AI - Climate Change friend or foe?

Date: Tuesday 16 November 2021 About the lecture: The existential threat to humanity from Climate Change requires action at a scale and speed that can seem almost impossible, transitioning systems that have operated for decades on fossil fuels to a completely new paradigm. Aidan O’Sullivan will talk about how Artificial Intelligence is a natural ally and catalyst for this change and the fundamental characteristics of AI as a software technology are ideally suited to enable the scale and speed of action that we need to mitigate a climate disaster. Kate Jones will then look at whether AI can be useful for understanding climate change impacts and solutions and Geoff Mulgan will then discuss the potential of AI to combat climate change – but also and why we need radically different ways of organising data for the full benefits to be achieved and why AI needs to be combined with human collective intelligence. About the speakers: Kate Jones, Professor of Ecology and Biodiversity at Department of Genetics, Evolution & Environment, UCL Sir Geoff Mulgan, Professor of Collective Intelligence, Public Policy & Social Innovation at University College London Aidan O’Sullivan, Associate Professor in Energy and AI at UCL Energy Institute and Turing Fellow at Alan Turing Institute This event is part of UCL’s climate campaign ‘Generation One’. Together we are the new generation taking responsibility for climate action and turning science into actionable ideas. Join our new era of climate action at ucl.ac.uk/generation-one