IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2020 - 46

- rojects and applications to build on
p
the progress of others [53].
As a government, we are also
committed to contributing and influencing the global narrative on AI,
and specifically around safe and
ethical AI, climate change, and sustainability. We do this through our
participation in multilateral fora,
including the Global Partnership on
AI (GPAI), the G7 and G20, and United Nation bodies such as UNESCO.
GPAI is a new multilateral, multistakeholder forum, which seeks to
connect policy and research experts
with those who will directly benefit
from AI related technologies to
tackle some of the world's biggest

Digital skills and data analytics
will eventu-ally become core
skills for the net zero energy
workforce, with big data used for
network planning, maintenance,
and risk mitigation.
problems, including the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The U.K.
will do this through practical guidance that countries will be able to
implement at various stages of their
journey with technology.
A number of fora, including the
current Saudi Arabian Presidency
of the G20, are looking at how the
OECD AI Principles can be practically implemented. Included in these
is the principle that "AI should benefit people and the planet by driving inclusive growth, sustainable
development and well-being" [54].
I will be calling upon these fora to
approach sustainability by design,
in the same way as one might fac-

growth and push us closer to a net
zero world. But AI is not the panacea, and we must consider how to
use AI as a tool to enable other tools
across domains.
By enhancing how we view AI,
and placing it instead in a holistic,
tech-first narrative on our most
pressing environmental challenges,
we may benefit society and advance
the studies of AI in one fell swoop.
To do this meaningfully, we will
need to inject machine learning into
traditionally untrammeled domains,
communicating across disciplines
that require a wide range of skills,
and do so with innovative approaches to data sharing.
If we succeed, and are able to
diffuse innovations and build on
research on the shared environmental challenge we all face, we may
begin to move beyond change to an
extensive and lasting transformation
towards something more complete.
I encourage you all to join me in this
transformation.

tor in ethical approaches to AI from
the outset. I would love to see participants pledge to bake in climatefriendly approaches at the beginning
rather than retrofitting at the end.
Next year the U.K will host
COP26, the U.N. climate summit, in
Glasgow. In the run up to this, businesses and charities have been en--
couraged to participate and we are
poised to see a greater focus on climate and sustainability across the
country. The goals for COP26 are to
hold every Paris signatory to their
commitments and set net zero as
the clear science-based target for
all climate ambition from countries,
bu--sinesses, states, and cities, and
many others besides, as
we seek to underscore the
seriousness with which we
should all be moving forward in our journey on climate action.

The Real Work
Lies Ahead
The U.K. has begun to
move its own dial on decarbonization, but the real
work lies ahead. With a
profusion of AI technologies, we must find sustainable ways to embrace the
rapidly ap--proaching fourth industrial revolution and consider how
AI might help accelerate our progress. In all of this, we must turn
back to the impact of the fourth
industrial revolution on the planet,
and do more to change this trend.
Change means adjusting to the
global megatrends present in our
lives; adapting to the impacts of climate change; harnessing the exponential potential of AI technologies
underpinned by increasing compute power; and responding to new
global markets created by emerging technologies. These in themselves are incredible shifts that have
the potential to supercharge clean
IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE

Author Information
The author is Head of the U.K. government's Office for Artificial Intelligence, London, U.K.

References
[1] F. Walsh, "AI 'outperforms' doctors diagnosing
breast cancer," BBC, Jan. 2, 2020; https://www
.bbc.co.uk/news/health-50857759.
[2] T. Simonite, "This more powerful version of
AlphaGo learns on its own," Wired, Oct. 18, 2017;
https://www.wired.com/story/this-more-powerful
-version-of-alphago-learns-on-its-own.
[3] R. Sagar, "Newton vs neural networks: Exploring the unsolved three-body problem with
ML," Analytics India Mag., Apr. 11, 2019;
https://analyticsindiamag.com/newton-vs-neural
-networks-exploring-the-unsolved-three-body
-problem-with-ml/.
[4] A. Amoroso, "How AI Is reshaping the future
- and our investments," JP Morgan, Sept.
26, 2019; https://privatebank.jpmorgan.com/
gl/en/insights/investing/how-ai-is-reshaping
-the-future.
[5] Big Data Market Revenue Forecast Worldwide
2011-2027, Statista, Mar. 2, 2020; https://
www.statista.com/statistics/254266/global
-big-data-market-forecast/.
[6] "DCMS Sectors Economic Estimates 2018:
GVA," GOV.UK, Feb. 5, 2020; https://www.gov

∕

JUNE 2020

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-50857759 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-50857759 https://www.wired.com/story/this-more-powerful-version-of-alphago-learns-on-its-own https://www.wired.com/story/this-more-powerful-version-of-alphago-learns-on-its-own https://analyticsindiamag.com/newton-vs-neural-networks-exploring-the-unsolved-three-body-problem-with-ml/ https://analyticsindiamag.com/newton-vs-neural-networks-exploring-the-unsolved-three-body-problem-with-ml/ https://analyticsindiamag.com/newton-vs-neural-networks-exploring-the-unsolved-three-body-problem-with-ml/ https://privatebank.jpmorgan.com/gl/en/insights/investing/how-ai-is-reshaping-the-future https://privatebank.jpmorgan.com/gl/en/insights/investing/how-ai-is-reshaping-the-future https://privatebank.jpmorgan.com/gl/en/insights/investing/how-ai-is-reshaping-the-future https://www.statista.com/statistics/254266/global-big-data-market-forecast/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/254266/global-big-data-market-forecast/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/254266/global-big-data-market-forecast/ http://GOV.UK https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/dcms-sectors-economic-estimates-2018-gva

IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2020