Seminar: Is AI Good for the Planet?
In person: QUT Kelvin Grove Campus – Room KG-E-558 or via Zoom.
Tea and coffee and morning tea will be served at 10.30am
The seminar (and Zoom) will commence at 10.45am – 12.00 noon
For more information contact qutc4j@qut.edu.au
This talk draws on the early 2022 book by Dr Benedetta Brevini ‘Is AI good for the planet?’, in which she examines Artificial Intelligence through an environmental lens.
Providing a comprehensive and critical understanding of AI that challenges its common portrayal as a public good and a key solution to the imminent dangers of global challenges such as climate change, Brevini exposes the power of tech giants to not only shape science but also morality and laws. She also draws attention to the linkages that exist between governments, tech companies and even academia in consolidating this trend.
Beyond the hype, Brevini argues, the success of AI is grounded in surveillance capitalism, including data extraction, analysis and monetisation, and the promotion of a certain form of addiction to social media as a way to collect data. What is more, rather than helping to solve the climate crisis, AI is making it worse by helping to trigger an era of uberconsumerism and the acceleration of consumption of raw materials, including large quantities of energy and water. She questions whether the environmental costs of AI is an area with even less transparency and scrutiny than the opacity of algorithms. Ultimately, she argues that there is an excellent opportunity for social and environmental justice movements, NGOs, civil society organisations to work collectively to find solutions that she proposes in the conclusion of the book.
Bio:
Benedetta Brevini is a journalist, media activist and Associate Professor of political economy of Communication at the University of Sydney. She holds Visiting Fellowships at London School of Economics, at WZB in Berlin, at the Centre for Media, Data and Society at the Central European University, Budapest and NYU in NY.
She worked as journalist in Milan, New York and London for CNBC, RAI and the Guardian and held tenured positions at City University London and Brunel University London. She writes on The Guardian’s Comment is Free and contributes to a number of publications including South China Morning Post, OpenDemocracy and the Conversation.
She is the author of several books including Amazon, Understanding a Global Communication Giant (2020), Public Service Broadcasting online (2013) Beyond Wikileaks (2013), Carbon Capitalism and Communication: Confronting Climate Crisis (2017), Climate Change and the Media (2018). Is AI good for the Planet? (Polity) is her latest volume. She is currently working on a new book project on Murdoch and his global media empire.
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