WHEN 91av editors sat down to discuss the biggest story of 2023, one topic shot straight to the top of the list. It can’t have escaped anyone’s notice that artificial intelligence rocketed to prominence this year, with OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, becoming a household name. Hundreds of millions of people are now using large language models on a regular basis, in a rapid roll-out of technology that is essentially unprecedented. And while only a fraction of that number are using image and video-generating AIs, that still amounts to millions of new creations every single day.
Beyond consumer use of AI, the technology is also transforming huge swathes of science. This year alone, we have reported on advances in weather forecasting, materials science, archaeology, chemistry and many, many more fields. It is safe to say that, for good or for ill, the AI revolution has only just begun (see “2023 was the year that artificial intelligence went mainstream”).
Another topic was already at the top of our list. Climate change is the biggest story of the year, the decade, the century – but 2023 went beyond anyone’s expectations. Although the figures won’t officially be determined until January 2024, it is pretty safe to say that this year was the hottest on record, and it may also be the first year in which global average temperatures rose 1.5°C above pre-industrial baselines – a monumental failure in our efforts to halt warming (see “Why 2023 was almost certainly the hottest year ever recorded”).
Advertisement
We had the hottest day on record globally on 3 July, only for that record to be broken again on 4, 5 and 6 July, in what became the hottest month ever. And with the heat came disasters. Canada had its worst ever year for wildfires, which released huge amounts of carbon into the atmosphere and generated massive air pollution across vast areas.
Meanwhile, in the US, there were 25 weather disasters that had losses exceeding $1 billion by 8 November, beating the annual record of 22 set in 2020. This year’s total includes the August wildfires in Hawaii that killed more than 100 people. In September, heavy rains caused two dams to collapse in Libya, killing as many as 20,000 people in the city of Derna. The list could go on and on.
What connects the stories of AI and climate change is that decisions taken today could potentially determine the fate of billions of people. With AI, the long-predicted rise of software taking people’s jobs may have finally arrived, with some businesses finding that, for example, employing someone to babysit ChatGPT as it churns out copy is more cost-effective than employing a team of humans – although whether that output is of the same quality remains up for debate.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, given Hollywood’s long history of producing AI dystopias, it was the US movie industry that saw one of the biggest push-backs against the machines, with both writing and acting unions going on strike for months (see picture, above). While AI wasn’t their only grievance, it did play a big role in negotiations, with writers wanting assurance that their work wouldn’t be used to train AIs to pump out blockbusters. Meanwhile, actors were concerned about having their likenesses scanned into a computer and puppeted by an AI, leaving them out of work for future roles.
With concerns about AI running high, the UK attempted to take the lead on regulating the new technology. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak hosted global dignitaries, business leaders and AI experts at the AI Safety Summit in Bletchley Park, resulting in the Bletchley Declaration, an agreement signed by 28 countries and the European Union. While international cooperation is to be welcomed, the main substance of the document was to set out to host further meetings, in a pace that seems at odds with a technology that seemingly transforms the world every few months. If we are to ensure that AI benefits everyone, not just the firms behind it, politicians must act faster.
That is a refrain we can echo when it comes to climate change as well. In 2015, nations at the COP21 summit in Paris pledged to keep warming from greenhouse gas emissions below 1.5°C. This is a goal that has been echoed at every COP since – including COP28 in Dubai, which was concluding as this issue went to press – despite the lack of action to match it. Indeed, it now seems that remaining below 1.5°C of warming, while not impossible according to the laws of physics, will be politically, socially and technologically out of reach. That is because global greenhouse gas emissions have continued to rise since 2015, with 2023 up by more than 1 per cent on 2022. We are currently on track for nearly 3°C of warming by 2100, according to a report published in November.
What is really worrying is that weather disasters fuelled by global warming are becoming so frequent and severe that some places aren’t able to fully recover. In July, the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction said that hard-won social and economic advances are being reversed by disasters because of their effects on food security, employment and education.
As we turn to 2024, there will be new opportunities to tackle the twin issues of AI and climate change. Depending on exactly how you count it, around 3.5 billion people – or almost half the population of the planet – will be voting in elections next year. These include elections in India (the world’s largest democracy), the US, the EU and most likely the UK. (Technically, the deadline for its general election is January 2025.)
Already, there are concerns that AI could play a role in disrupting some of these elections, given the risk of the internet being flooded with misinformation and fake videos. Even if that doesn’t come to pass, the leaders installed next year will increasingly have to tackle AI head-on, as we can expect the technology to accelerate throughout their terms.
But despite some people’s fears that AI could take over the world and exterminate humanity (see “The future of AI: The 5 possible scenarios, from utopia to extinction”), climate change must always be at the top of the political agenda. Those elected next year will govern during a vital period on the road to net zero by 2050, as we reach the midpoint of that journey. Currently, efforts to tackle emissions are still lacking. If we take anything from the extraordinary heat of 2023, let it be that this must finally change.
