I was thinking about the way in which the concept of ‘sustainability’ was articulated in response to the adverse impact on our physical environment in the Industrial Age and how this took form over the last 50 years. This idea of tackling something very concrete like pollution became a driver for entire new legal and policy frameworks, national and international environmental laws; it transformed industries, like the car industry, and drove forward the development of new industries and sciences, like ‘green tech’. We are in a similar process right now when it comes to data pollution. We have had policy and public debates on the privacy and social implications of big data since the early 2000s, we are having more serious conversations about the carbon foot prints of data storage and processing, and we have also in society started a conversation about the main power actors in this field. However, there is very little awareness about data pollution as an ‘environmental problem’ or as a disturbance of an entire ‘eco system’. What we need is a new green movement for data pollution, but for this to happen, we need a better understanding of the power dynamics that shape the field across different data pollution issues. Because power struggles and negotiations are core components of sociotechnical change and governance.
There are a lot of interests invested in the data of AI, and also a lot of hype about how AI can transform not only humanity, but the entire planetary eco-system for the better with the development of AI to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Here, I really like the way you, Aimee, frame the power dynamics of this debate by emphasising the sustainability of AI instead of just for sustainability. Can you tell me more about this?
