benjamin on expo ness

benjamin bratton on expo ness

via tweet/thread [https://x.com/bratton/status/1893148476198002823]:

How big can planetary computation get?..t

makes no diff if still measuring/calc-ing non legit (black science of people/whales law) data.. literacy and numeracy both elements of colonialism/control/enclosure.. we need to calculate differently and stop measuring things

As February 2025 there is roughly 1 zettaFLOPS of artificial computation available on Earth. (My estimates range from 815 exaFLOPS to 1.5 zettaFLOPS depending on what you count).

Going forward, let’s consider that 1 zettaFLOP = 1 unit of Planetary Compute., or 1 PCU.

By some estimates this total is doubling about every 30 months or so. If that growth curve holds (a big “if”) we would reach 2 PCU (or 2 zettaFLOPS of capacity) in 2.5 years, 10 zettaFLOPS/ 10 PCU in 8.3 years and 100 zettaFLOPS/ 100 PCU in 16.6 years.

That growth curve could radically accelerate,..t as hinted at by initiatives like Stargate and Colossus as well as new chip designs and changes to basic computational hardware and substrates (quantum is the wild card).

what we need to accelerate: nonjudgmental expo labeling to facil the seeming chaos of a global detox leap.. for (blank)’s sake.. and we’re missing it

Someone we are publishing in the Fall 2025 volume of the Antikythera journal (a cosmologist) makes the case that our models of the universe are fully compute scale dependent, and that to properly model and understand Dark Energy/ Dark Matter will require (“5 to 10 times the current total planetary capacity”). This may be relatively soon.

again.. models to date.. non legit .. ie: black science of people/whales law.. we have no idea of (the unmeasurable/uncomputational ness of)the dance

@ainokea420: What happens when quantum computing takes a seat at the table?

@bratton: nobody knows: somewhere between not much and a whole lot..t

not much: mufleh humanity law: we have seen advances in every aspect of our lives except our humanity– Luma Mufleh

whole lot: nonjudgmental expo labeling

@mwilcox: What precision we talkin

@bratton: Depends on what you measure and don’t

need a way sans any form of m\a\p.. otherwise will never get to the root of problem (and so will never get to the ‘a whole lot’ ness of what tech can do for us)

legit freedom will only happen if it’s all of us.. and in order to be all of us.. has to be sans any form of measuring, accounting, people telling other people what to do

how we gather in a space is huge.. need to try spaces of permission where people have nothing to prove to facil curiosity over decision making.. because the finite set of choices of decision making is unmooring us.. keeping us from us..

ie: imagine if we listened to the itch-in-8b-souls 1st thing everyday & used that data to connect us (tech as it could be.. ai as augmenting interconnectedness)

the thing we’ve not yet tried/seen: the unconditional part of left to own devices ness

[‘in an undisturbed ecosystem ..the individual left to its own devices.. serves the whole’ –dana meadows]

there’s a legit use of tech (nonjudgmental exponential labeling) to facil the seeming chaos of a global detox leap/dance.. the unconditional part of left-to-own-devices ness.. for (blank)’s sake.. and we’re missing it

ie: whatever for a year.. a legit sabbatical ish transition

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