AIs for the Planet

One of the key themes of the Noctilucent series is the issues raised by technologies such as AIs. There are real concerns on how humanity will react and cope with a world in which AIs can perform tasks that we can not, how we will protect what we value.

There could be a reaction to AIs and technology in general, and in part this is already seen, with environmental movements proposing low tech solutions to global issues such as global warming. In the Noctilucent series, the Earth First movement does just this, rejecting advanced tech such as space travel and AIs, promoting human scale solutions.

But could AIs help?

This article suggests the development of a Planetary Intelligence: AI to protect the planet.

It’s a concept that comes up in Selenium, along with the conflicts that raises, issues of control and trust. Could a planetary AI decide that the planet would be better off without those pesky humans?

There are clearly big issues here, to resolved (hopefully!) in Noctilucents book 3.