Artificial intelligence is often seen as a double-edged sword, but what if it could be our greatest ally in tackling the climate crisis? Amen Ra Mashariki, director of AI at the Bezos Earth Fund, believes AI can make the kind of unexpected, game-changing moves needed to find novel solutions for our planet's environmental challenges.
Key Takeaways
- AI can move beyond just answering questions based on existing data to creating genuinely new, counterintuitive solutions for climate and nature problems.
- The Bezos Earth Fund focuses on identifying big problems first and then finding AI solutions, rather than the other way around.
- There's a need for greater transparency and accuracy regarding AI's environmental impact to build trust and guide effective action.
- The current decade is a critical juncture where ethical, policy, and technological decisions will shape AI's long-term impact on the global community and the environment.
From Computer Science to Climate Action
Amen Ra Mashariki's journey to leading AI efforts at the Bezos Earth Fund is a bit different from the usual path. While he has a strong background in computer science, including undergrad, master's, and doctorate degrees, his focus shifted from pure algorithm optimization to problem-solving. He realized that technology, including AI, is a tool to make a real impact. This led him to roles like Chief Analytics Officer for New York City, tackling urban problems, and eventually to the Bezos Earth Fund, where the goal is to use AI to address climate and nature issues.
At the Bezos Earth Fund, the approach is to start with the problem. They first deeply understand the environmental challenges and then look for ways modern AI can help scale up solutions. This is a shift from the idea of having AI and then searching for a problem to solve.
Invention vs. Discovery: The AI Approach
When looking for projects to support, the Bezos Earth Fund uses a mental model that distinguishes between inventions and discoveries. An invention is like creating a telescope, while a discovery is what you find by looking through it – for example, noticing Jupiter's moons. The fund seeks out grand innovations and inventions that can lead to significant discoveries with a positive impact on climate and nature.
Where Are We With AI?
While many might point to tools like ChatGPT as the current state of AI, Mashariki highlights a more nuanced view, referencing the concept of "Move 37". This refers to a famous move in the game of Go where an AI made a play that baffled human experts but ultimately led to victory. Currently, AI often operates by averaging existing knowledge to provide answers. However, the goal is to reach a point where AI can be creative, offering counterintuitive yet powerful solutions that even the best human experts haven't conceived.
An example of this is Meta's DINOv3, a computer vision model. When combined with satellite data and used in partnership with organizations like WRI for restoration efforts, it can track tree growth with high accuracy at a fraction of the cost of traditional methods. This allows for performance-based financing for restoration projects. While this is a significant invention, the true "Move 37" moment for climate solutions would be AI coming up with entirely new restoration strategies that no one has thought of.
Building Trust and Transparency
For AI to truly make a difference in climate action, trust is key. Experts need to trust and use these tools, but equally important is that everyday people, especially those living in affected regions and doing the work on the ground, can also trust and utilize them. There isn't an exact timeline for this, but achieving this level of widespread trust and use is a major milestone.
Addressing Concerns: AI's Environmental Footprint
There's a valid concern that the same tech giants driving AI development are also contributing to environmental harm, with some climate initiatives being labelled as greenwashing. Mashariki acknowledges that AI does have an environmental impact. However, the belief at the Bezos Earth Fund is that, on balance, AI will be a force for good in saving the planet. They are committed to supporting efforts that ensure AI has a positive impact.
One of the immediate needs is precise accuracy and understanding of AI's environmental impact. The analogy of each ChatGPT query being like "throwing away a bottle of water" highlights the need for clear data and shared understanding. Milestones include greater transparency and data sharing to agree on the challenges. Furthermore, companies are already shifting how they build technology to support AI more efficiently, such as developing chip-level cooling to reduce water usage in data centres.
The Consequential and Decisive Decade
Mashariki describes the current period as the "consequential decade meets the decisive decade." The consequential decade refers to the time when we must consider ethics, policy, regulation, technology, and innovation – decisions that will shape AI's impact on the global community. The decisive decade is the well-known term for the critical period for climate action. This convergence means it's an all-hands-on-deck moment, requiring commitment from both the AI and climate communities. The Bezos Earth Fund sees itself as a leader, bridging these two vital areas.