IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2020 - 11

SPECIAL ISSUE INTRODUCTION

Amy Luers

Lyse Langlois

Mathilde
Mougeot

Alexandra
Luccioni

Sustainability
in the Digital Age

isruption. This one
word captures the
essence of the world
today. COVID-19 has
disrupted economies,
global supply chains, health systems,
travel, education, and so much more.
In just a few weeks it changed life as
we knew it. But COVID-19 is not a
"black swan"; it was not unforeseen
and unexpected. A global pandemic
is just one of many global systemic
crises that scientists have long predicted would emerge from our disruptions of Earth's life support systems
[1]-[3]. Over the last several decades,
human disruptions to the climate, the
ocean, and all natural ecosystems,
have expanded and intensified the
risks to human health, security, and
prosperity [4]. COVID-19 provides a
window into how prepared the international community is to handle the
larger crises on the horizon resulting
from disruptions to the climate and
other Earth systems.
Disruptions can have positive as
well as negative impacts on natural
and human systems. Among the
most fundamental disruptions to
global society over the last century
is the rise of big data, artificial intelligence (AI), and other digital technologies. These digital technologies
have created new opportunities to
understand and manage global systemic risks, and drive the societal
transformations needed to overcome
them. COVID-19 has highlighted
how critical digital technologies are

to managing global systemic crises. It has also put a spotlight on
the profound challenges that parallel the transformative opportunities
of building a sustainable and equitable world in the digital age. In the
context of the pandemic, big data
and artificial intelligence are helping
society track and manage the spread
of the disease [5]-[7]. In the case of
climate change, similar tools are
being explored to track carbon, analyze climate risks, and reimagine climate governance [8], [9]. The digital
sector is also helping to mitigate the
cascading impacts of emerging crises. Imagine if COVID-19 happened
20 years ago, before Google, Amazon, Facebook, or Zoom enabled so
many people to stay connected to
each other and the world. Without
these tools the impacts of "shelter in
place" orders and global economic
shutdown would have been much
starker for many. But not everyone is
benefiting from these tools. Almost
half the global population does not
have access to the digital world [10],
and even among those who are
online, many are unable to do their
work remotely. Furthermore, while
the digital sector is a lifesaver to
many, it can also facilitate the propagation of disinformation, under-

Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MTS.2020.2991493
Date of current version: 18 June 2020

JUNE 2020

Sana
Kharaghani

∕

IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE

mine trust, and ultimately threaten
democracy [11], [12].
In this special issue, we explore
the opportunities and challenges of
leveraging AI and other digital capabilities to drive the transformative
system changes needed to tackle
the climate crisis and related global
sustainability challenges. The work
presented here was initiated well
before the pandemic emerged, but
the current crisis makes the issues
explored in these papers even more
poignant for challenges we face in
building the world we want. This Special Issue is an outgrowth of Future
Earth's Sustainability in the Digital
Age (SDA) initiative and an international workshop held in Montreal
in September 2019. The workshop
was one of a series on AI and Society, hosted by CIFAR and supported
in partnership with U.K. Research
and Innovation (UKRI) and France's
Centre National de la Recherche
Scientifique (CNRS), and organized
by Future Earth, the U.K. Office for
AI, the International Observatory
on the Societal Impacts of Artificial
Intelligence and Digital -Technologies
(OBVIA), and CNRS. This three-day
workshop brought together 28 ex--
perts from academia, industry, government, and civil society to explore

IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2020

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