“AI Risks and Opportunities for Biodiversity” was the third episode of the IEEE Technology Center for Climate (ITCC) webinar series on “AI and Sustainability.” This webinar, organized on 21 November 2024 by ITCC in collaboration with the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence’s (GPAI) RAISE project and supported by Centre d’expertise international de Montréal en Intelligence artificielle (CEIMIA), explored the relationship between AI and biodiversity through use cases illustrating the promises and risks of AI for biodiversity.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is an enabling technology with promising applications across all sectors, including biodiversity preservation. Using AI to support monitoring and preservation of endangered species, deforestation, marine loss, are some of the methods where AI can have a positive impact.
At the same time AI has its own environmental footprint and may create additional risks to biodiversity while using it to combat biodiversity loss. As a result, conservation organizations and other entities considering the adoption of AI should take into account both risks and benefits, and find ways to mitigate risk for a responsible AI deployment.
Speakers and moderator
Raja Chatila, Professor Emeritus of Robotics, AI and Ethics at ISIR-CNRS / Sorbonne Université, Global Partnership on AI
Antoine Gagné-Turcotte, CTO, Co-Founder & Software Developer at Whale Seeker
Maik Schwalm, Head of Sustainability Cloud Infrastructure, CapGemini
Daniele Silvestro, Computational biologist at University of Fribourg and Co-founder of Captain technologies LTD
Christopher Whitt, Senior Engineering and Safety Consultant Lloyd’s Register Foundation; Past President, IEEE Oceanic Engineering Society
Tanya Berger-Wolf, Director, Translational Data Analytics Institute, Professor, Computer Science Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering: Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology, Ohio State University, USA (moderator)
Webinar Survey: AI Risks and Opportunities for Biodiversity
About the Webinar Series on AI and Sustainability
The “AI and Sustainability” webinar series is a continuation of our previous collaboration with Reuters Events on “Empowering the Green Tech Revolution.” The series explores how sustainable AI is essential to harness the benefits of technologies like generative AI while safeguarding our environment and finite resources.
About the organizers
The IEEE Technology Center for Climate supports partnerships with leading institutions to advance pragmatic technical approaches and solutions to climate change. The Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence (GPAI) is an international initiative established to guide the responsible development and use of artificial intelligence in a manner that respects human rights and the shared democratic values of its members. Centre d’expertise international de Montréal en Intelligence artificielle (CEIMIA) is an organization contributing to the development and implementation of high-impact projects in responsible artificial intelligence.