AI加速正推动地球热平衡突破临界,6.5年内可能引发生态崩溃。
The Planetary Cost of AI Acceleration, Part II: The 10th Planetary Boundary and the 6.5-Year Countdown

- 提出第十个行星边界:AI产生的废热与系统效率的权衡
- 预测若不干预,6.5年内将突破热平衡阈值
- 强调AI规模管理无中间路径,要么加速危机,要么挽救文明
近期自主大语言模型代理的超指数增长,标志着机器从替代人类体力转向代行人类认知、推理与意图的范式转变。这种对‘思考’的无控制外推,超出人类生物能力的高效极限,对地球热平衡产生深远影响,因智能活动本身具有热力学代价。地球已逾越长期生态稳定所需的热量耗散阈值,基于实证数据推演显示:在最理想情景下(地球能量失衡恒定),若无根本性结构性干预,人为热量积累将在不足6.5年内突破关键生态阈值。本文识别出六项受人工智能影响全球热量耗散率的因素,阐明其交互作用如何引导社会走向四种宏观轨迹。我们提出,人工智能及其热耗散的整合应构成第十个行星边界(9+1)。该边界的本质测量指标是指数级增长的AI所产生的净新增废热,与其降低经济与社会低效、从而减少基础人为废热排放之间的权衡。我们证明,管理AI扩展不存在折中方案:它将要么加速突破关键热力学阈值,要么成为稳定其余九个行星边界的最有效杠杆,从而保障人类文明存续。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
The recent, super-exponential scaling of autonomous Large Language Model (LLM) agents signals a broader, fundamental paradigm shift from machines primarily replacing the human hands (manual labor and mechanical processing) to machines delegating for the human minds (cognition, reasoning, and intention). The uncontrolled offloading and scaling of "thinking" itself, beyond human's limited but efficient biological capacity, has profound consequences for humanity's heat balance sheet, since thinking, or intelligence, carries thermodynamic consequences. The Earth has already surpassed the heat dissipation threshold required for long-term ecological stability, and projecting based on empirical data reveal a concerning trajectory: without radical structural intervention, anthropogenic heat accumulation will breach critical planetary ecological thresholds in less than 6.5 years, even under the most ideal scenario where Earth Energy Imbalance (EEI) holds constant. In this work, we identify six factors from artificial intelligence that influence the global heat dissipation rate and delineate how their interplay drives society toward one of four broad macroscopic trajectories. We propose that the integration of artificial intelligence and its heat dissipation into the planetary system constitute the tenth planetary boundary (9+1). The core empirical measurement of this boundary is the net-new waste heat generated by exponential AI growth, balanced against its impact on reducing economic and societal inefficiencies and thus baseline anthropogenic waste heat emissions. We demonstrate that managing AI scaling lacks a moderate middle ground: it will either accelerate the breach of critical planetary thermodynamic thresholds, or it will serve as the single most effective lever on stabilizing the other nine planetary boundaries and through which safeguarding human civilization's survival.
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