The ClimateAction.tech (CAT) Generative AI Exploratorium is a 4-part community exploration that invites all curious CATs to explore diverse perspectives on how generative AI might support or oppose different types of climate actions. This is the first in the series of recap blog posts that can help you catch up on the exploration journey.
In this post, you’ll find a recap of the first CAT Gen AI Exploratorium session on 💬 questioning, as well as questioning prompts you can try on your own, regardless of whether you currently have the time and capacity to actively participate in the Exploratorium.
If you feel inspired to participate more actively, be sure to join the #gen-ai-exploratorium channel in the CAT Slack or register for one of the upcoming live sessions.
💬 Questioning session recap
Warming up by questioning the Exploratorium in getting familiar with the collaborative Mural
The first 1.5-hour long live session took place on Wednesday, Nov 6, and was attended by 16 curious explorers. During the warmup, we questioned the focus of the Exploratorium, reviewed the 4-part journey itinerary, went through basic safety advice, and got familiar with the basics of the collaborative Mural whiteboard that will support all parts of the journey.
Before the session, explorers were also invited to explore the Exploratorium Mural on their own. In addition to basic project info and tips for using Mural, this collaborative space includes the Exploratorium CAT Café, in which explorers can meet and connect at any point of the journey. Outside the live sessions, you can always find the link to the Mural in the #gen-ai-exploratorium channel.
Exploring different perspective and reactions to gen AI & climate through discussion
The session warmup was followed by the main questioning activity. In this initial session, our goal was to start uncovering guiding questions at the intersection of generative AI and climate action in tech by exploring different perspectives and ways of relating.
To prepare our bodies for what can be a challenging discussion, we started with a deep breath, a gentle opening stretch, and a reminder of our interconnectedness. Given that we explored some of the more challenging emotional reactions to gen AI & climate on a heavy news day, I wanted to remind participants of how they can use their breath, movement, and imagination to navigate different emotions and perspectives.
As a bit of scaffolding, the discussion canvas included different perspectives. In the CAT community, we often have discussions on how to green our craft, the technicalities of energy & emissions, data centers & hardware. But I also wanted to encourage the exploration of more personal and systemic perspectives. For the latter, I added planetary boundaries, social foundation & climate justice (inspired by Doughnut Economics), as well as a future-focused perspective on being a good ancestor and a wider relational perspective on humanity’s relation to more than human life.
Explorers were also encouraged to traverse the spectrum of emotions related to each perspective. From exploring fear and uncertainty on one side to excitement on the other, and a space for more values-neutral curiosity in between.
Each explorer was free to choose whatever perspective they wanted to discuss. Instead of jumping to answers and solutions, I encouraged explorers to uncover questions by exploring diverse perspectives at different parts of the spectrum of responses to generative AI in relation to climate. Explorers were also encouraged to share personal stories and concerns.
To make open discussion easier, explorers were given the choice to move between breakout rooms, playfully named after different birds to support different questioning perspectives. Eight explorers participated in this part, and we ended up with two discussion groups: a smaller one in the 🐧 Communing Penguin room, and a larger group in the 🕊️ Caring Dove room.
Examples of uncovered questions
Communing penguins shared ethical concerns about how AI is being used, while caring doves explored practical concerns related to the field of UX design. But both groups had the opportunity to share other perspectives and concerns during the almost 45-min long open discussion.
And while explorers found it easier to uncover questions on the more fearful/concerned end of the spectrum – unsurprising given how significant the environmental impacts of large generative AI models are –, we were able to uncover several curious and even a couple more hopeful questions.
To give you a taste of the questions that were uncovered, here are a couple of examples1 (edited for clarity):
- How to manage the impacts when using gen AI is expected in your work?
- What are the measures available to understand the climate impacts of generative AI?
- What process could we use to determine whether AI is worth the social or environmental impact?
- How might we bring transparency to users on which tools use AI and their environmental impact?
- How could AI lead to a breakthrough in new energy discovery?
Explorers will have the opportunity to learn more about any of these and many other questions in the next part of the Exploratorium. And so can you by joining the next live session or participating through the #gen-ai-exploratorium channel in the CAT Slack.
Appreciating the opportunity to share concerns and experiences during the cooldown
The final 15 minutes of the session were dedicated to a cooldown, during which explorers shared their appreciation for having the opportunity to talk to people who share their concerns, the opportunity to share experiences and have interesting discussion, and also the challenge of transforming worries into questions and opportunities for change.
We concluded the cooldown by reviewing suggestions on how to continue nurturing the questions that were uncovered through discussion – you can find these suggestions below.
💬 Questioning activity prompts
If you want to deepen your own questioning on the intersection of generative AI and climate, I invite you to try the following:
- Write down open-ended, thought-provoking questions that emerge for you when you think about gen AI & climate. Avoid yes/no questions, come up with questions that invite discussion and further exploration, and avoid jumping to solutions.
- Challenge yourself to spend some time on the opposite side of the spectrum to where most of your questions fall, and explore perspectives you don’t usually engage with.
- For instance, if you’re skeptical about gen AI & climate, challenge yourself to come up with questions that excite you, or the other way around. If you tend to focus on practical implementation, try zooming out and exploring a broader systemic perspective. Or swoop down to the ground for a closer look to the personal.
- Reflect and build upon questions added by others.
- Hint: if you don’t have the time to join CAT and access the Mural, you can do this activity with colleagues or friends, perhaps even using a whiteboard in your office.
- Sleep on the questioning activity and add any questions that surface later.
- Interrogate any strong emotions that emerge during this activity, what are they based on? How are they challenging your world view and assumptions?
- Try to embody point of views that are different from yours. Can you imagine what somebody with a different background and context might be worried or excited about?
I encourage you to share your questioning with others, in whatever way you can.
Up next: 📚 learning
The next part of the CAT Gen AI Exploratorium will be dedicated to 📚 learning more about the question(s) explorers find the most interesting. Explorers will select one or more questions from the ones that are still being uncovered through 💬 questioning – either on their own or as a group –, and start learning through conversations, exploring resources, experimentation, and sharing your findings with fellow explorers.
If you missed the questioning part, you can still join in by selecting any of the questions uncovered by other explorers, so it’s not too late to begin your exploration journey.
And if you want to start learning together with other CAT explorers, I invite you to register for the 📚 learning live session happening on Wednesday, November 13 at 6 PM CET / 5 PM UK / noon EST / 9 AM PST – you can check your local time on the event page. If you can’t attend the live session, you can still contribute to the collaborative Mural async and participate in discussions in the #gen-ai-exploratorium channel in the CAT Slack community.
Until then, keep exploring and follow your curiosity!
Update: you can now read a recap of the 📚 learning session.
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- Note: as an experiment, I tried asking ChatGPT to select questions it thought were the most interesting by sharing a screenshot of the stickies from the session. ChatGPT hallucinated some of the suggested questions. When I pointed out that being factual isn’t its strong suit, it replied with: “You caught me! I guess I’m a little too eager to offer ideas, even if they aren’t always spot-on. 😅”. However, the hallucinated questions seemed plausible and could also lead to interesting explorations. ↩︎