AI is guzzling energy for slop content - could it be reimagined to help the climate? Some experts think AI could be used to lower, rather than raise, planet-heating emissions - others aren't so convinced A rtificial intelligence is often associated with ludicrous amounts of electricity, and therefore planet-heating emissions, expended to create nonsensical or misleading slop that is of meagre value to humanity. Some AI advocates at a major UN climate summit are posing an alternative view, though - what if AI could help us solve, rather than worsen, the climate crisis? The "AI for good" argument has been made repeatedly at the Cop30 talks in Belém, Brazil, with supporters arguing AI can be used to lower, rather than raise, emissions through a series of efficiencies that can spread through areas of our lives such as food, transport and energy that cause much of the pollution dangerously heating our planet. Last week, a coalition of groups, UN bodies and the Brazilian government unveiled the AI Climate Institute, a new global initiative aimed at fostering AI "as a tool of empowerment" in developing countries to help them tackle environmental problems.

A century ago, English mathematician Lewis Fry Richardson proposed a startling idea for that time: constructing a systematic process based on math for predicting the weather. In his 1922 book, "Weather Prediction By Numerical Process," Richardson tried to write an equation that he could use to solve the dynamics of the atmosphere based on hand calculations. It didn't work because not enough was known about the science of the atmosphere at that time. "Perhaps some day in the dim future it will be possible to advance the computations faster than the weather advances and at a cost less than the saving to mankind due to the information gained. But that is a dream," Richardson concluded.

A century ago, English mathematician Lewis Fry Richardson proposed a startling idea for that time: constructing a systematic process based on math for predicting the weather. In his 1922 book, "Weather Prediction By Numerical Process," Richardson tried to write an equation that he could use to solve the dynamics of the atmosphere based on hand calculations. It didn't work because not enough was known about the science of the atmosphere at that time. "Perhaps some day in the dim future it will be possible to advance the computations faster than the weather advances and at a cost less than the saving to mankind due to the information gained. But that is a dream," Richardson concluded.