AI for the Planet
Harnessing the power of AI and people to solve environmental problems
The AI for the Planet Initiative leverages NCEAS' 30 years of experience to support skill building and community around environmental applications of AI. With so many exciting efforts and innovations happening in this space, NCEAS plays a unique role in convening, coalescing, and synthesizing across these efforts for a healthier and more sustainable planet.
Current AI for the Planet Initiatives
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AI for the Planet Working Group Call for Proposals
In partnership with USGS, NCEAS seeks to fund an interdisciplinary working group focused on solutions-oriented science at the intersection of climate change, biodiversity, and AI. Proposals are due April 30, 2025.
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Monitoring Invasive Iceplant from Space
A collaboration between TNC's Jack and Laura Dangermond Preserve and NCEAS to map invasive iceplant across the preserve and leverage deep-learning to allow for monitoring of invasive species in near real-time from space.
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Permafrost Discovery Gateway
This partnership with Woodwell Climate Research Center is funded by Google.org and NSF to support the development of a new, open-access resource that uses satellite data and AI to track Arctic permafrost thaw in near real-time for the first time.
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What's the Problem?
Combating climate change and sustaining nature while ensuring thriving human communities are the major challenges of our time. Urgent and immediate action is needed if we are to create a sustainable future. Artificial Intelligence holds both promise and peril as a tool in this era of change. AI is rapidly advancing and evolving, but few scientists are equipped to utilize AI’s potential to change our current trajectory to benefit the planet, and those that are need additional cohesion.
Why Now?
With the AI revolution speeding ahead, now is the time to direct its power towards people and the planet, and to make sure that is done responsibly. We need to bring together the community of environmental researchers using AI to share lessons learned and advance the field in both technological and ethical directions. Likewise, we need to build a diverse workforce of people enabled with the technical, scientific, and collaborative skills to harness the power of AI for environmental good.
What's the Solution?
AI will play a pivotal role in future scientific advancement. We need to make sure the environmental research community is ready to harness the power of AI while anticipating both the great advantages and potential risks it poses. NCEAS is poised to be the convener, catalyst, and conveyer needed to support the environmental science community as we advance together into the AI for the Planet frontier. The next generation of AI-enabled science needs openness, many voices, ethical guidelines, reproducibility, and training support. NCEAS has led a scientific revolution around these imperatives before, and we will harness our three decades of experience to help lead the next revolution towards AI-enabled conservation.
NCEAS will focus on four areas to help the community harness AI for the Planet in revolutionary and responsible ways.
Why NCEAS?
Over the past 30 years NCEAS has transformed the way people do science. We are ready to do it again.
NCEAS is a leader of the Open Science movement, expanding open science to broad and diverse communities, with attention to practical approaches and usable tools that are made accessible to all. We have been a leader in bringing diverse communities together to share knowledge, expand what is possible, and work together to discover new insights that help people and the planet.
The current community of users applying AI to solve environmental problems needs more connection, integration, and coordination. NCEAS’s 30 year track record of success in convening, supporting, and training the community with skills in collaborative environmental data science is needed now more than ever to harness the AI revolution for collective planetary good.