Artificial Intelligence and the Environmental Crisis: Can Technology Really Save the World? / Edition 1

by Keith Ronald Skene

Overview

A radical and challenging book which argues that artificial intelligence needs a completely different set of foundations, based on ecological intelligence rather than human intelligence, if it is to deliver on the promise of a better world. This can usher in the greatest transformation in human history, an age of re-integration. Our very existence is dependent upon our context within the Earth System, and so, surely, artificial intelligence must also be grounded within this context, embracing emergence, interconnectedness and real-time feedback. We discover many positive outcomes across the societal, economic and environmental arenas and discuss how this transformation can be delivered.

Key Features:

• Identifies a key weakness in current AI thinking, that threatens any hope of a better world.
• Highlights the importance of realizing that systems theory is an essential foundation for any technology that hopes to positively transform our world.
• Emphasizes the need for a radical new approach to AI, based on ecological systems.
• Explains why ecosystem intelligence, not human intelligence, offers the best framework for AI.
• Examines how this new approach will impact on the three arenas of society, environment and economics, ushering in a new age of re-integration.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780367152000
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	01/29/2020
Pages:	276
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

Born in the historic city of Armagh in Ireland in 1965, Keith is a former Association of Rhodes Scholars of Australia Scholar, carrying out field research across the planet, from Kenya to the Carpathian mountains, from the Scottish Highlands to southwest Australia and from Vietnam to Trinidad. In 2010, Keith established the Biosphere Research Institute (www.biosri.org), becoming its first director. The Biosphere Research Institute does cutting-edge research on environmental, economic and societal sustainability, focusing on a fundamental dialogue around our place in the Earth system.

Table of Contents

Preface. Artificial Intelligence and the Internet of Things. Should I Stay or Should I Go? Ethics in AI. Gender, Race, Culture and Fear. The Thinker: Human Intelligence. Other Modes of Intelligence: Thinking Outside the Human Box. Highway to Hell: The Existentialist Threat Facing Humankind. Forget the Romans. What has AI ever done for us? Imagining a New World. Barriers to Change. Transition. Glossary. References.

Editorial Reviews

"To call this text wide-ranging would be a significant understatement, and Skene has set himself an enormous task. Across 10 discrete sections, he seeks to define and illustrate not only the nature of human, and non-human, intelligence – but also the diverse nature of ethical debate, the nature of economics and sustainability, the myriad threats that human exploitation poses to the biosphere, how these could be addressed and the dramatic structural changes to society that would be necessary.
Moving beyond humanity to the (perhaps vexed) question of intelligence as a broader concept, Skene explores the concepts of swarm intelligence and the wisdom of crowds, culminating in an exposition of how 'ecosystem intelligence' might be employed as a tool in developing sustainable global solutions to environmental management – through the agency of artificial intelligence (AI) systems. This book is a passionate manifesto, a call to arms, by someone who clearly cares deeply about his subject."
— John Gilbey, Department of Computer Science, Aberystwyth University, An Excerpt from Times Higher Education

From the Publisher