AI Event Horizon and Nuclear Energy
Nuclear energy is ascendent as we approach the AI Event Horizon
One looming event on my mind is something I’ve been calling the AI Event Horizon. AI growth is limited by people. This limitation is removed when we have automated AI research powered by nuclear power plants. Just as light cannot escape a black hole, human information cannot escape AI the closer we approach the AI Event Horizon.
The AI event horizon is the point in time when two conditions are met:
Automated AI Research: AI performs the work of AI researchers and can recursively improve itself without humans
There is nuclear energy to power the automated AI researchers at scale
This is going to be one of the most significant events in human history. Automated AI research requires AI researchers. This explains the explosion in compensation packages for AI researchers.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg himself has taken to emailing job offers to elite talent. One AI researcher told us Zuckerberg offered them an eight-figure compensation package – at least $10,000,000 a year.
"I got an email from Mark personally," our source said. "And he said, 'I have an offer for you.' Wow, and the offer was crazy." The Register
Once the human AI researcher rate limiter goes away, the next bottleneck becomes nuclear energy.
I first shared this chart below last year in my Securing American AI Superiority article. Since then, Constellation Energy’s stock price has gone from $216.47 to $309.02. NuScale Power has gone from $12.53 to $44.07 (see the first graph above).
The growth in stock price for Constellation and NuScale is a product of anticipated energy demand for AI data centers exclusively. No one other energy source can power the energy demands that are about to come for AI.
After I wrote Securing American AI Superiority last July, two deals involving technology companies announced deals with Constellation Energy.
Microsoft
After 17 months, Constellation and Microsoft announced in September that the tech giant has signed a 20-year power-purchase agreement to pair its data centers with round-the-clock clean power from Three Mile Island. Constellation expects to spend around $1.6 billion on the unprecedented effort to resuscitate a reactor already undergoing decommissioning. Wall Street Journal
Meta
Today, building on our efforts to support next-generation and advanced energy technologies, including geothermal and nuclear, we are announcing a 20-year corporate nuclear energy agreement with Constellation Energy for the Clinton Clean Energy Center. Meta
Constellation represents actual demand for nuclear energy while NuScale is more speculative.
This surge in demand in nuclear energy companies is indirectly a response to another chart. This one is more speculative.
If the timeline above is accurate, we will see the nuclear energy companies continue to rise. If the nuclear energy stocks flatline, it implies that the timeline for the chart above might be extended into the future a little longer.
As we get closer to the AI Event Horizon, we’re going to undergo some big changes in human society. I can’t fully articulate exactly what will happen.
Here are a few thoughts rotating around my mind:
Universal Basic Income (first proposed by Andrew Yang) - will be taken more seriously by people across the political spectrum once we cross the AI Event Horizon
Work in some sense will become more a choice in terms of finding purpose and requiring a greater sense agency
The new standard for white collar work will become greater than AI
This means better than AI at one thing
This might also mean requiring the human trust
Or it could also refer to human connection and relationships
There’s a solid two to three years before the world gets really weird, go after your priorities now and push hard with focus and intentionality
What do you think will happen in America after the AI Event Horizon?
I’m looking to incorporate well thought-out responses from readers in the form of quotes and possibly video chat interviews (if we can scheduling to work out).
One of my favorite things about paper magazines in the old days is they would includes letters to the editor (which were typically a few sentences). I’ve been brainstorming on how to do something similar but more contemporary.