AI for climate: freedom, justice, and other ethical and political challenges
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OPINION PAPER
AI for climate: freedom, justice, and other ethical and political challenges Mark Coeckelbergh1 Received: 27 August 2020 / Accepted: 31 August 2020 © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
Abstract Artificial intelligence can and should help to build a greener, more sustainable world and to deal with climate change. But these opportunities also raise ethical and political issues that need to be addressed if this project is to be successful. For example, the use of AI and the required data centers may involve high energy consumption, vulnerability to climate change and impact of climate measures differ across the globe and raise issues of justice, and when dealing with climate change in a way that influences or governs human behavior, there are trade-offs between effective measures that mitigate climate change and respecting human freedom. AI may also contribute to increasing humanity’s hyper agency in relation to the planet, thus adding to what is known as the problem of the “Anthropocene”. This article outlines and discusses these issues, with a focus on problems concerning freedom and justice at a global level, and calls for responsible use of AI for climate in the light of these challenges. Keywords Artificial intelligence · Environment · Climate change · Ethics · Freedom · Nudging · Global justice · Anthropocene
1 Introduction Today, climate change is widely regarded as one of the biggest and most threatening global challenges facing humanity—if not the most threatening. Global temperatures keep rising, there are more extreme weather events, and many species face extinction. Many believe that a response is urgently required or have already started to implement measures. Technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) can be part of such measures: they can help to mitigate climate change and, more generally, help us to deal with a wide range of environmental issues. There are various ways in which AI, especially but not exclusively in the form of machine learning applications, can be used for dealing with climate change. For example, AI can help to gather and process data on temperature change and carbon emissions, predict weather events and climate, show the effects of extreme weather, improve predictions of Invited contribution to the inaugural issue of “AI and Ethics”. * Mark Coeckelbergh [email protected] 1
University of Vienna, Wien, Austria
how much energy we need and manage energy consumption (e.g., by means of smart grids), process data on endangered species, transform transportation in a way that leads to less carbon emissions and more efficient energy management and routing (car traffic, shipping, etc.), track deforestation and carbon emissions by industry, monitor ocean ecosystems, predict droughts and enable precision agriculture, contribute to smart recycling, assist carbon capture and geoengineering, and nudge consumers to behave in more climate friendly ways and create more awareness about the environmental and climate impact of their behavior (for an overview o
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