Earth-Friendly AI

Context

Source: Fourth Industrial Revolution for the Earth: Harnessing Artificial Intelligence for the Earth: PwC and The World Economic Forum, January 2018.

Here is an excerpt from the foreword of the report:

'Developing approaches to guide “human‐friendly” AI is arguably one of the biggest unsolved AI problemstoday. Asthe scale of the economic and human health impactsfrom our deteriorating natural environment grows, it is becoming increasingly important to extend the rapidly growing field of AI safety to incorporate “Earth‐ friendly” AI. As the technology evolves, its direct and indirect applications for the environment will need to be better understood in order to harness the opportunities, while assessing the potential risks and developing approaches for mitigating them. For example, AI could be developed to support the creation of distributed, “off‐ grid” water and energy resources; to improve climate modelling; or to improve natural disaster resilience planning. Ongoing cooperation among governments, technology developers, investors and civil society will be essential to realizing this vision. As AI is the “electricity” for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, harnessing its potential could help to create sustainable, beneficial outcomes for humanity and the planet we inhabit.'

Sourced from: MEASURING WHAT MATTERS IN THE ERA OF GLOBAL WARMING AND THE AGE OF ALGORITHMIC PROMISES. by Konstantinos Karachalios, Nick Stern and John C. Havens. IEEE Standards Association,