Balasescu Climate Change in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

Nature, Culture and the Politics of Technology
1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-3-031-90042-6
Verlag: Springer International Publishing
Format: PDF
Kopierschutz: 1 - PDF Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 166 Seiten

Reihe: Artificial Intelligence, Simulation and Society

This book invites the reader to follow seemingly unrelated paths towards the same goal: making sense of what it means to be human in a world that casually blends discourses on nature, technology, and biology with ideas of progress, optimization and their capitalization at the centre. The author critically analyses current thinking which often looks at technological solutions to the challenges posed by climate change, and where artificial intelligence is instrumental in fulfilling the promise of ecological capitalism. He instead advocates that we take a closer look at the politics of optimization within and outside managerial perspectives, which could reveal that one of the main sources of our repeated failures related to governance and climate change lies not intrinsically in the qualities of the tools we use, but in the underlying assumptions with which we design, and in the scope of their use. Therefore, the book looks at possible solutions for humanity that may lie between the rock of technology and the hard place of nature. That is, it asks for a revision in our implicit assumptions for building our tools; critiques the thinking about our relationships with them; and re-assesses their use.

- George Paul Meiu, Professor of Anthropology, University of Basel

- Susan Ossman, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology, University of California Riverside

- Guy Nasmyth, Associate faculty, Royal Roads University

-       Wanda Krause, award-winning author, program head Global Leadership and associate professor, Royal Roads University

Zielgruppe

Research

Autoren/Hrsg.

Balasescu, Alexandru

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction: Between Nature and Technology.- ACT I: HERE AND NOW.- What’s (the) Matter?.- Body Matters.- Culture Matters.- ACT II - PAST TRACES OF THE FUTURE.- Knowing Nature.- Data, Facts, Reality.- Survey and Reward.- ACT III - WHERE TO?.- AI and diverse ways of knowing.- The Non-human Stakeholders.- What Now?.

Über Autor(innen)

Alexandru Balesescu, PhD, is an anthropologist. He obtained his PhD in 2004 from the University of California, Irvine, with a thesis that was published as a book: (Zeta Books, 2007). He explores different domains centred on personal curiosity and desire to understand human phenomena in a systemic manner. He is currently based in Bucharest, and also teaches at Royal Roads University, Victoria, Canada. He additionally consults in marketing research. Alec publishes regularly in both specialty and popular journals and think-tank publications, mainly on the topic of body, energy transition, urbanism, international politics, and more recently artificial intelligence. He regularly gives lectures in different universities around the world, most recently at the SRH Berlin University of Applied Sciences, and Hainan University in China - the latter as part of the Royal Roads University permanent exchange programs he is part of. He is co-founder of the Nature, Art and Habitat Lab in Northern Italy (NAHR.IT) and of the Moving Matters Travelling Workshop at the University of California, Riverside. He is also a member of the Consulting Committee on Climate Action at Royal Roads University.