AI for sustainability: Are we on the verge of something big?
Last night Verco attended another great ‘The Crowd’ event at the ICAEW in London, this time on the very relevant topic of AI for Sustainability.
Celine Herweijer opened with an inspirational keynote focussed on harnessing technology to tackle environmental issues on a global scale, touching on areas such as oceans, air pollution, food systems, water resources and sanitation. The discussion then opened up to the wider panel, made up of a great mixture of AI leaders including David Ferguson, Catalina Butnaru and Dr. Seán Ó hÉigeartaig with some really thought provoking debate on the wider subject of harnessing AI for the shared goal of achieving a sustainable earth.
Following the keynote discussions, Verco chaired the round table discussion on ‘Wielding AI for optimal energy and resource management’. Take away points being that human and institutional data privacy barriers will be a big hurdle to overcome in the UK, unless there is an overwhelming business case or ease of use that makes everyone get on board. With energy being a low priority for many people, in non-energy intensive applications at least, we must consider how we tackle the uncertainties and suspicions around the use of AI and data to get the most use out of the technology.
We concluded that AI has potential to bring major benefits to achieving the SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals). However, governance needs to be established sooner rather later to alleviate the high risks involved.
Verco also participated in the round table discussion on ‘Catalysing low-carbon transitions with AI & science-based targets’. This sparked some interesting conversation around how corporates currently perceive AI, specifically in relation to their corporate target setting, as well as what the future might hold for AI based research and tools to accelerate progress towards their global emission reduction targets. It’s clear that there are barriers to overcome, such as accessibility of high quality data to feed into AI, without posing a perceived or real risk to commercial sensitivity or anonymity when sharing business data across sectors. The overwhelming consensus around the table was that AI should be seen as an empowering way of accelerating the progress toward our commitments to climate change and that the barriers would need to be addressed sooner rather than later, especially given the rate at which the technology is moving. To quote the panel; "we have a narrow window of opportunity, to get the right policies and regulations in place, to ensure AI works for the world".
There were many thought-provoking insights into how AI is generally perceived across different sectors and various roles. Examples ranged from the use of AI and image recognition to keep jellyfish and seaweed out of power stations to whether AI is a risk to jobs, or an opportunity to create new roles around training and tuning AI going forward. A great quote from the night said it well, “We are entering a golden age for philosophy” Artificial intelligence is a challenge to our ethics and will need thought on how we use and allocate resources.
Overall a really interesting and motivational evening leaving us all with the impression that we are on the verge of something big that could help create a step change toward reaching our sustainability goals as a planet.