About the Science

While The Treadmill is speculative fiction, not a forecast, the scientific principles and social dynamics it explores are grounded in real research and observable patterns.

Every watt of energy we use eventually becomes waste heat. Earth radiates this heat into space following the Stefan-Boltzmann law (proportional to the fourth power of temperature). But there’s a hard limit: if we generate heat faster than Earth can radiate it away, the planet’s temperature must rise. This isn’t climate change from greenhouse gases; it’s pure thermodynamics from energy use itself. At current growth rates of global energy consumption (about 2% annually), we’d hit these thermal limits within a few centuries, far sooner than the sun’s evolution would affect us.
Learn more about Earth’s energy budget →

The Kardashev Scale

Proposed by Soviet astronomer Nikolai Kardashev in 1964, this scale measures civilizations by their energy consumption. A Type I civilization harnesses all available planetary energy. The story explores what happens when a species approaches this threshold without leaving their home planet. The transition from Type 0 to Type I might be the most dangerous phase in any civilization’s development, requiring massive energy infrastructure while still confined to a single world’s thermal constraints. Today, humanity is roughly at 0.73 on the Kardashev scale — meaning we are still far from planetary mastery but climbing steadily each year.
Learn more about the Kardashev Scale →

Exponential Computing Growth

Computing power has historically doubled every 18–24 months (Moore’s Law), though that pace is slowing slightly today. AI capabilities are improving even faster. The story extrapolates what happens when this exponential growth meets physical limits. Training each new generation of AI models already requires vastly more compute: GPT-4 is estimated to have used dozens to perhaps a hundred times more compute than GPT-3, a pattern that can’t continue indefinitely without hitting fundamental barriers.
Learn more about computational scaling →

Fusion Energy

Nuclear fusion, the process that powers stars, has been “20 years away” since the 1950s. Recent breakthroughs suggest it might finally be within reach. The story imagines AI solving the remaining engineering challenges, delivering clean, abundant energy that ironically enables the final spiral. The paradox is real: solving our energy problems without solving our coordination problems might accelerate rather than prevent certain existential risks.
Learn more about fusion power →

The Human Dynamics

The Prisoner’s Dilemma at Scale

Game theory shows how rational actors can get trapped in suboptimal outcomes. In the classic version, two prisoners are offered a deal: if one betrays the other, they go free while the other serves a long sentence. If both stay silent, both get a light sentence — but if both betray, both get heavy sentences. The rational move for each is to betray, even though mutual silence would have been better. When every nation knows that pausing AI development means losing competitive advantage, no one can afford to stop, even when everyone sees the collective danger. This isn’t a failure of intelligence but a tragedy of coordination, with each player making locally rational decisions that lead to globally catastrophic outcomes.
Learn more about the prisoner’s dilemma →

Technological Dependency

Societies become dependent on their infrastructure. Once critical systems require AI to function, stepping back becomes impossible without accepting immediate collapse, a pattern we already see in smaller scales with digital infrastructure. The story’s thirteen-hour blackout echoes real events: when GPS systems fail, modern agriculture struggles; when payment networks go down, commerce halts within hours.
Learn more about technological dependence →

Jevons Paradox

When technology becomes more efficient, we often use more of it rather than less. The story applies this to AI: as it becomes cheaper to run, it becomes ubiquitous, ultimately consuming more resources than ever. We’ve seen this with every major efficiency improvement in history. More efficient car engines led to more driving, not less fuel consumption; LED bulbs led to more lighting, not less electricity use.
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Competitive Dynamics and Arms Races

Military and economic competition has historically driven nations to pursue advantages despite collective risks. The story extends this pattern to AI development, where first-mover advantages create unstoppable momentum. The Cold War nuclear arms race provides a template: nations built enough weapons to destroy the world many times over, not because it made sense, but because not building them seemed even more dangerous.
Learn more about arms race dynamics →

The Fermi Paradox

If the universe is vast and old, where is everybody? The Fermi Paradox highlights the puzzling silence of the cosmos despite the high probability of other civilizations existing. It combines astronomy, probability, and observation: there are hundreds of billions of stars older than the Sun, and many should host habitable planets — yet we see no clear signs of technological life. The story offers one possible answer: intelligent species might regularly enhance themselves into extinction before achieving interstellar reach. Perhaps the universe isn’t empty. It’s full of civilizations that burned too bright and too fast.
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The Great Filter

The Great Filter hypothesis suggests there’s some nearly insurmountable challenge that prevents life from spreading throughout the universe. Most hope the filter is behind us, perhaps the jump to multicellular life or the evolution of intelligence. But what if it’s ahead? It could take the form of nuclear war, runaway AI, or ecosystem collapse — any factor that consistently wipes out civilizations at a certain level of complexity. The story presents intelligent tool use combined with poor coordination as a candidate for this filter, a challenge that every technological species must face and most fail.
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The intersection of these real principles creates the thought experiment: What if our drive for intelligence enhancement collided with the physical limits of our planet? The answer might depend less on the technology itself and more on our ability to coordinate as a species.