When i set out in 2014 to research the social, environmental and health impacts of cars, the biggest problem was the scale of the impact, on so many fronts; from dirty supply chains to asthma, from noise pollution to severed communities, from accessibility and equality of public space to diabetes and obesity. Road traffic casualties, carbon emissions, an inactivity epidemic, transport poverty, microplastic air, water and soil pollution from tyre wear. And i could go on and on…
The same is true of the roll out of AI. It impacts on so many fronts. Governments and organisations, individuals and communities are ill equipped to understand and address the multi-faceted harms. We have to be on a steep learning curve to become AI literate as well as be able to communicate effectively. I have no doubt the UK Government has not got a handle on all these impacts and more.
AI literacy is important but also important to understand how the roll out of AI impacts on the cost of living (higher water bills energy bills, land housing costs etc)
The environmental impacts on local communities of air pollution, carbon emissions (energy used and embodied upfront carbon in extra infrastructure). impacting on local energy security and water security, e-waste and digital waste pollution, data centre noise pollution. Greenfield data centres destroying natural habitats
Livelihoods destroyed by stealing human work from creatives and effectively causing loss of income and impacting national creative economies
And then there is the simulated emotional impacts by design which equate to a kind of controlling personalised ‘grooming’ ‘coercion’ ‘manipulation’ via isolated rabbit holes of disinformation
and the capture of democracies as Governments adopt this tech into systems which will create chaos, unaccountabilty and lack of algorithmic transparency. Disenfranchising and inaccessible to ordinary citizens ( the Post Office scandal on steroids)
Resource wars to supply the physicality of AI infrastructure and hardware
Loss of trust as deception and fraud online becomes normalised
More inequality as the concentration of wealth and power becomes more acute
The immense financial cost of extra infrastructure
And yes i could go on
Resist AI 