Artificial Intelligence and the Environment in Chile: Towards an “eco-algorithmic” governance

PUC Communications.- The concept of the Anthropocene has challenged the idea of ​​an unquestioned and indifferent external environment, recognizing the significant impact of human activity on the terrestrial biosphere. In this context, and in the face of the global climate crisis, a paradigm called eco-modernism has emerged, which emphasizes the use of technological innovations, particularly Artificial Intelligence (AI), to mitigate climate change without requiring fundamental changes in the modern economy.

In the case of Chile, we are not alien to this paradigm. the researchers Martin Tironidirector of FAIR Millennium Nucleus and of the UC School of Designand Diego Riveraof the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Chile, raise the need for a critical and situated analysis that takes into account the political effects and the particularities of each monitoring system. This, given that these technological advances have implications for the future of environmental protection and the relationship between human beings and nature.

This is stated in the article “Artificial intelligence in the new forms of environmental governance in the Chilean State: Towards an eco-algorithmic governance”recently published in the prestigious magazine Technology in Society.

As Martín Tironi explains: “This work, which is part of FAIR’s line of Artificial Intelligence, social justice and citizenship, analyzes the new forms of sensitivity and environmental management that arise with the introduction of Artificial Intelligence to address climate change and the ecological crisis. The article addresses how the perception of the environment and the relationships that make it up are transformed when translated by automated mediation systems.

In particular, this article analyzed the case of the “Environmental Intelligence” (EI), developed by the Superintendency of the Environment (SMA) of Chile to monitor and regulate environmental compliance.

This system incorporates AI and algorithms to enable automated monitoring processes, which go beyond human perception and allow the SMA to meet its goal of turning Chile into a “natural laboratory” to mitigate and regulate the effects of climate change. . This, through the implementation of environmental surveillance and data identification systems, to predict and reduce environmental damage caused by industries, especially in extraction territories associated with mining.

The authors argue that the justification process for the introduction of algorithmic regulation systems “involves a desingularization of the environment, reducing it to objective metrics that can be anticipated”. This perspective, they explain, conceives of nature as an external entity to be instrumentalized, suppressing its inherent value and complexity. In that sense, the article explores how these digital monitoring innovations shape governance and environmental relations in the Global South.

“The article addresses how the perception of the environment and the relationships that make it up, are transformed when translated by automated mediation systems” – Martín Tironi, director of the FAIR Millennium Nucleus and the UC School of Design.

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Eco-algorithmic governance

This study highlights the extension of a modern dualistic vision, which treats nature as a passive object of intervention. The article describes the establishment of a “smart mandate” for environmental management, resulting in “eco-algorithmic governance” that makes nature predictable and visible only within an optimization framework.

This approach, the authors argue, restricts other forms of environmental knowledge and understanding, creating tensions between discordant approaches to nature.

“Automated sensorization and the introduction of AI for environmental management offer realities and quantifications that are unattainable by other recording systems”, affirms the sociologist Martín Tironi, and adds: “However, what we are trying to show is that this regime Sensitivity imposes a particular form of planetarity, leaving aside other forms of perception of the environmental phenomenon, linked to local knowledge, or even the work of perception carried out by subjects who are not human”.

The authors also discuss the continuities and discontinuities between data exploitation and environmental compliance challenges. In this framework, they propose the concept of “eco-algorithmic governance” to conceptualize the relationships formed through the combination of government mandates, sensors and algorithms.

By shedding light on these dynamics, the authors seek to improve understanding of the political and social implications of the increasing use of intelligent environmental monitoring systems. This, emphasizing the need for a situated analysis that considers the political effects and specificities of each sensory regime, particularly in the context of relations between the Global North and the South, and “data extractivism”.