Sam Altman, AI and Sustainable Lifestyles

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Valerie Brachya

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Jun 7, 2023, 6:56:49 AMJun 7
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Sam Altman visited Tel Aviv University yesterday, where he presented the opportunities and risks of AI to the very vibrant High Tech sector in Israel. 
While I accept that ChatGPT and other AI developments may create innovative solutions to many complex and perhaps 'wicked' problems, including climate change, and that we should move forward with it, not fight against it, I wonder what are the implications of AI for Sustainable Lifestyles.
Is it just another technological hype? Will it just increase income levels and longevity and consequently consumption levels? Could we harness AI to find effective and acceptable choice architecture and infrastructures which will enable people to live more sustainable lifestyles with lower ecological footprints?
Have any of the SCORAI community used ChatGPT for sustainability research, policy making or implementation? 
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Valerie Brachya
Research Associate
Jerusalem Institute for Policy Research
Lecturer, Tel Aviv University, Porter School for the Environment and Earth Sciences
Co-author 'Sustainable Lifestyles after Covid 19'

Pradanos-Garcia, Luis

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Jun 7, 2023, 8:09:58 AMJun 7
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Dear Valeria,

Is there a recording of Altman's presentation that you could share?

In my opinion, these are all very relevant questions. I have been thinking a lot about AI and sustainability during the last few years. We wrote a piece (forthcoming soon) that reviewed a lot of literature on AI and sustainability. We came to the conclusion that AI is in fact a key driver of ecological depletion and social inequality. I am pasting the reference and abstract below. If anybody is interested in reading the preprint please let me know and I will send it to you separately.

Best,

Iñaki

Prádanos, Luis I. and Daniela Inclezan. “AI for Sustainability: A Dangerous Fantasy or an Unfulfilled Potential.” The Impact of Artificial Intelligence in Business and Society. Opportunities and Challenges. Edited by Davide La Torre, Francesco Paolo Appio, Hatem Masri, Francesca Lazzeri, Francesco Schiavone. Routledge (forthcoming 2023)

Abstract

AI intensifies existing trends towards ecological decline through its high dependence on materials and energy, as well as its development in the context of a profit-maximizing and growth-oriented economic culture. As the vast majority of machine learning systems, even those focused on Sustainable Development Goals, are designed to make processes faster and more efficient and focus on symptoms rather than root causes, they are accelerating ecological depletion, energy decline, material extraction, labor exploitation, and global inequality. To correct this situation, we advocate for a democratic process of deciding what and how AI should be implemented, so that it serves the common good and the regeneration of ecosystems.



Luis I. Prádanos (Iñaki)
Professor and Chair
Spanish & Portuguese
Affiliation: Institute for the Environment & Sustainability
Miami University
Irvin Hall 268
400 East Spring Street
Oxford, OH 45056



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Lifset, Reid

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Jun 7, 2023, 8:56:05 AMJun 7
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Dear all,

 

For those interested in research on AI and sustainability, see the online bibliography maintained by the Network for the Digital Economy and the Environment at https://www.networkdee.org/bibliography . 

 

Sincerely,

Reid Lifset

Tom Walker

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Jun 7, 2023, 11:23:47 AMJun 7
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Just a hunch, but my expectation is that AI will be massively used for marketing, advertising, and policing.

Cheers,

Tom Walker (Sandwichman)


Robert Rattle

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Jun 7, 2023, 11:39:17 AMJun 7
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Very incisive observation Tom. Valerie - Laura did an excellent job summarising my (poorly written) perspective and I still have no idea 'how to get there' nearly a decade and a half later.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/15487733.2010.11908057

The solutions cannot be confined to the digital (or business) sector alone, and thus transforming structural and institutional spaces will be as, or more, necessary as the technology. In the last 15 (actually 20 since the research was undertaken) years, I've watched the enthusiasm for technologies expand while socio-political opportunities become increasingly drowned out. The potential for AI still exists, but invariably remains limited, especially as *we* centre the analysis on the technology, and emphasise the narratives from those with obvious technological (or at least business) interests to the detriment of those with more critical and considered perspectives.

Cheers,

Robert


Valerie Brachya

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Jun 10, 2023, 8:44:11 AMJun 10
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Thank you all for your interesting and enlightening references and comments
Valerie

Tom Abeles

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Jun 10, 2023, 3:31:55 PMJun 10
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The AI systems, including the "Chats", are dependent on the inputs including the "databases" and materials from across the intellectual spectrum. Like humans, they are creatures of the culture including both verbal and non-verbal inputs. As with humans, they have a proclivity to make "leaps" but these, currently are few with the oft repeated example from chess.

I would be interested in if the SF literature has been included or what that community is thinking. For example, Kim Stanley Robinson who has been attending the COP conferences, authors such as Bruce Sterling (who writes across genres), Kurt Vonnegut, or Karl Schroeder and others who have consulted to the military, e.g. darpa or the other arpa's.

Incidentally, the military is, perhaps, the largest "polluter". And, looking at the current war in Ukraine, one is hard pressed to fathom how much of that hardware fits into the "circular economy", not including the chemistry -think "agent orange", or the current US concern regarding the "burn pits" on human health much less the biosphere.

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Ilan Kelman

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Jun 11, 2023, 1:59:50 AMJun 11
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A comment in the "Sam Altman, AI and Sustainable Lifestyles" discussion quite rightly noted:

'Incidentally, the military is, perhaps, the largest "polluter". And, looking at the current war in Ukraine, one is hard pressed to fathom how much of that hardware fits into the "circular economy", not including the chemistry -think "agent orange", or the current US concern regarding the "burn pits" on human health much less the biosphere.'


Useful for discussion: "Food rationing during World War two: a special case of sustainable consumption?" https://doi.org/10.4000/aof.6383

Ilan

Cohen, Maurie

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Jun 11, 2023, 10:51:12 AMJun 11
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Thanks, Ilan for highlighting this article about putative sustainable consumption during WWII. Of course, wars are periods of wanton destruction and death but they (along with pandemics, "natural" disasters, and political revolutions) are also, if we look past the grandstanding and militarization, moments of strategic opportunity (shifts in the landscape conditions if want to put it in transition-speak). The world as we know it today, on large parts of the planet, was born out of the crucible of WWII (including the "invention"--or at least pervasive deployment--of GDP as a means of measuring our "progress".) It never ceases to amaze me how successful the architects of the 1939 World's Fair were in implementing their vision in the years (and decades) following the war, and this was not an accident.

At the same time, the current war of Russian aggression against Ukraine has had numerous positive side effects, perhaps most notably weaning large parts of Europe off of cheap energy supplies. This undertaking would have taken decades to achieve and would have likely been challenged by a lack of political will and numerous appeasing compromises along the way.

This is not an argument for warmongering or slyly wishing for catastrophe, but rather an appeal that we consider the advent of these events in much the same way that militaries organize war games to anticipate what might come in the future and, importantly, how to use these moments of adversity to encourage positive and purposeful change. Here is a dusty item from the archives that covers some similar ground to the article to which you previously drew attention (https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-009-9785-x#author-information).

Kind regards,

Maurie


NJIT logoMaurie J. Cohen
Professor and Chair
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
mco...@njit.edu • (973) 596-5281

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