For the Good of the World by A.C. Grayling is a book that focuses on three major issues: the climate emergency, the AI crisis, and social justice.
It does an excellent job summarising the multi-faceted nature of the climate crisis, and also explores the accelerating and yet poorly understood threat posed by AI and AGI. In a way it reminded me of Bill McKibben’s fantastic book Falter, which also covered climate change and AI – two of the primary issues facing humanity.
Both books are worth reading as primers for understanding the complexity of the problems we’re up against, and the finite amount of time left for tackling them. Please note, this review contains spoilers.
Grayling’s Law
My most important takeaway from this book was the eponymous law that Grayling came up with to describe our current predicament. It goes someway towards describing why we haven’t tackled the climate and AI crises, and why both will only be overcome by a united effort.
Grayling sets out his law as follows:
“Anything that CAN be done WILL be done if it brings advantage or profit to those who can do it… And there is a corollary, every bit as negative, which is: What CAN be done will NOT be done if it brings costs, economic or otherwise, to those who can stop it.”
Let’s put this law in context.
Firstly, “Anything that CAN be done WILL be done if it brings advantage or profit to those who can do it.” The fossil fuel industry continues to make billions, despite their products being responsible for driving climate breakdown and threatening the future of humanity. They’ve been allowed to get away with this by successfully lobbying politicians. In turn, they receive trillions (yes, TRILLIONS) in subsidies every year. Similarly, tech companies are some of the wealthiest companies on the planet, and they’ve also lobbied politicians to prevent any stringent regulations on their dangerous products (a report notes that 450 tech companies spent $957m on their lobbying efforts in 2023 – an amount that includes lobbying on AI as well as other matters concerning the tech companies).
Thus despite fossil fuels creating climate chaos, and tech companies threatening algorithmic extinction (AE), both industries continue to focus on their civilisation-threatening products, because they can, and because it’s profitable for them to do so.
Secondly, “What CAN be done will NOT be done if it brings costs, economic or otherwise, to those who can stop it.” This effectively means that all the things that governments could do to reign in fossil fuel companies, and tech companies, won’t be done, because governments are being lobbied by these industries to prevent any stringent regulations. In effect, the solutions which exist (and could be put in place by a government of intelligent, empathetic, and caring representatives who actually sought to do the jobs for which they were elected), are largely chucked in the bin, because politicians don’t wish to take on the might of either the fossil fuel industry or tech industry. As such, society has been brought to the point of catastrophe.
Or as Grayling says, “To put matters bluntly: collective suicide is currently and actually in progress; the intervention required to prevent or moderate it is beyond urgent.”
Thus, it’s important to remember Grayling’s law, for it succinctly explains so much of the complete and utter mess we find ourselves in today.
Climate crisis
Grayling does a brilliant job of summarising the climate crisis in a single chapter. Below is a selection of key messages:
- If temperatures hit 4C by 2100, it will result in hundreds of millions of people escaping parts of the world that have been decimated by extreme weather. He notes that these climate refugees will come into conflict as they seek food and shelter in new lands.
- Humanity’s attempt to tackle the climate crisis so far, hasn’t been promising.
- 85% of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions have been emitted after WW2. Worryingly, emissions since 1990 account for 50% of those in the atmosphere.
- 1 million species of animals, and 40% of plant species face extinction.
- “Changing the system requires systemic change.” He writes that we must elect governments that will act, and remove those which won’t.
- Governments must work together; global cooperation is imperative.
- Writing letters to representatives, joining activist groups, and participating in demonstrations, are all things that people can do.
- It’s wrong to leave a badly damaged planet for future generations to try make a life on.
- He poses a question about the idea of having children, and whether it’s the right thing to do, given what the future holds for them.
- Grayling suggests that some people have become numbed to dire climate warnings, others put off by them, and yet more have taken the side of climate sceptics so as to avoid responsibility for doing anything about it.
AI
Grayling acknowledges that while AI may bring benefits, it also harbours many dangers. For example:
- AI can be used to make decisions for insurance, and court judgements, relying solely on data and lacking any emotional understanding.
- Automation could replace 47% of professions in the US, according to researchers from Oxford University’s Martin School.
- Superintelligence may identify us for the supremely destructive mammal we are, and decide that this planet would be better off without us. We may therefore face extermination.
- Accountability is key, in regards to who takes responsibility when things go wrong.
- Lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS) are of grave concern.
- Tech developments may be harder to deal with than climate change.
Summary
Humanity faces an unprecedented threat from both the fossil fuel and tech industries, who threaten climate chaos and algorithmic extinction simultaneously. What each and every one of us chooses to do, will determine whether our species survives the coming decades; a pretty important point for those who have kids or grandchildren.
Thus, we all need to unite and ensure our politicians do the right thing. For as long as governments remain under the sway of corporations in the fossil fuel industry and the tech industry, our situation will become ever more perilous, and the consequences, even more dangerous.
With time not on our side, and the odds stacked well and truly against us, we still can’t give up. As Grayling says, “One must strive to the last moment and the last ounce of strength, mindful of those who, all too probably, will inherit from us increased burdens with diminished resources because of what we and those who came before us have done.”
It’s up to us to snatch victory from the gaping jaws of defeat – something that can only be achieved if we all work together in this critical decade of this defining century.
My new cli-fi children’s picture book, Nanook and the Melting Arctic is available from Amazon’s global stores including Amazon UK and Amazon US. My eco-fiction children’s picture book, Hedgey-A and the Honey Bees about how pesticides affect bees, is available on Amazon’s global stores including Amazon UK and Amazon US.