AI for Progress: Environment
Can artificial intelligence help us not only better understand climate change, but also address it? Viviana Acquaviva starts with data: how can machine learning identify patterns and signals in vast amounts of scientific information that may escape human analysis? Marco Tedesco starts with the planet: how can AI,
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satellites, and climate models help us understand and predict environmental changes that will have concrete consequences for our lives? From data to knowledge, from knowledge to prediction, from prediction to action. But there is also a paradox: AI can help us protect the planet, yet it consumes energy and natural resources itself. How can we govern it so that its overall impact on the environment is positive? Program 6:00 PM – Institutional Remarks 6:05 PM – Introduction Luciano Floridi – Director, Digital Ethics Center, Yale University 6:20 PM – Panel Viviana Acquaviva, Professor of Physics and Earth and Environmental Sciences, CUNY City Tech and Graduate Center Marco Tedesco, Lamont Research Professor, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia Climate School and Director, Laboratory on AI, Climate and Society – Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory In conversation with: Claudio Pagliara – Director, Italian Cultural Institute of New York This is the third of four conferences curated by Luciano Floridi in collaboration with the Italian Cultural Institute of New York. Each conference addresses a crucial area for human progress. Education: September 22, 6:30 PM – RSVP Health: October 13, 6:00 PM – RSVP Environment: October 29, 6:00 PM – RSVP Business: November 9, 6:00 PM – RSVP Artificial intelligence carries risks, some of them serious, which we do not intend to overlook; but history has shown that technological innovation cannot simply be halted, so the more productive question is how this technology can be governed and directed towards human progress rather than allowed to undermine it. Each evening therefore brings together two speakers with distinct – and sometimes contrasting – perspectives, in a conversation meant to be substantive, lively, and accessible to a general audience. The format calls for Luciano Floridi to open each event with a fifteen-minute introduction to frame the topic. This is followed by a panel moderated by the Director of Italian Cultural Institute, Claudio Pagliara. The discussion will be followed by an extensive Q&A with the audience.