Mary Stevens and Christian Graham15 Oct 2024
Following our participation in Green Tech South West, what stood out to us most was the shift in how people are thinking about AI. A year ago, AI in tech would elicit an excited "Wow!" Today the first question people ask is "Is this good AI or bad AI?" It’s a subtle but important sign that civil society is starting to shape the conversation about AI’s impacts, both good and bad.
It’s a question that we have been asking ourselves since we engaged with AI and our Experiments Team enjoyed the opportunity to share our AI journey at Green Tech South West, part of the Bristol Tech Festival (see our interview with them).
The audience of roughly 300, in person and online, was an inspiring mix of tech professionals, sustainability advocates and curious individuals - all eager to explore the intersection of technology and environmental justice.
We hope that following our presentation, interested people will stay in touch and share and adopt the principles we’ve been developing.
Building relationships
We’ve been building a relationship with Green Tech South West over the past few years, thanks in no small part to Hannah Smith’s tireless efforts. Hannah, who works with the Green Web Foundation, is leading an ambitious mission to decarbonize the internet by 2030. Sharing the stage with us was Annette Lamley from the Centre for Sustainable Energy, who discussed their innovative Solar Wizard tool, designed to help assess the feasibility of solar PV on buildings. This gave us the perfect segue to frame our discussion in a broader history of eco-innovation—a tradition we are proud to continue at Friends of the Earth.
Our AI experiments
Our presentation focused on how our experimental work in AI aligns with our broader theory of change—an approach that’s both top-down with policy interventions and bottom-up through grassroots engagement.
In just 15 minutes, we took the audience on a whistle-stop tour through our growing portfolio of AI experiments. Despite the complexity of our hybrid set-up—Christian was joining remotely—we managed to convey our team’s passion for the topic.
AI influencing work
- Developing a 'Human + Technology' manifesto to ensure responsible and mindful use of AI that prioritises human and planetary flourishing.
- Developing a policy position on AI funded by Mozilla, aimed at becoming a go-to reference for the environmental sector.
- Exploring interventions we might make in shaping AI's future direction with Careful Industries.
- Hosting workshops and discussions to shape AI's trajectory towards positive environmental outcomes with other NGOs and UN organisations.
- Collaborating with data science students at Cambridge to explore ethical AI use, focusing on incorporating environmental ethics into their work through workshops and case studies.
Grassroots AI work
- Running community action labs to explore community-based uses for AI, including experiments with local participants to co-design solutions and build grassroots capacity for AI adoption.
- Supporting our local groups network in building their understanding of AI. See our upcoming event on "Can AI ever be environmentally friendly?"
- Exploring AI applications for grassroots activism, such as AI-assisted planning tools to simplify complex consultations and help communities understand local environmental impacts.
- Collaborating with Bristol University students to raise awareness of responsible AI use, such as visualizing the resource consumption of large language models.
Find out more
To find out more about Green Tech South West there's a write-up here.
If you're curious about our work, you can learn more about our AI projects on our website and how they fit into our vision of a flourishing future for all. We are a very small team here at Friends of the Earth and we are keen to work with others to keep the conversation going and amplify our work and messages. Look out for our upcoming report – we hope it will be a landmark for an ethical approach to AI.
Together, we can shape a better and more just technological future.