Opinion: ”Earth aligned” AI development contribute to planetary stability
A newly published opinion piece addresses AI’s role in sustainability amid global crises. The authors propose ”The Earth Alignment Principle for Artificial Intelligence”, encompassing controlled growth of AI, equitable access, and governance based on strong social cohesion to support sustainability goals aligned with planetary stability.
A new opinion piece, introducing the “Earth alignment” principle for artificial intelligence, was published on March 28 in Nature Sustainability. It is the outcome of a closed-door online workshop convened by the US National Academy of Sciences, Nobel prize Outreach and Microsoft following the Nobel Prize Summit, Truth, Trust and Hope held in Washington DC in May 2023.
The Earth Alignment principle comes at a time of unprecedented turbulence on multiple levels. The planet is stepping into a perilous era: out of 35 monitored vital climate signals, 25 are breaking records proving insufficient progress in dealing with the climate crisis. Six out of nine planetary boundaries have been proved being transgressed in a world of mounting conflicts, depleting biodiversity and increasing polarization.
These threats are highly interconnected and require transformative, scalable and accessible solutions. AI is one of them. Interest around its potentialities to achieve sustainability objectives has surged in research and policy; applications grow at unprecedented rate and address private and public stakeholders’ needs. However, AI’s socio-economic and environmental impacts also raise concerns due to its energy-related emissions, material requirements and resource use.
The Earth Alignment principle is based on three interconnected pillars to guide AI development and deployment: a controlled growth to avoid supercharging unsustainable consumption and production patterns; more equitable access to AI tools and systems to avoid increasing inequalities; and strong social cohesion to achieve good governance.
The piece is led by Owen Gaffney (Impact Officer of the Nobel Prize) and co-authored – among others – by the Senior director of the National Academy of Sciences in the US, the Global Head of Sustainability at Microsoft, the President of the European Research Council and one of the United Nations AI.
Francesca Larosa, a Marie Curie Fellow at KTH and affiliated at the KTH Climate Action Center, is one of the co-authors. Francesca was among the invited participants as a result of her research on sustainable and climate impacts of AI.
Read the piece in Nature Sustainability: The Earth alignment principle for artificial intelligence