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Following our successful panel on the same topic earlier this year, this research forum and networking event was co-hosted by Sussex Digital Humanities Lab, Sussex Sustainability Research Programme, and Sussex AI with the aim of generating critical conversations and new research collaborations to build positive futures for AI in sustainability research.

The event combined lightening talks that showcased existing and emerging work at interfaces of AI and sustainability with group discussions to surface interdisciplinary topics in AI for social and environmental sustainability.

Speakers included:

• Adam Barrett (Informatics) - Modelling the Stability of Zero-growth Economics
• Fiona Marshall (SPRU) - Deep Learning of Aerial Imagery for Sustainable Land Use Planning
• Tessa Lewin (IDS) - Natural Language Processing and Gender Justice

How can future AI be designed to help create sustainable futures for people and planet?

Attendees were invited to consider how recent advances in AI can be applied to local and global sustainability challenges, without amplifying existing social and environmental inequalities. To this complex question, Co-Director of SHL Digital and member of SSRP Professor Alice Eldridge says:

“These challenges can only be met by radically inter-disciplinary collaboration between researchers that understand sustainability contexts, those that have technical expertise in developing novel AI solutions and critical expertise in understanding many implications of an increasingly technologised society - legal, cultural, racial, ethical, epistemic, energetic etc.”

Attendees were invited to bring along challenges for discussion, a challenge that AI might solve or a social or environmental issue that the uncritical application of AI may create. A rich tapestry emerged with risks, issues and opportunities such as:

• stemming the exponential growth of data in AI and the carbon costs of generative AI;
• AI in international contexts and how to create a global ethics architecture;
• art & AI and the ethics of training models on extant artist works;
• place-based solutions and integrating solutions into social needs;
• language and how we talk about AI.

What next?

This second iteration of the AI for a better world? event confirmed that there is appetite, impetus, and rich critical mass to continue towards building a Sussex approach. Next steps discussed included the development of a series of workshops, the construction of a possible Sussex manifesto, as well as a consolidated list of emerging cluster themes such as ‘place-based AI usage (ethical, technical and social), participatory decision making and governance, and AI energy and data usage.

The next AI for a better world? event is planned for the New Year and will be widely advertised. Researchers at Sussex and beyond from all disciplines with an interest in the subject are welcome.

If you wish to be kept informed for future events drop us a line shl@sussex.ac.uk and you will be added to the mailing list.

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