User:Becha/AI is ecocide
Contents
July 2023
- Vesna Manojlovic, July 2023
- BECHA@unciv.nl, becha.unciv.nl
AI is Ecocide
AI’s detrimental impact towards reaching global climate targets is ecocide.(1) The damage is severe, wanton, environmental. If not halted, it will be widespread and long-term.
As part of capitalist technological systems, AI is soaking up fossil fuels, water, rare metals, land, while externalising pollution. (2)
Socio-political harm caused by AI comes from the centralisation of power and wealth in the hands of a few corporations, (3) usage of amassed data for surveillance and disinformation, exploitation (4) of human labour for short-term profit.
Say NO to AI
Countering “AI-as-ecocide” requires intervention and healing on all levels: international legislative, collective-organisational, civil disobedience, community efforts, personal education.
Digitalisation must respect planetary boundaries. (5) We must refuse the production and operation of more digital devices, networking infrastructures, data centres. Energy and material consumption must be reduced. Extractivism, growth-oriented business models coupled with inequality must be replaced by economic policies that justly redistribute the benefits of technology (DeGrowth, eco-feminism, decolonizing, caring economies). Technical innovation must focus on repairing harm through the ethics of reciprocity and regeneration.
If we want justice and safety (6) within planetary limits, we can have no anthropocentric, hierarchical, individualistic AI.
Alternatives to Artificial “Intelligence”
Let us embrace wider consciousnesses. Empathic! Relational! Artistic! Emotional! Lateral! Through ecophilia and biophilia, let us extend love beyond our species. Let us acknowledge collective intelligence: swarms, reefs, hives; ecosystems like forests, rivers, deserts; creatures such as octopi, mycelia, squirrels (7).
I mourn our ongoing extinction, and I am hoping for (re)connection, reciprocity, thriving together in a distant future.
References
- 1. “Computing as Ecocide”, by Rob Comber and Elina Eriksson: https://limits.pubpub.org/pub/a8h46wqy/release/1
- 2. “The Climate Cost of the AI”, by Wim Vanderbauwhede https://labs.ripe.net/author/wim-vanderbauwhede/the-climate-cost-of-the-ai-revolution/
- 3. “AI’s biggest risk is the corporations that control them”, by Meredith Whittaker: https://www.fastcompany.com/90892235/researcher-meredith-whittaker-says-ais-biggest-risk-isnt-consciousness-its-the-corporations-that-control-them
- 4. “Will AI become >capital’s willing executioners<“, by Ted Chiang: https://www.newyorker.com/science/annals-of-artificial-intelligence/will-ai-become-the-new-mckinsey
- 5. “Political Demands”, by “Bits & Bäume 2022” https://bits-und-baeume.org/assets/images/pdfs/Bits_und_Baeume_Political_Demands_english.pdf
- 6. “A just world on a safe planet: quantifying Earth System Boundaries”, by Johan Rockström, Joyeeta Gupta, et.al https://www.pik-potsdam.de/en/news/latest-news/a-just-world-on-a-safe-planet-first-study-quantifying-earth-system-boundaries
- 7. “Environmental Impact of Internet: Urgency, De-Growth, Rebellion”, by Vesna Manojlovic https://labs.ripe.net/author/becha/environmental-impact-of-internet-urgency-de-growth-rebellion/
