AI vs the climate event
Global Action Plan, in partnership with Tanya Goodin (Tech & AI Ethicist), invites you to an evening panel event on the environmental impacts of AI.
AI champions are excited about the many benefits to the climate movement: optimising energy efficiency, enhancing renewable energy sources, and better climate monitoring, helping us accurately track deforestation, carbon emissions, and the health of ecosystems.
But training AI models requires vast amounts of energy and will hugely inflate Big Tech’s already enormous carbon footprint. As we point out in our recent report, even greater harms lie in the indirect impacts - misinformation and division, undermining of constructive action to tackle the climate crisis and even threatening democracy itself.
Coinciding with the week of the AI safety summit being held at Bletchley Park, our event will focus on the environmental perspectives that are not currently being covered by the summit itself or by the official ‘fringe’ events. Given expert warnings of the catastrophic impact which AI could have on the climate, this is clearly an indication that governments and regulators are not paying enough attention to the true risks of AI.
Our panel was held on Monday 30 October where our line up of panel members discussed: “Will AI help or hinder efforts to tackle climate change?”
Tanya Goodin FRSA, Tech and AI Ethicist, author, and founding partner of ethical AI advisory EthicAI (chair)
Tanya Goodin is a tech and AI ethicist and author and founding partner of ethical AI advisory EthicAI. Previously a digital entrepreneur for over 20 years, her focus now is on the ethical use of new and emerging technologies. She is the author of four books, translated into ten languages, on our complicated relationship with tech. In 2022 Tanya helped the UK government promote awareness of the Online Safety Bill and her fifth book, helping children and young people navigate the digital world, is out in May 2024. Tanya is a graduate of the University of Oxford and is researching for a Masters in AI Ethics at the University of Cambridge.
Tony Mandungu, AI Policy Fellow at Encode Justice
Tony Mandungu is an AI policy fellow at Encode Justice, an international youth-led think tank which focuses on mobilising youth for responsible, human centred artificial intelligence. The organisation is founded by Sneha Revanur and spans 40+ U.S. states & 30+ countries, with local branches on every inhabited continent. Tony also works with other organisations to protect freedoms and minimise risk in a time of enormous technological change. In 2022, she received a first class BSc in International Politics at City, University of London and she is now studying for an MSc in Public Policy at University College London (UCL).
Dr Jonnie Penn FRSA, Associate Teaching Professor of AI Ethics at the University of Cambridge
Dr Jonnie Penn is an Assistant Teaching Professor of AI Ethics and Society at the University of Cambridge. He is a historian of technology, a #1 New York Times bestselling author, and public speaker. Penn serves as a Faculty Affiliate at the Berkman Klein Center at Harvard University, a Research Fellow and Teaching Associate at the Department of History and Philosophy of Science, a Research Fellow at St. Edmund’s College and as an Associate Fellow at the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence. He was formerly a MIT Media Lab Assembly Fellow, Google Technology Policy Fellow, Fellow of the British National Academy of Writing and popular broadcaster.
Oliver Hayes, Policy and Campaigns Lead at Global Action Plan
Oliver Hayes is a campaigner with a background in the environment sector, having spent a decade at Friends of the Earth before joining Global Action Plan. At FOE's, he led a major campaign against UK air pollution in the wake of the dieselgate scandal, and was heavily involved - "though not in a lawyer-y way, thankfully" - with FOE's successful legal action against the government's decision to green-light a third runway at Heathrow. He’s now focused on the role of Big Tech in driving consumerism and other human and planetary harms as Policy and Campaigns Lead for the Global Action Plan Post Consumerism Team.
Dr Gabrielle Samuel, Lecturer in Environmental Justice and Health, King's College London
Dr Gabrielle (Gabby) Samuel is a Lecturer in Environmental Justice and Health at the Department of Global Health & Social Medicine, King’s College London. She’s trained in sociology and ethics with a background in the life sciences, and is particularly interested in the environmental impacts of digital technologies where her research programme explores ethical and social issues related to this. In her work, she draws on concepts of sustainability, justice, power, equity, and responsibility. She is principal investigator on a Wellcome project exploring the environmental impacts of digital health research, as well as co-investigator on the EPSRC PARIS-DE project, which is co-designing a digital sustainability framework. She is funded by the MRC through various projects that explore environmental sustainability and digital technologies/health.
The future of our planet is threatened if we don’t recognise the links between Big Tech Accountability and climate change. As we strive to keep 1.5 alive, it is time to talk about AI, Big Tech and its threat to the future of our planet.
Post event follow up:
We were delighted that so many were able to attend this event, held to coincide with the government's AI safety summit being held at Bletchley Park, where the impact on climate are largely being ignored.
We believe that lawmakers must place a legal duty on companies developing AI to consider climate impacts. Following the event, the hosts and panellists have sent a joint open letter to the government to urge them to do just this.
We’d like to thank you for your interest in this important conversation and invite you to keep in touch with us by signing up to Global Action Plan’s newsletter - where you can hear more about this topic, and about our other work.
We’d also like to thank our fantastic chair and panellists for their contributions.
You can catch up on some of the key points from the event through the superb graphic created (see below) by Rae Goddard.
