Will frontier technology change our relationship with nature for the better?

Today, there are limitless opportunities for us to harness technology to benefit humankind and the environment.

Frontier technologies in particular- from AI to Internet of Things to Blockchain - has the potential to extend and enrich our experience of life on earth and unlock new solutions to society’s most pressing environmental challenges. Or... conversely, it can pose an existential threat and rock the very foundations of our humanity.

In the midst of profound transition and technological advancement, we have a unique opportunity to reconstruct ourselves, our community, and our businesses in ways that have a positive impact on the future. Most crucially, in my view, is that we have an opportunity to reconstruct our relationship with nature.? After all, we cannot exist without nature.

However, our relationship with the natural world to date has been… flawed

We have seriously degraded and destroyed three quarters of our global lands and almost the same amount for our global marine environments. We have sent one million species to the brink of extinction.? At the moment, we are on track to run out of rain forests in our children’s lifetime, and run out of food, fish and water in our lifetime.

Now we find ourselves at a critical juncture in history: One where we choose whether frontier technologies, guided by us, will be applied to the wellbeing of people and the planet, or… one where they don’t.

?How do we navigate this intersection of two modern phenomena: the destruction of nature and the growth of technology?

You might have heard of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which is the organisation that keeps track of the biodiversity of the world (you might know them as the people that mark the endangerment status of an animal). Well, much of the data they have on our plant and animal species is considered ‘data deficient’. How many bees are there in the world, exactly? Well, we don’t really know. But given our food production system relies on these wonderful pollinators, we should! How many turtles are affected by our shipping and trade routes? We don’t really know.

There are some wonderful examples of individuals, communities, organisations and governments harnessing frontier technologies to re-imagine how our economies could serve better social and environmental needs. These examples are showcasing how frontier technologies can improve our understanding of nature with real-time monitoring and decision-making in fields ranging from species management and protection to natural resource management to climate resilience.?

Examples:

• The Ocean Data Alliance is creating a digital twin of the ocean to provide a real-time data record of what is happening in the ocean, and how it impacts the world's ecosystems, ports, cities, and citizens. This can allow decision-makers to use machine learning to monitor, predict and respond to changing conditions such as illegal fishing, ocean mining, a disease outbreak or a coral-bleaching event.?
• The US National Science Foundation’s EarthCube initiative which uses machine learning and simulation modelling to create a 3D living model of the entire planet.
• The US company Planet has put over 200 micro-satellites into orbit, to image the whole planet’s landmass daily.
• Scientists have just released the latest aquatic robot – the robot jellyfish – which is designed to safely explore endangered coral reefs. Jellyfish robots take on tasks that are too delicate for human divers, such as the observation, exploration, and restoration of delicate coral reefs. These robots not only look like a common jellyfish but were designed to mimic the efficiency and grace of the jellyfish. This is very cool - especially considering jellyfish have been on Earth since before dinosaurs roamed.?
• Endangered wildlife is being tracked through drones, data and digital mapping.? In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, increased poaching activity in Garamba National Park devastated the elephant population. In the 1970s, Garamba’s herd included 22,000 elephants but by 2017, it dropped to 1,200.?Today, Garamba has reduced elephant poaching by 90 percent by implementing location intelligence that allows dedicated surveillance teams to continue to track and monitor each animal 24 hours a day. This is in conjunction with local capacity building and strengthened legal governance.
• Around the world,? AI is being used to help grow the use of renewable energy as part of an automated electrical grid. The AI-based system can determine when best to utilize renewable energy sources to optimize energy resources every moment of the day while also preventing power outages and forecasting renewable energy generation, customer demand and market prices!
• Microsoft’s launching of the AI for Earth program puts AI technology into the hands of the world’s leading ecologists and conservation technologists, as well as organizations around the world that are working to protect our planet.?Soon after, they started building the Planetary Computer, a platform to provide access to trillions of data points collected by people and by machines in space, in the sky, in and on the ground and in the water.? This means that conservation organisations, scientists, governments can combine information and bring together the best available data to find out where species live, what species are most at risk, how land is used, and where illegal logging is taking place.?

There are also examples which are incredibly innovative with the best intentions, but have some gaps. I use these examples to illustrate the lessons we can learn and to highlight the importance of remaining vigilant against ‘sexy ideas’ and instead, focus on the safety, explainability, applicability, transparency and validity of a technology:

• The use of autonomous drones to plant seed pods to grow trees is an incredibly exciting and powerful example of technology for good. But, along the journey, some critical lessons were learnt.?In Spain, for example, one initiative fired thousands of seeds into the ground from a drone before realising that they had planted a tree species that was actually invasive to that region. Another initiative realised that less than 20 percent of seeds dropped by drone actually took root and grew into trees, and were unclear on where the seeds were dropped exactly and how they could ensure the trees were not removed or destroyed after the initial planting.
• Geoengineering has some particularly good lessons to draw on. Proponents of solar geoengineering for example, seek to add reflective particles to the upper atmosphere or manipulate clouds in the lower atmosphere to reduce the amount of sunlight that reaches the Earth’s surface and warms the planet.?This proposed technology ‘solution’ however, has a few issues. Firstly, the largest proponents of these ideas don’t reflect the diversity of our global community, and are comprised of wealthy individuals, majority men, majority white, many with vested interests in the fossil fuels industry. Critics also noted that geoengineering does nothing to change the underlying cause of climate change, the buildup of heat-trapping gases. Additionally, and importantly, this technology has been predicted to disrupt agriculture and water supplies across Asia and Africa, endangering food and water sources for two billion people. That is what we call a less-than-ideal consequence of a sexy technology.

From these examples, combined with some of my own experiences, I have surmised that there are a few critical ingredients required to ensure that frontier technologies are effectively applied to the wellbeing of people and the planet.??

These are not exhaustive - my focus is more broadly on some of the behaviours we, as individuals, may like to consider embracing and some of the qualities of our humanity we may want to preserve in our pursuit for a better relationship with nature and technology.

1. The most prominent lesson is that nature is irreplaceable and frontier technology cannot and should not be a substitute for nature. We need to better understand our relationship with nature. We cannot seek to utilise frontier technologies without understanding the role that nature plays in our lives, and on our humanity.? We need to understand what we want to preserve and what we want to augment. We must ensure? technology doesn't alienate us from nature; and I believe it is through these efforts that we can create space for technology to help us understand the importance of nature and reconnect us to it.??
2. There is no silver bullet technology to solve climate change or the biodiversity crisis. There is potential to address climate challenges with nature-based solutions and frontier technologies, but there are also risks of relying too heavily on one single approach.?Collaboration, the convergence of ideas, people and initiatives are the solution, not one single silver bullet technology.??
3. Nature as a consideration in frontier technology cannot be piecemeal, standalone or ad-hoc. Nature is not an add on or ‘nice to have’. It must be embedded in all of our principles, governance structures, approaches, conversations and implementation plans.
4. Let’s not get transfixed by the sexiness of an idea. Frontier technologies are cool. But it is important to look beyond the sexiness of a technology and seek to truly consider its application and impacts on entire systems and communities.?Seed-shooting drones to plant trees is sexy. Accidentally creating an outbreak of invasive tree species with a drone is not sexy.?
5. Frontier technologies have huge potential to combat climate change, but many frontier technologies, notably AI, have their own carbon footprint. Consideration of the environmental footprint of AI can provide us with opportunities to develop more resource efficient models, to better understand AI supply chains, and to undertake early cost-benefit analysis that takes AI emissions into consideration.?
6. Systems design thinking can help us be as comprehensive as possible in assessing the impacts of potential technologies. Understanding the various dynamics across the entire system can help us unearth ethical or environmental consequences.?The systems approach can give rise to more sustainable holistic innovative solutions, can reduce duplication of efforts, mitigate risk and provide a powerful framework to evaluate the possible domino effects.?
7. Collaboration, Stakeholder Engagement and Diversity and Inclusion. It is absolutely critical that the people impacted by technology transition are part of the decision-making process.?This means understanding and elevating local contexts and communities, meaningfully empowering a diversity of voices and stories, and committing to truly listening and engaging.?The voices that represent Frontier Technologies have not been diverse to date. This stops now.?
8. An increasing number of scholars are arguing that the impact of AI is repeating the patterns of colonial history. The case of geoengineering touches on this a little. We need to ensure that frontier technology doesn’t enrich the wealthy and powerful at the expense of the poor.?Historically dispossessed people - from indigenous communities to rural women, play a critical role in reasserting their culture, their voice, and their right to determine their own future through frontier technologies.?
9. Lastly,? the “5 Ps” that shape the Sustainable Development Goals are People, Planet, Prosperity, Peace, and Partnerships. They are integrated and indivisible and balance the three dimensions of sustainable development: the economic, social and environmental. While there are hundreds of tech frameworks, these 5 P’s, in my view, are an indispensable requirement for the sustainable development of frontier technologies.

?As the Director-General of WWF International, Marco Lambertini says, ‘No human technology can fully replace ‘nature’s technology’ perfected over hundreds of millions of years in delivering key services to sustain life on Earth.?A productive, diverse natural world, and a stable climate have been the foundation of the success of our civilization, and will continue to be so in future.'

From tool-making to fire building to binoculars and cameras, technology has often played a crucial role in shaping and strengthening our relationship to nature, and to each other.

The Fourth Industrial revolution provides us with a unique opportunity to learn from our mistakes of the past and to reconcile our relationship between people, prosperity and planet.?

Frontier technology can enhance the lives of the people on the planet whilst providing a much deeper understanding of how much we depend on the natural world.

If I could be so bold as to give one small piece of advice, it would be to make a conscious effort each day to completely step away from technology and spend time with nature.??

This is the simplest way to determine how we want technology to mediate the relationship between humanity and nature.?

Because in order to build a technology-enabled future that supports people and planet, we must first truly understand and appreciate our own humanity and our connection to the natural world.?