TECH & AI “ We need to be very cognizant of all of the potential unintended consequences of using AI ”
DREW PURVES , SUSTAINABILITY & BIODIVERSITY CO – LEAD , GOOGLE DEEPMIND
“ Whereas all the previous models needed supercomputers , we can make those predictions on a laptop ,” Drew celebrates . “ When you get AI right , you can not only push the state of the art , but you can do it on much less compute .”
This makes it far more accessible and allows downstream users to use the technology .
AI use case : Boosting electrical grid efficiency Drew ’ s team is also looking at algorithms to balance electricity grids .
“ It ’ s very explicit energy work ,” Drew says . “ If we can use AI and deep learning to solve those algorithms much more quickly , that opens up all sorts of possibilities for making electricity grids more efficient – especially as we add in these variable sources of things like solar and wind .”
The vision is that AI could reduce energy use and carbon emissions from the electricity grids .
AI use case : Acoustic monitoring Acoustic data is essential for the understanding of biodiversity , and Google Deepmind is using AI to monitor it .
“ We ’ ve developed small networked devices that you can deploy for monitoring ,” Drew says .
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