Join the Department of Social Sciences for this Great Problems, Great Minds seminar featuring Peter Dauvergne, a professor of international relations at the University of British Columbia. The event will take place on April 15 from 12:40-1:40 p.m.

Looking around at the ingenious ways that artificial intelligence is fighting climate change, biodiversity loss, and global pollution, it might seem as if we are on the cusp of a sustainability revolution. Great care is necessary, however, to avoid hyping artificial intelligence as the earth’s savior. Guest speaker Peter Dauvergne, a professor of international relations at the University of British Columbia, argues that although AI is generating some environmental gains, powerful corporations and states are exaggerating the benefits, ignoring the risks, and deploying AI in ways antithetical to sustainability. Moreover, the competition to profit from artificial intelligence has the potential to entrench technocratic management, rev up resource extraction, and turbocharge consumerism. It has the potential to generate new forces of inequality and injustice. And it has the potential to empower big business and militarized states within international relations, posing grave threats to the global environmental movement.

Click here to join the event on April 15.

The event is part of the Great Problems, Great Minds seminar series which explores the major problems facing humanity as we move into the heart of the 21st century. To see the full schedule and videos from previous events, visit the seminar series page.