Is AI Good for the Planet?

Is AI Good for the Planet?
Author: Benedetta Brevini
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 160
Release: 2021-10-14
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 1509547967


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Artificial intelligence (AI) is presented as a solution to the greatest challenges of our time, from global pandemics and chronic diseases to cybersecurity threats and the climate crisis. But AI also contributes to the climate crisis by running on technology that depletes scarce resources and by relying on data centres that demand excessive energy use. Is AI Good for the Planet? brings the climate crisis to the centre of debates around AI, exposing its environmental costs and forcing us to reconsider our understanding of the technology. It reveals why we should no longer ignore the environmental problems generated by AI. Embracing a green agenda for AI that puts the climate crisis at centre stage is our urgent priority. Engaging and passionately written, this book is essential reading for scholars and students of AI, environmental studies, politics, and media studies and for anyone interested in the connections between technology and the environment.

Is AI Good for the Planet?

Is AI Good for the Planet?
Author: Benedetta Brevini
Publisher: Polity
Total Pages: 160
Release: 2021-12-01
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 9781509547951


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Artificial intelligence (AI) is presented as a solution to the greatest challenges of our time: from global pandemics and chronic diseases to cyber security threats and, of course, the climate crisis. But we should think about AI in a different and more material way: running on technology that depletes scarce resources and relying on data centres that demand excessive energy use, AI is also contributing to the climate crisis. Collectively, these processes involve extensive energy consumption and the burning of fossil fuels that make the climate crisis worse. For the first time, Is AI Good for the Planet? brings the climate crisis to the centre of debates around AI, exposing its environmental costs and forcing us to reconsider the way we look at it. Powerfully written, this book reveals how we should no longer ignore the environmental problems generated by AI. Instead, embracing a green agenda for AI that puts the climate crisis at centre stage is our urgent priority. Written in a clear and accessible style, and underpinned by research and wide-ranging international examples, this book is essential reading for scholars and students of artificial intelligence, environmental studies, politics, and media studies, as well as general readers interested in the connections between technology and the environment.

AI in the Wild

AI in the Wild
Author: Peter Dauvergne
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 278
Release: 2020-09-15
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 0262359588


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Examining the potential benefits and risks of using artificial intelligence to advance global sustainability. Drones with night vision are tracking elephant and rhino poachers in African wildlife parks and sanctuaries; smart submersibles are saving coral from carnivorous starfish on Australia's Great Barrier Reef; recycled cell phones alert Brazilian forest rangers to the sound of illegal logging. The tools of artificial intelligence are being increasingly deployed in the battle for global sustainability. And yet, warns Peter Dauvergne, we should be cautious in declaring AI the planet's savior. In AI in the Wild, Dauvergne avoids the AI industry-powered hype and offers a critical view, exploring both the potential benefits and risks of using artificial intelligence to advance global sustainability.

Artificial Intelligence and the Environmental Crisis

Artificial Intelligence and the Environmental Crisis
Author: Keith Ronald Skene
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 263
Release: 2019-12-19
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 042961909X


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A radical and challenging book which argues that artificial intelligence needs a completely different set of foundations, based on ecological intelligence rather than human intelligence, if it is to deliver on the promise of a better world. This can usher in the greatest transformation in human history, an age of re-integration. Our very existence is dependent upon our context within the Earth System, and so, surely, artificial intelligence must also be grounded within this context, embracing emergence, interconnectedness and real-time feedback. We discover many positive outcomes across the societal, economic and environmental arenas and discuss how this transformation can be delivered. Key Features: Identifies a key weakness in current AI thinking, that threatens any hope of a better world. Highlights the importance of realizing that systems theory is an essential foundation for any technology that hopes to positively transform our world. Emphasizes the need for a radical new approach to AI, based on ecological systems. Explains why ecosystem intelligence, not human intelligence, offers the best framework for AI. Examines how this new approach will impact on the three arenas of society, environment and economics, ushering in a new age of re-integration.

The Atlas of AI

The Atlas of AI
Author: Kate Crawford
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 336
Release: 2021-04-06
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 0300209576


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The hidden costs of artificial intelligence, from natural resources and labor to privacy and freedom What happens when artificial intelligence saturates political life and depletes the planet? How is AI shaping our understanding of ourselves and our societies? In this book Kate Crawford reveals how this planetary network is fueling a shift toward undemocratic governance and increased inequality. Drawing on more than a decade of research, award-winning science, and technology, Crawford reveals how AI is a technology of extraction: from the energy and minerals needed to build and sustain its infrastructure, to the exploited workers behind "automated" services, to the data AI collects from us. Rather than taking a narrow focus on code and algorithms, Crawford offers us a political and a material perspective on what it takes to make artificial intelligence and where it goes wrong. While technical systems present a veneer of objectivity, they are always systems of power. This is an urgent account of what is at stake as technology companies use artificial intelligence to reshape the world.

Artificial Intelligence in Society

Artificial Intelligence in Society
Author: OECD
Publisher: OECD Publishing
Total Pages: 152
Release: 2019-06-11
Genre:
ISBN: 9264545190


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The artificial intelligence (AI) landscape has evolved significantly from 1950 when Alan Turing first posed the question of whether machines can think. Today, AI is transforming societies and economies. It promises to generate productivity gains, improve well-being and help address global challenges, such as climate change, resource scarcity and health crises.

AI Superpowers

AI Superpowers
Author: Kai-Fu Lee
Publisher: Harper Business
Total Pages: 275
Release: 2018
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 132854639X


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AI Superpowers is Kai-Fu Lee's New York Times and USA Today bestseller about the American-Chinese competition over the future of artificial intelligence.

Artificial Intelligence and Conservation

Artificial Intelligence and Conservation
Author: Fei Fang
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 247
Release: 2019-03-28
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 1108672922


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With the increasing public interest in artificial intelligence (AI), there is also increasing interest in learning about the benefits that AI can deliver to society. This book focuses on research advances in AI that benefit the conservation of wildlife, forests, coral reefs, rivers, and other natural resources. It presents how the joint efforts of researchers in computer science, ecology, economics, and psychology help address the goals of the United Nations' 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Written at a level accessible to conservation professionals and AI researchers, the book offers both an overview of the field and an in-depth view of how AI is being used to understand patterns in wildlife poaching and enhance patrol efforts in response, covering research advances, field tests and real-world deployments. The book also features efforts in other major conservation directions, including protecting natural resources, ecosystem monitoring, and bio-invasion management through the use of game theory, machine learning, and optimization.

New Laws of Robotics

New Laws of Robotics
Author: Frank Pasquale
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 345
Release: 2020-10-27
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0674975227


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AI is poised to disrupt our work and our lives. We can harness these technologies rather than fall captive to them—but only through wise regulation. Too many CEOs tell a simple story about the future of work: if a machine can do what you do, your job will be automated. They envision everyone from doctors to soldiers rendered superfluous by ever-more-powerful AI. They offer stark alternatives: make robots or be replaced by them. Another story is possible. In virtually every walk of life, robotic systems can make labor more valuable, not less. Frank Pasquale tells the story of nurses, teachers, designers, and others who partner with technologists, rather than meekly serving as data sources for their computerized replacements. This cooperation reveals the kind of technological advance that could bring us all better health care, education, and more, while maintaining meaningful work. These partnerships also show how law and regulation can promote prosperity for all, rather than a zero-sum race of humans against machines. How far should AI be entrusted to assume tasks once performed by humans? What is gained and lost when it does? What is the optimal mix of robotic and human interaction? New Laws of Robotics makes the case that policymakers must not allow corporations or engineers to answer these questions alone. The kind of automation we get—and who it benefits—will depend on myriad small decisions about how to develop AI. Pasquale proposes ways to democratize that decision making, rather than centralize it in unaccountable firms. Sober yet optimistic, New Laws of Robotics offers an inspiring vision of technological progress, in which human capacities and expertise are the irreplaceable center of an inclusive economy.

The Alignment Problem: Machine Learning and Human Values

The Alignment Problem: Machine Learning and Human Values
Author: Brian Christian
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 459
Release: 2020-10-06
Genre: Science
ISBN: 039363583X


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A jaw-dropping exploration of everything that goes wrong when we build AI systems and the movement to fix them. Today’s “machine-learning” systems, trained by data, are so effective that we’ve invited them to see and hear for us—and to make decisions on our behalf. But alarm bells are ringing. Recent years have seen an eruption of concern as the field of machine learning advances. When the systems we attempt to teach will not, in the end, do what we want or what we expect, ethical and potentially existential risks emerge. Researchers call this the alignment problem. Systems cull résumés until, years later, we discover that they have inherent gender biases. Algorithms decide bail and parole—and appear to assess Black and White defendants differently. We can no longer assume that our mortgage application, or even our medical tests, will be seen by human eyes. And as autonomous vehicles share our streets, we are increasingly putting our lives in their hands. The mathematical and computational models driving these changes range in complexity from something that can fit on a spreadsheet to a complex system that might credibly be called “artificial intelligence.” They are steadily replacing both human judgment and explicitly programmed software. In best-selling author Brian Christian’s riveting account, we meet the alignment problem’s “first-responders,” and learn their ambitious plan to solve it before our hands are completely off the wheel. In a masterful blend of history and on-the ground reporting, Christian traces the explosive growth in the field of machine learning and surveys its current, sprawling frontier. Readers encounter a discipline finding its legs amid exhilarating and sometimes terrifying progress. Whether they—and we—succeed or fail in solving the alignment problem will be a defining human story. The Alignment Problem offers an unflinching reckoning with humanity’s biases and blind spots, our own unstated assumptions and often contradictory goals. A dazzlingly interdisciplinary work, it takes a hard look not only at our technology but at our culture—and finds a story by turns harrowing and hopeful.