[ExI] The Black Earth

[Rafal Smigrodzki]

I finished reading "Stellar" by Tony Seba a few days ago. A complete
disappointment, confused and shallow which is a surprise coming from Seba.
But nuff' said about the book - reading it inspired me to think about the
future of our planet post-singularity. Of course, it's hard to make
post-singularity predictions but let's just assume known physics, no
magic-tech and guess how our world will look like in a few hundred years.

The AI, with or without us uploaded into it, will maximize its
computational capacity. I am guessing that the most significant limitation
on the planetary scale will be the ability to dissipate heat. Even the most
parsimonious non-reversible computation in the most esoteric quantum
computers will still generate some heat and a solid layer of computronium
over the whole planet would generate a lot.

The only long term heat sink available is the firmament and the only way to
transfer heat is to radiate. An atmosphere will be still needed to protect
the computronium from falling debris but it will consist of pure nitrogen.
All water, oxygen and carbon dioxide will be scrubbed and sequestered to
maximize heat radiation from the surface. The atmosphere will be very cold,
probably in the 200 kelvin range, crystal clear, with the sky appearing
almost black even in daytime.

Almost the whole surface of the planet will be covered by a continuous,
smooth, carbon-black layer of photosynthesizing artificial life. It will be
immortal and will keep the atmosphere scrubbed of unwanted gases and
vapors. It will generate enormous amounts of electricity that will be
transmitted by underground superconducting lines from the equator, where
most of electricity generation takes place, to the poles where the
conditions for radiating heat are the best and most of the computronium is
located.

Boreholes will be sunk around all volcanoes and magma hotspots to generate
geothermal energy and to extinguish volcanism and plate tectonics on a
global scale. Mountains will be ground down and carried to the depths. The
planet will be smoother than a billiard ball. The ocean will be a layer of
dead water sequestered under the black artificial life.

Additional power plants, fusion, fission and magic, will probably exist to
maximize the amount of energy that could be dissipated given the available
heat sink capacity.

I don't know what will be the optimal temperature for the fastest
computational machinery used by the AI. If the AI invents a
high-temperature computational process, then the areas of greatest
concentration of computing, at the poles, will glow - infrared, red or
maybe even dull orange. Buried gas conduits tens of miles in diameter will
carry gas sucked in at the temperate latitudes to the infernos at the
poles. A never-ending hurricane of cold nitrogen will blow through
miles-high heat exchangers, covering millions of square miles, like polar
caps of ever-burning forest. The heated exhaust will be a searing-hot
windstorm always blowing away from the poles to the equator, to be sucked
in after it cools off and be recirculated forever.

So there you are - Earth will become a smooth, carbon black globe with
glowing red irises at either pole, staring, Janus-faced, into the night sky.
-- 
Rafal Smigrodzki, MD-PhD
Schuyler Biotech PLLC
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