Artificial Intelligence or AI can change our relationship with the natural world and our reaction to environmental problems in ways never previously thought possible. However, if designed and introduced crudely, AI also has the potential to solidify current environmental injustices and create new ones. To ensure that all communities benefit fairly from AI, environmental justice must form part of its design and delivery.
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Understanding Environmental Justice
It is an environmental justice principle that all people, regardless of their race, ethnicity, income, or geographic location, have equal rights to a healthy and safe environment: clean air, water, and land; and protection from environmental harm. Environmental disparities more often than not fall on the most helpless in society, perhaps the ones enjoying fewer resources and political clout to defend themselves.
Role of AI in Environmental Solution
AI has the potential to be very useful in the mitigation of environmental damage. For example, it can be applied to air and water quality monitoring, the prediction of natural disasters, and the development of sustainable forms of energy. However, all benefits from AI are not equitably distributed. If AI is developed and deployed without consideration for environmental justice, it will merely perpetuate existing inequalities.
Challenges and Opportunities
The lack of diversity in the AI field has been one of the major challenges to environmental justice being able to be assured through AI. This is because it can result in the development of AI systems that are biased against certain communities.
For example, facial recognition systems may have low performance on persons of color, due to discriminatory outcomes. Of course, the first step is to diversify the people who work on AI and ensure that AI systems are developed and tested with a diversified set of data.
Another challenge is that AI might be used in order to surveil and control marginalized communities. Examples include AI-powered drones patrolling demonstrations or tracking the movements of individual people. To prevent this, serious ethical guidelines concerning the usage of AI need to be enacted, while AI systems should fall under oversight and accountability.
At the same time, AI will provide huge opportunities for the betterment of environmental justice. We can build a just and sustainable future for all by equitably, inclusively, and transparently developing AI systems.
Conclusion
Equity, inclusivity, and transparency are key elements that constitute environmental justice within AI. Taking up the challenges and opportunities, we can use AI to execute just and sustainable outcomes for all.
