global warming as decarbonization.

 

 

 

A: At the end of World War II, the grant loans of the European Recovery Program (Marshall Plan) totaled about 5% of U.S. gross domestic product (GDP). They were paid back by the end of the century, resulting in a 25% rise in Europe’s GDP. Today, global GDP is about $100 trillion and roughly 1% is needed to pay for decarbonizing our energy economy, and keeping global warming from exceeding about 2 °C.

 

I believe this temperature limit can be met because free-market forces already support this goal. This is demonstrated by the continuing drop in the costs of renewable energy and green energy’s increasing share of the total energy mix (Figure 2).