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More Than 200 Countries Have Made The Pledge to Phase Out Fossil Fuels; Jobs Most Likely to be Impacted by AI. Aired 4-4:10a ET
Aired December 14, 2023 - 04:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
COY WIRE, CNN 10 ANCHOR: What`s up superstars, happy Thursday, happy Friday Eve. I`m Coy Wire. This is a very special Thursday edition of CNN 10,
because this is the penultimate show of the year. That means the second to last show of 2023. So let`s continue to make this the best 10 minutes in
news, where I simply tell you the what, letting you decide what to think.
We start today with news out of Dubai, where nearly 200 countries agreed to a landmark climate deal at this year`s COP28 conference. It includes an
unprecedented call to transition away from fossil fuels like oil, gas, and coal.
Now, it is important to note, this deal is not legally binding and can`t on its own force, any country to act. But this year`s conference president
notes, it`s still the first-time language on fossil fuels has been included in a final agreement.
Now, despite the historic deal, there are some loopholes. The biggest is the wording, and this can get tricky, so bear with me. Notice how earlier I
said transition. Well, that is how things are phrased because the deal does not require countries to phase out coal oil and gas. Instead, the agreement
provides eight pathways to achieve net zero by the year 2050.
Those other options include tripling, renewable energy or using technology that can capture carbon dioxide emissions to keep them from the atmosphere.
In other words, a country can keep using fossil fuels at the same rate as they do today and still comply with the agreement. It`s this murky language
that leaves some people skeptical, even as many praise, this historic deal.
Environmental activists say it doesn`t go far enough and provides loopholes for countries to avoid instituting major change. There are also critics who
say the agreement does not provide necessary funding for developing countries still dependent on fossil fuels to supply energy, income, and
jobs. Still with 2023 listed as the hottest year on record, activists are hoping that this will help move the world forward in battling climate
change.
OK, from the announcement of one historic milestone to the ramifications of another, just over a year ago, a technology startup called OpenAI released
an experimental chat bot called ChatGPT. Since then the world has experienced an artificial intelligence revolution of sorts. This year has
seen major tech companies pour billions into the concept while world governments grapple with how to best regulate it.
What`s clear, though, is that we don`t really know how this AI revolution will actually look. And that`s particularly clear with its effects on jobs.
Earlier this year, CNN spoke to a professor about his study, examining how some professions are more threatened by AI than others.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Rapid advancement of AI platforms, such as ChatGPT has everyone from librarians to judges, to nurses, to criminal investigators
asking how exposed is my job?
PROF. ROBERT SEAMANS, MANAGEMENT AND ORGANIZATIONS, NEW YORK UNIVERSITY: Lots of people are interested in understanding, what types of jobs are
going to be affected by AI, what policy responses we might want to think about from a societal point of view.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is Professor and AI expert, Rob Seamans, and he co- authored a paper ranking, nearly 800 jobs in their exposure to artificial intelligence, particularly to AI language modeling.
SEAMANS: So I`m not in the top 20, however, I am number 22 on the list.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The methodology takes 52 human abilities used at various jobs as defined by the Department of Labor.
SEAMANS: There could be things like inductive and deductive reasoning, image recognition, language comprehension, and to ones that are much more
physical. So trunk strength, arm, hand, steadiness, something like that.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And maps those 52 human abilities to 10 areas where AI most excels.
SEAMANS: Things like image, generation, image recognition, language modeling, and things like that.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The more those AI skills and human abilities overlapped, the more a job was determined to be exposed to AI. To focus the study, they
did not consider the effects of robots and other automated machines in the research. And that skewed the rankings for some jobs that you might think
would be more vulnerable to advances in technology.
SEAMANS: Workers in a manufacturing setting or maybe transportation and warehouse type settings, score very low in an exposure to AI, as opposed to
exposure to other types of automation.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The type of job is that the study found or most exposed to AI, white collar occupations, often with high education requirements and
higher pay.
SEAMANS: If you look at the top 20 occupations that are most exposed to advances in language modeling, 14 of those top 20 are professors. If you
look at the number one thing that a professor does, it`s prepare and deliver lectures. And we know that language modeling is really helpful when
it comes to preparing content that you might later on, then deliver to a classroom.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: AI`s ability to recognize and generate language exposes a wide variety of white-collar professions, such as mental health
counselors, writers, areas of the legal industry, even preachers.
SEAMANS: Now, praying, of course, large language models are not going to be very helpful with that. But in terms of creating the sermons that you might
deliver, you would imagine that, you know, just like large language models could help a, a clergy person do that, same thing, with -- with a college
professor.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And the number one job that is most exposed, telemarketers.
SEAMANS: Part of the reason why telemarketers are so exposed to advances in language modeling, have to do with probably the amount of, speaking that
they do and the amount of, you know, listening and responding on the fly to the comments that they get from whoever they`re calling.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So how exactly might AI change our jobs in the future now?
SEAMANS: Just because an occupation is more exposed to advances in AI doesn`t mean that that job is that threat of being substituted, but it`s
not that lots of jobs will disappear. I don`t think that will happen. However, I do think that many, many jobs will change.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WIRE: Ten second trivia.
Which of these is a part of the United Kingdom?
England, Scotland, Wales, or Northern Ireland?
Sorry, not sorry, trick question. The four listed here all make up the United Kingdom, which is sometimes referred to as a country, made up of
countries. A story from Scotland now, scientists believe the world`s carbon dioxide levels are at their highest level in more than 2 million years.
These reports suggest removing CO2 from the atmosphere is a necessary part of keeping a healthy planet.
Now, carbon capture and removal is still a relatively new and unproven field, but CNN`s Bill Weir traveled to Scotland to see if a startup there
has one solution to remove carbon pollution already in the atmosphere.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BILL WEIR, CNN CLIMATE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Over millennia, volcanic rocks have formed some of Scotland`s most spectacular sites, but now they
could also provide a solution to pull carbon out of the sky and lock it underground.
JIM MANN, FOUNDER & CEO UNDO: Rock weathering is a natural process, so CO2 in our atmosphere combines with water vapor in our atmosphere and they will
react to form a weak carbonic acid, that reacts to certain types of rocks to remove CO2.
WEIR: Scottish company Undo takes that natural process and dramatically accelerates it by grinding down volcanic rocks like basalt into a fine
powder, the surface area increases so when the rock gets spread across agricultural land, there is more contact, rainfall, and CO2 and vastly more
carbon is captured.
XINRAN LIU, HEAD OF SCIENCE AND RESEARCH, UNDO: UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In its powdered form, kind of like coffee or tea in the morning, if you crush down
your beans finely, you unlock those reactive surface areas and then you can mass, even create a very potent brew very quickly.
MANN: When we`re putting the basalt down on agricultural land, we typically apply it at about 20 tons per hectare. And that`s across the whole farm so
thousands and thousands of hectares now. And we`re spreading about 30,000 tons of silicate rock every month now. So that 30,000 tons will be in the
somewhere region of 7,000 or 8,000 tons of CO2.
LIU: We have developed a detailed geochemical model to enable us to predict multiple decades into the future how much rock has been weathered. So from
current finding, there is huge potential for enhanced rock weathering. We could contribute to 5-10 gigatons annually of carbon dioxide removal in the
future.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WIRE: Imagine if you could make your gingerbread house look like anything in the world, the White House, your grandma`s house, the Eiffel Tower.
Today`s story, getting a 10 out of 10, a woman from Williamson County, Texas was visiting a Buc-ee`s gas station when inspiration struck. The
innovators, an employee at the local tax assessor`s office created a detailed gingerbread replica of the national chain to spread some holiday
cheer, full of candy and clever touches. You can see shoppers browsing, even pictures of her coworkers hunting for directions and pumping gas.
All right, for any of you out there who might make gingerbread houses, do you stick with the traditional or do you try to get creative? Mine always
end up looking like churches, because I take huge bites out of them in there. Holy.
Well, as I mentioned at the beginning of this show, it`s our second to last show of 2023, but that means there`s still time to recognize a few of you
lovely people who make our work so fulfilling.
Today`s shout out goes to Dwight D. Eisenhower Middle School in Manhattan, Kansas, fly Eagles fly. And this shout out goes to Pioneer Technology and
Arts Academy in Dallas, Texas, go Chargers. Thanks for being with us today. See you right back here tomorrow so we can finish this week and this year
strong.
I`m Coy Wire. And we are CNN 10.
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