Forest conservation and biodiversity are on the software radar, but the risk of increased energy consumption and misinformation are threats with technology
After more than a decade at Google, one of the pioneers in the development of artificial intelligence (AI)Geoffrey Hinton says technology may pose a “more urgent” threat to humanity than climate change. Despite this more pessimistic view and all the ethical and regulatory challenges, can software that simulates human intelligence help stop the destruction of the planet?
Among the AI-based programs already successfully used, or under development, are the fight against registration and illegal timber trade, animal protection and endangered species monitoring, prevention of forest fires AND natural disasters, ocean cleaning, solid waste management and pollution control.
Remembered this Monday 5 June, the 50th World Environment Day has as its theme “Solutions to plastic pollution”. A study published in the scientific journal Plos One points out that nothing less than 171 trillion plastic particles – the equivalent of 2.3 million tons – are found in the oceans. By comparison, that’s the same weight as 10,000 blue whales.
With data like this in mind, a young Dutchman, Boyan Slat, set out to set up a company with the ambition of “cleaning up 90% of the ocean’s waste”. Thus, The Ocean Cleanup was born. Using cameras aboard volunteer vessels, the company has developed an AI-powered system to identify where plastic waste accumulates and the behavior of sea currents.
Two years later, in March 2020, the multinational SAS Analytics launched a project to monitor deforestation in the Amazon using crowd-driven artificial intelligence. “We let the crowd train the AI model for two years. As a result, we got the crowd to be about 90% accurate compared to the experts, and the AI model was 97% accurate compared to the crowd,” he says. Stadium I-Sah Hsieh, Head of Social Innovation at SAS.
The program, in collaboration with the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), is the result of the company’s initiative called Data for Good, which allows employees to contribute their analytical skills to help organizations on the front lines of social and environmental causes. .
“Since environmental conservation is one of the core interests of SAS employees, we have found organizations that are pioneering and match the employees’ skills,” says Hsieh. After the Amazon, the company brought the project to the archipelago of Galapagosin Ecuador, with the aim of monitoring endangered sea turtles.
trees digital
In April, Google, from which Hinton resigned, announced a series of actions based on artificial intelligence in Belém. Among these, the fight against the destruction of forests, the illegal trade in timber and the monitoring of species. In collaboration with The Nature Conservancy (TNC) in Brazilthe company announced Digitalis da Floresta, a project that uses artificial intelligence and biochemistry to identify and trace the origin of wood sold from the Amazon.
The use of technology goes beyond forests and oceans. A Google project tested in Israel was brought to Rio in 2021, in collaboration with the Traffic Engineering Company (CET). The study conducted by an artificial intelligence research group from Google, with intelligent traffic lights, showed that the dwell time of vehicles at intersections has decreased. This translates into a lower emission of polluting substances: up to 20% reduction in machine downtime and fuel consumption.
In Curitiba, a pilot project of Ciclefy Engenharia using artificial intelligence has been tested for selective harvesting. The company’s engineers have developed equipment that automatically separates recyclable waste. The technology uses a recognition camera that rotates around the object deposited in the dumpster. This process collects packaging images. The system then identifies the type of waste and, through automation, separates it by type.
Mandatory notices
The potential of AI seems to be so great that during the COP-26, the United Nations Climate Conferenceheld in Scotland in 2021, researchers from several institutions in the United States, Canada and Europe presented global leaders with a report titled Artificial Intelligence in Combating Climate Change, with recommendations for decision making in countries.
Produced by the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence (GPAI) and the Center for AI and Climate (made up of researchers and companies and a study center dedicated to the neutralization of emissions and the responsible application of AI), the document makes recommendations for the uses of technology.
These include the creation of open and transparent databases to improve the refinement of climate reporting and the inclusion of AI experts in government climate change policy analysis teams.
Another report, made by the consulting firm PWC extension and commissioned by Microsoft, points out that artificial intelligence has the potential to preserve up to 32 million hectares of forests and help reduce emissions of up to 2.4 billion tons of carbon dioxide. According to the survey, the market for environmental applications using the technology is expected to be worth up to $5.2 trillion and could generate more than 38 million jobs worldwide.
But not everything is so beautiful and green. Study published in the scientific journal Nature, in 2022, highlights the difficulties in measuring the results of AI in the fight against climate change. The research traced the relationship between technology and patents on a large scale: from 1976 to 2019, more than 6 million patents were analyzed in the United States.
The result shows that within climate patents, AI is most frequently mentioned in transportation, energy and industrial production technologies. It also reveals that it can have negative effects on the environment when used only for the “benefit of the business model”. That is when it is not used with the aim of mitigating the damage.
The same report by the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence (GPAI) and the Center for AI and Climate, for example, draws attention to the risks that the misuse of technology can have for global warming. First, the effects associated with computing, such as the massive use of electrical energy needed by hardware to run artificial intelligence programs.
AI can also be used to facilitate activities associated with high greenhouse gas emissions. The technology, for example, is used extensively in oil and gas extraction and production. The study estimates that this will contribute $425 billion in profits to the fossil fuel industry by 2025.
Another negative effect: Artificial intelligence is increasingly ubiquitous in the digital world and in recommendation systems, resulting in highly personalized advertising. The study warns that “it is plausible that this increases consumer consumption and carbon footprint”.
The same result can be expected for innovations that are not yet consolidated on the market. These impacts are more difficult to quantify, but still significant. Autonomous vehicle technology, for example, “may introduce efficiency gains to driving, but also lower the barrier to driving and may induce new demand for personalized transportation. This may lead to higher total emissions associated with transportation,” says the study.
Not good, not bad, not even neutral.
Weeks after Hinton’s speech, 350 executives and scientists from companies and organizations signed a document released by the nonprofit Center for AI Security. The text states that the accelerated development of technology poses as grave a danger to humanity as nuclear conflicts and disease. Among the signatories, in addition to Hinton himself, Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMind, Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, creator of ChatGPT and Bill Gates of Microsoft.
For them, generative AI, capable of creating original content such as text, music and images, such as ChatGPT, can already be used as a disinformation tool. This could soon be a risk to jobs and later, they say, a risk to humanity.
After San Francisco startup OpenAI rolled out a new version of ChatGPT in March, more than 1,000 tech leaders and researchers called in an open letter for a six-month moratorium on developing new systems because AI poses “profound risks.” for society and humanity”. .
We live in the first stage of AI, called narrow or weak AI, say the researchers. In it, systems only perform tasks for which they have been “trained” from huge databases. Technologies of “machine learning”, “deep learning” and natural language processing improve the systems, still limited.
The second phase envisaged is that of general, or strong, AI. At this point in development, the machine will be able to solve problems for which it was not designed for and in a short time surpass human capabilities.
The third and final stage that scares researchers is Super AI. Theoretically, but increasingly possible, this step would lead to systems that surpass the human and are capable of performing any function, solving any problem, having creativity and social skills. There are predictions that this will happen in less than a decade, with unpredictable results.
The crossroads of AI refers to the position of such specialists as the French philosopher and sociologist Pierre Leviintelligence technology researcher, e Melvin Kranzberg, of which he was a teacher History of technology to the Georgia Institute of Technology (USA). For him, it wasn’t about thinking of technology as good or bad, or even neutral, but all at the same time. It applies to job losses; goes to war against global warming.
Source: Terra
Rose James is a Gossipify movie and series reviewer known for her in-depth analysis and unique perspective on the latest releases. With a background in film studies, she provides engaging and informative reviews, and keeps readers up to date with industry trends and emerging talents.
