Christoph Becker

University of  Toronto

AI in a world after growth: How to decouple innovation from expansion

The technology-fueled expansion of human material activity we know as economic 'growth' has driven humanity to breach six of the nine thresholds of its safe planetary space. Efficiency gains in technology are necessary but insufficient to reverse the ecological disasters already unfolding. The fossil train of growth is coming to a halt: via disastrous unraveling if we pursue fossil business-as-usual or via a controlled deceleration and renewal enabled by coordinated policy change. A viable future depends upon a transformative, just, and rapid social change in direction, which demands profound changes to how we govern and implement technology, including AI. Today's technology (as a way of thinking, doing, and relating) keeps us on the old train bound to climate hell. Today's AI too is heavily entangled with the addiction to accumulation that translates from macro-economic policy and governance via corporate incentive structures into technological features, user experiences, and the systemic effects of large-scale deployment on societies and the environment. Innovation however does not mean to do more, but to do new things in new ways. In different shapes, AI can help us switch trains. That begins by decoupling 'innovation' from the current paradigm of economic and material expansion beyond safe planetary boundaries in favor of new ecological roles of technology that equitably sustain future generations and non-human nature. Drawing on ecological economics, organizational studies, and pluriversal concepts, the talk takes a systemic view to offer directions on how AI development should be organized and evaluated under the changing conditions of a world after expansion. This includes recognizing and quantifying rebound effects; replacing efficiency with sufficiency; translating planetary boundaries and social rights into measurable constraints; rethinking scale; translating the value shifts of degrowth into national and international funding policies; and supporting genuine innovations via convivial technologies and 'autonomous designs' of pluriversal AI.

Bio

Christoph Becker is Professor of Information and the Environment at the University of Toronto and leads the Just Sustainability Design lab. His research focuses on responsible innovation and the social, economic and ecological consequences of computing. Trained in computer science, he has advocated for sustainable computing for the past decade and co-founded the Karlskrona Alliance for sustainability design and the ACM Journal of Responsible Computing. His book Insolvent: How to Reorient Computing for Just Sustainability (MIT Press, 2023) offers trans-disciplinary critiques and new paths for computing. It was Finalist of Engineering and Technology at the 2024 PROSE Awards. www.christoph-becker.info