Artificial Intelligence and the Environmental Crisis: Can Technology Really Save the World?

A radical and challenging book which argues that artificial intelligence needs a completely different set of foundations, based on ecological intelligence rather than human intelligence, if it is to deliver on the promise of a better world. This can usher in the greatest transformation in human history, an age of re-integration. Our very existence is dependent upon our context within the Earth System, and so, surely, artificial intelligence must also be grounded within this context, embracing emergence, interconnectedness and real-time feedback. We discover many positive outcomes across the societal, economic and environmental arenas and discuss how this transformation can be delivered.

Key Features:

• Identifies a key weakness in current AI thinking, that threatens any hope of a better world.
• Highlights the importance of realizing that systems theory is an essential foundation for any technology that hopes to positively transform our world.
• Emphasizes the need for a radical new approach to AI, based on ecological systems.
• Explains why ecosystem intelligence, not human intelligence, offers the best framework for AI.
• Examines how this new approach will impact on the three arenas of society, environment and economics, ushering in a new age of re-integration.

Born in the historic city of Armagh in Ireland in 1965, Keith is a former Association of Rhodes Scholars of Australia Scholar, carrying out field research across the planet, from Kenya to the Carpathian mountains, from the Scottish Highlands to southwest Australia and from Vietnam to Trinidad. In 2010, Keith established the Biosphere Research Institute (www.biosri.org), becoming its first director. The Biosphere Research Institute does cutting-edge research on environmental, economic and societal sustainability, focusing on a fundamental dialogue around our place in the Earth system.