Natural General Intelligence
Ryan Orbuch's case for a nature model: a foundation model trained on direct observations of the planet, to estimate its state, simulate what comes next, and guide interventions while learning from how the Earth responds.
open the piece at naturalgeneralintelligence.ai →An essay site, read today. Title "Natural General Intelligence", tagline "The case for a nature model that learns the state and dynamics of the planet itself", by Ryan Orbuch, published September 2026; the contact address is at lowercarbon.com, which is the only affiliation stated. It proposes a foundation model grounded in Earth observation across atmosphere, oceans, ice, land and biosphere, and draws a line from Humboldt's Naturgemälde (1807) through Darwin's voyage (1831) and FitzRoy's forecasts (1859). From the text: "The Earth's environment has been massively adapted to sustain habitability. It is life that has controlled the heat from the Sun."
Not stated: architecture, budget, timeline. Why it is here: the desk's models are small and local; this is the argument for the large one they would sit inside.
claims it answers
- “Infinite intelligence will not eliminate our need for natural resources, nor will it supplant them, because natural resources are those not produced by human intelligence.”
Real public claims, adjudicated on the piece itself, not here.
- sources
- 1 named on the piece
- topics
- climate, earth observation, AI, systems
- orgs
- Lowercarbon Capital