ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE- THE ECO AVENGER

Humans have been terrible with all the inventions they have done till now. Either we have created a monster out of it that threatens to eradicate an entire human race or we have exploited the invention to the extent that the ramifications are profound and wide reaching. Artificial intelligence in my opinion has the potential to be one of the similar mistakes that humans have been consistently committing. Unless we embrace a different path to unlock the positive possibilities, the potential that can be harnessed out of this powerful tool we know as artificial intelligence.

For centuries we have rapidly discovered new technologies, invented new products, modified them, and proceeded with mass production to monetize it and to bring ease in our lives. Short term and self-interest have led to the exploitation of environmental resources. Picture this: In India during the 1980’s black and white televisions where a luxury. One television would gather four to five neighbours watching the EPIC Ramayana together. Today most of those neighbours and their next generations might be having more than coloured, wide screen LED television. Our attentions are fractured across a sea of mobile screens and endless online content to watch. From then how much has changed, how much more we have of everything (barring the still underprivileged section) is just a resounding fact of what mass manufacturing and the ever-increasing marketing push has done. And at the extreme end of the receiving end has been our environment. Global warming, to polluted rivers and extinct species are just the truths of our lives that we have accepted conveniently. And that brings me to being responsible and aware to use the artificial intelligence not to further this mountain of abundance and waste, but to find and embrace environmentally sustainable way of life and business.

APPLICATION OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABLITY

The world we live in today is under a critical state of climatic crisis. Most of the measures, laws both local and global have failed to restrict the situation and move ahead with a sustainable approach. However Artificial intelligence brings with it three unique qualities that can help the earth achieve environmental sustainability. First is its ability to perform repetitive tasks in a much faster manner compared to the same work done by its human counterpart. The other ability is to integrate multiple computers, machines to solve a complex problem. One more underlying quality to integration is updatability. This entire integration of computers can be upgraded together with one click of a button. The third unique ability is to make sense of the sea of unstructured data that is available, which is humanly impossible to do. Information asymmetry is one of the key challenges towards environmental sustainability which AI takes care of.

1-????? BIODIVERISTY- Biodiversity is the variety of life on earth. It depicts the diverse species, flora and fauna that lives on earth. Apart from its intrinsic and ecological role, it is responsible for our clean drinking water to our food source to building materials that we use. Our short-term benefit aspirations have led to its depletion of this biodiversity. Artificial intelligence with its unique qualities helps to map and monitor with high precision. With the techniques like acoustic monitoring, remote sensing, and satellite images, it can analyse huge amount of data predict specific threats to the components of ecosystem. This helps us to direct our resources for specific conservation efforts coming out winner in a cost and benefit ratio. Artificial intelligence can help detect poaching and wildlife trafficking which are the chief reasons for the extinction of several species from the face of mother earth.

2-????? ENERGY- The twin challenge of energy and sustainability is like walking on a tightrope, with currently the tilt is extremely heavy towards energy. Application of artificial intelligence can be game changer for the unfortunate super underdog in this game of balance. Artificial intelligence can have a fourfold effect in our energy management and the quest for achieving sustainability. First is an effective and accurate forecasting of our energy requirements at domestic and commercial level. By analysing our past consumption data and the various parameters that affect production of energy AI can achieve this. Second is how it can help in increasing efficiency and decreasing waste in our production and distribution eco system.? Third is its contribution towards operations and maintenance. AI tools can significantly predict machine downtime and provide pre-emptive servicing to reduce such downtimes which add to cost and reduction in efficiency. Fourth, AI can be used to incorporate renewable energy by making companies prosumer from consumer. These four-fold strategy can significantly reduce our carbon footprints and make for a energy sustainable future.

3-????? TRANSPORTATION- Transportation has played a crucial role in the economic growth and global connectivity. And this has been a major contributing factor towards the global carbon footprint and there is much in this sector that can be done for environmental sustainability. Artificial intelligence can improve energy efficiency in this sector by better route planning to put it simply. AI is proving to be a game changer in traffic management which not only contributes significant reduction in accidents but optimizes trips there by positively impacting on energy consumptions.AI driven traffic management reduces congestion and thereby reducing in emissions. A significant cost can be saved by preventive maintenance predicted by artificial intelligent systems, thereby reducing time and increased efficiency.

4-????? WATER- AI has the potential of participating in the entire water cycle management. It will help and analysing and monitoring data such as water quality to its consumption and availability. AI can help predict water demand helping utilities in water supply as per demand and thereby reducing wastage. It can help identify idle water wastage and leakage up to a household level. Monitoring of weather system by artificial intelligent systems can predict floods and draughts largely enabling authorities to take necessary and timely precautionary measures. AI can be used to identify water depleting points there by focussing on further investigation and taking of preventive action to refurbish the waterbody.

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Artificial intelligence is a vast subject with multiple aspects which decides its level of application. The more the aspects are incorporated the better and accurate its results can be. The most basic level is machine learning. To put it simply, it is how machines/computers learn from data to make accurate predictions. An e.g is your music playing application which gradually with your music listening trends, which for the application is a data, learns to predict and suggest music to you. The next level is artificial neural network which is essentially inspired by human neural network. An e.g would be how self-driven cars recognize road signs. Third level is combination of cognitive behaviour. This domain is a very deep learning of complex mental processes like decision making, memory etc. An e.g would be interactive robots. Forth is natural language processing. In this computer can understand, generate, and manipulate human language. E.g. is your own Siri. Last domain is using fuzzy logic rather than Boolean logic. It means the application would use various degrees of truth rather than basing itself on yes or no logic. E.G. would be home automation. Finally expert system, which means computers learning from an expert human being. E.G Alpha zero a chess playing application. Simply by looking at the above cited examples one can imagine the combined strength of artificial intelligence and how it can power up achieving environmental sustainability.

?MARKETING AND SALEABLITY

Environmental sustainability by Artificial Intelligence is broadly divided into two parts – Static and autonomous. Static means the decision made during the preproduction, production, and logistics of a product till it reaches consumers. Autonomous means the products capacity to learn from the environment and make better choices. Eg of a robot cleaning house and learning the family’s consumption and behavioural habits to make better choice. This is important two note as it has two folds effect on marketing and there by the saleability of a product. A product that has been produced with a sustainable approach and can further improvise on its delivery based on a continuous enhancement on environmentally sustainable approach has a huge marketing potential. Take for example IOT based home light which boasts of saving energy consumption significantly but has a huge carbon footprint at its production phase due to non-sustainable manufacturing. The product while giving a lot to the environment in its post-sales life cycle has caused a significant damage to the environment during its manufacturing stage. On the contrary a company which applies reduce, recycle, and reuse principals in producing and IOT based home light has a significantly higher marketability. But the obvious question arises that will this marketing have the desired effect on the consumers mind that would finally convert into the products saleability. Regular products offer benefits to customers though their quality and features. A environmental sustainable products offer benefits to environment and nature. These benefits have traditionally been seen of no use to the marketing guns in enhancing the sales of a particular product. However, in recent years there is a behavioural shift being observed. With increasing awareness about the environment, sustainable products are now positioned to increase more profitability for the. Companies are now moving forward to reap marketing benefits for sustainable products. The sustainable product and thereby the manufacturing company is positioned in the customers mind as an ethically superior company, which leads the desire of the customer to be associated with such company bring a positive effect on its sales. While customers achieve a feel-good factor as doing their part for the environment the companies gain on a long-term goodwill. The trend is moving upwards. A recent survey conducted in 2022 showed 69 percent of the respondent’s agreeing to pay more for environementally sustainable products. Consumers are becoming more and more aware about the harmful effects to nature and that their individual well being is also secured from an environmentally sustainable lifestyle.

?CHALLENGES

There are many foreseen and unseen obstacles that lay in the path to implement artificial intelligence. From technical to cultural issues embracing artificial intelligence to achieve environmental sustainability is easier said then done. Im sure all of us in our work life have faced the difficulty of implementing new processes or applications. Changing the old way of doing things with which there is already a comfort level achieved is an uphill task. Late 90’s and early 2000 when laptops and computers where replacing the traditional fax machines and paper works, it was very difficult for majority of the workforce to adapt, specially in sectors which where not very tech savvy. And this was nothing compared to the sea of changes that stare upon us with integration of artificial intelligence. Let us look at some foreseen challenges.

RELIANCE ON HISTORICAL DATA – Artificial intelligence is all about historical data. The more the data available the more is the accuracy of the desired result. Data helps in predicting the future events and take necessary actions. However, what about a scenario where enough historical data is not available? Also predicting future events with only historical data will lack in innovation and adaptability in case of a new situation arising. Past data may be compromised due to human error, biases and prejudice that will corrupt the desired outcome.

UNCERTAINITY OF HUMAN RESPOSNE- Every human being is unique. There response to any scenario will vastly vary based on multiple factors pertaining that particular individual. Response to artificial intelligence-based interventions can be distorted and may lead to invoking strong emotions leading to a totally new outcome.

CYBERSECURITY RISK- One of the risk is being witnessed currently and is a trending topic, the issue of deepfakes. AI can be used to create highly realistic duplicate of someone not only in an image but on a video too. Artificial intelligence can be used to hack highly complex and encrypted networks unleashing a major cybersecurity risk. Just imagine a scenario where in bio logical warfare can be done on a country by tampering its water quality data, which may guide the department to take necessary action eventually leading to health hazard of its population.

PERCEPTION OF JOB LOSS- Whether artificial intelligence will replace humans and to what extent is debatable. However, the perception itself is a very big challenge for application of artificial intelligence in the field of environmental sustainability. This will lead to resistance in adopting AI technology and the issue needs to be addressed on priority by authorities to swing the perception towards a more positive thought process.

CULTURAL AND SOCIAL IMPACT- Artificial intelligence-based solutions offered for environmental sustainability might not be accepted from a society or a cultural point of view. Specially for a country like India with so much vast diversity in cultural, religious habits, it becomes all the more complex. Take for example the immersion of ritual leftovers into rivers is in itself a ritual. Rivers in India are considered holy but this immersion ritual has deep impact on the biodiversity and the quality of water of the river. Now and AI driven solution may be to prohibit this and collect all the leftovers in a organised manner and later to be recycled or disposed in an environment friendly manner. This solution may well spark a resistance.

?CONCLUSION

Rome was not built in a day and no great initiative or change has happened without resistance. It has always come with its own baggage of nuances. But humans have thrived for centuries and shall thrive in the future too. With increase in education and awareness along with access to so much information we shall collectively move forward for an environmentally sustainable and green future. While it’s a cliché to finally put the onus on the government, authorities and corporates, I believe that big changes happen with small but collective and continuous steps taken. Each one of us has our role to play starting with making our individual households environmentally sustainable and developing a sustainable culture in our family. Greenify your home and make every day choices based on reduce, reuse, and recycle. Lets make the world a better place.