Skip to main content

AI in the Wild - Peter Dauvergne ***

Sometimes a science book can highlight a totally new connection between two disciplines, and that was certainly the case here - linking environmental science and sustainability with artificial intelligence. Peter Dauvergne shows how (as is also in the case in many other fields) AI can both be a positive and a negative influence on the environment.

On the plus side, we see how AI is being used for everything from sending semi-intelligent drones out to look after the Great Barrier Reef to detecting illegal activities in protected areas by monitoring sounds and identifying those identified with, say, illegal logging in a forest. Perhaps the biggest impact comes from the use of AI in smart resources to reduce climate impact of everything from domestic houses to data centres.

This is all great stuff, but Dauvergne also shows the dangers that AI can present to the environment. This can come from misuse of the technology, but also from the resources needed to make the technology work. Often this results in a balancing act. So, for example, self-driving electric cars are good for the environment when used, but have a negative impact when the raw materials for the batteries and electronics are mined. What we don't really get is a feel for how to quantify this balance. This is a notoriously difficult activity - see, for example, the (failed) attempts to assess which is more environmentally friendly of reusable and disposable nappies.

The subject, then, is important, and Dauvergne uncovers some real positives and issues than many readers will not find familiar. However, the way he goes about it is not great. I was struck by one of the blurb comments on the back where a professor says 'this book is as fast-paced and thrilling as any sci-fi storyline.' All I can say is, this professor must read really boring novels, as the writing style here is classic dull academic: the book is packed with fact statements and is almost entirely lacking in any narrative flow.

To make matters worse, a lot of these statements that are thrown at us are not backed up with evidence or balance. As an example, there are dramatic statements of the way AI is sweeping the world, for example in the deployment of self-driving cars - but very little about all the issues self-driving car manufacturers face in going from localised trials to proper implementation, for example, the limitations of computer image recognition which can be fooled by small constructed patterns and the lack of consideration of resistance to the very idea of self-driving cars as more people are killed by them. 

The author's politics also come through extremely strongly, which leads to the extension of the argument well beyond the environment, diluting the thrust of the book. So, for example, we are told (without evidence) that ‘Global sustainability is going to require a fairer, more just distribution of wealth and resources’. I am not saying this is necessarily untrue, but it’s not an obvious conclusion and it's not really about the environment. Dauvergne emphasises the existence of inequality but doesn’t mention the vast improvements in the circumstances of many at the bottom end of this scale - it's almost as if Hans Rosling's Factfulness didn't exist.

There's a core of interesting and useful information here, but it's a shame it's not presented better.

Paperback:

Kindle:  
Using these links earns us commission at no cost to you
Review by Brian Clegg
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Roger Highfield - Stephen Hawking: genius at work interview

Roger Highfield OBE is the Science Director of the Science Museum Group. Roger has visiting professorships at the Department of Chemistry, UCL, and at the Dunn School, University of Oxford, is a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, and a member of the Medical Research Council and Longitude Committee. He has written or co-authored ten popular science books, including two bestsellers. His latest title is Stephen Hawking: genius at work . Why science? There are three answers to this question, depending on context: Apollo; Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, along with the world’s worst nuclear accident at Chernobyl; and, finally, Nullius in verba . Growing up I enjoyed the sciencey side of TV programmes like Thunderbirds and The Avengers but became completely besotted when, in short trousers, I gazed up at the moon knowing that two astronauts had paid it a visit. As the Apollo programme unfolded, I became utterly obsessed. Today, more than half a century later, the moon landings are
Post a Comment
Read more

Space Oddities - Harry Cliff *****

In this delightfully readable book, Harry Cliff takes us into the anomalies that are starting to make areas of physics seems to be nearing a paradigm shift, just as occurred in the past with relativity and quantum theory. We start with, we are introduced to some past anomalies linked to changes in viewpoint, such as the precession of Mercury (explained by general relativity, though originally blamed on an undiscovered planet near the Sun), and then move on to a few examples of apparent discoveries being wrong: the BICEP2 evidence for inflation (where the result was caused by dust, not the polarisation being studied),  the disappearance of an interesting blip in LHC results, and an apparent mistake in the manipulation of numbers that resulted in alleged discovery of dark matter particles. These are used to explain how statistics plays a part, and the significance of sigmas . We go on to explore a range of anomalies in particle physics and cosmology that may indicate either a breakdown i
Post a Comment
Read more

Splinters of Infinity - Mark Wolverton ****

Many of us who read popular science regularly will be aware of the 'great debate' between American astronomers Harlow Shapley and Heber Curtis in 1920 over whether the universe was a single galaxy or many. Less familiar is the clash in the 1930s between American Nobel Prize winners Robert Millikan and Arthur Compton over the nature of cosmic rays. This not a book about the nature of cosmic rays as we now understand them, but rather explores this confrontation between heavyweight scientists. Millikan was the first in the fray, and often wrongly named in the press as discoverer of cosmic rays. He believed that this high energy radiation from above was made up of photons that ionised atoms in the atmosphere. One of the reasons he was determined that they should be photons was that this fitted with his thesis that the universe was in a constant state of creation: these photons, he thought, were produced in the birth of new atoms. This view seems to have been primarily driven by re
Post a Comment
Read more