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. If you’re new to the series, you might want to start with the recap of the first 💬 questioning session and second 📚 learning session.
In this post, you’ll find a recap of the third CAT Gen AI Exploratorium session dedicated to 🐱 practicing, with examples of both human and AI-generated climate action pledges. If you’d like to commit to your own climate action, I also invite you to explore detailed practicing prompts and resources that can help you get started, regardless of whether you currently have the time and capacity to actively participate in the Exploratorium.
And if you feel inspired to participate more actively, be sure to join the #gen-ai-exploratorium channel in the CAT Slack.
🐱 Practicing session recap
The third 1.5-hour long live session took place on Wednesday, Nov 20, and was attended by 8 determined explorers. During the brief warmup, we reviewed the session’s goal and ensured everyone was familiar with the tools being used, in particular the collaborative Mural whiteboard that’s being used to guide the exploration.
The mental warmup was followed by a quick body warmup, which included an active stretch and an invitation to embody the spirit of curiosity-driven cats as we prepared to decide what climate actions to take. The main goal of this practicing session was for each explorer to commit to a concrete climate action related to their previous learnings about generative AI.
To make it easier to formalize the commitments, explorers were invited to write pledges that include a ⏰ timeframe, a concrete 🌱 commitment that’s achievable in the chosen timeframe, and a 💚 reason to remind themselves of why the chosen commitment is important to them.
Now, when you hear the word “pledge” in the context of climate action, you might think of the net-zero Climate Pledges Big Tech companies like to promote on their websites (and then seemingly forget in the excitement of the current AI race). But the activity in the practicing session of the Exploratorium is based on the Responsible AI Pledge Challenge and Pledge Works, a modular and adaptable open-source tool that can help individuals or teams figure out how their values or principles can be reflected in practice in a specific context.
During the session, explorers were given the option to either base their commitments on one of the topics that emerged during last week’s learning session, or use one of the three types of actions from the CAT Theory of Change (Green your craft, Speak up, Advocate & influence) as their starting action area.
And while the goal of this session was for each person to write their own pledge, explorers were encouraged to help each other explore their contexts and action ideas through open discussion. To make discussion easier, we divided into three breakout rooms based on the starting action areas mentioned above.
Two of UX/design-focused 🍁 Collaborative Maples from last week got the opportunity to create their designer 🍁 Maple Syrup, but eventually joined three of the explorers making 🍄 Mushroom Soup by exploring how we relate to generative AI. Two additional late comers found their cozy spot in the 🪵 Quiet Embers room, in which they explored their learning journey so far.
(In case you’re wondering: the playful breakout rooms names are related to the theme of each session and a nod to the natural element we’re embodying. Besides, being able to join a room with a playful name tends to put people in a more creative mood than being randomly assigned to Breakout room #1.)
As in previous sessions, the Exploratorium Mural provided additional resources to support the activity and a canvas to capture discussion notes and ideas, as well as a space for pledges.
After the one-hour-long discussion, we reconvened in the main room for a short cooldown to reflect on the experience as a group. Among other things, we reflected on how taking concrete actions is like building a muscle and how important it is to continue learning about responsible AI uses, especially with others.
Explorers have also expressed appreciation of how the Exploratorium feels like a support group and is helping all of us feel less lonely by giving us the space and time to engage in thought-provoking – but also heart and soul-filling – discussions. And how empowering it can be to think about real, concrete actions, no matter how small.
Even though fewer explorers made it to this session, we used a record number of emoji reactions, as shown by the Butter – the workshop tool we’re using to make our sessions a bit more playful – session engagement recap.
Examples of climate-related AI pledges
To give you an idea of the actions we were able to surface so far, here is a sample of the pledges we have committed to putting into practice (note: some pledges were edited for clarity, and I have excluded any identifiable details and author names, as the Exploratorium is following the Chatham House Rule):
- “In December, I pledge to run a workshop on environmental and societal consequences of how we integrate AI with my team using a template a colleague created because I don’t want to be the only person on the team who considers climate when exploring gen AI.”
- “In December, I pledge to try to use some open-source gen AI models from Hugging Face locally on my computer because I want to explore whether I can reduce my reliance on ChatGPT and the costs of running model inferences in the cloud.”
- “By the end of 2024, I pledge to learn more about AI using the articles we discovered in the workshop so I can educate others on the importance of responsible use of AI both for the sake of our environment, and to navigate how to grow intentionally with the emergence of AI.”
- “In the following week, I pledge to use AI intentionally. Every time I use AI, I will consider how it is enabling me to grow, learn and live my values because I want to avoid wasted energy on uses that don’t drive meaningful value.”
As many of our explorers are designers, they also came up with pledge ideas for designers, both to inspire future selves and future explorers:
- “In the next month, I pledge to only use things from the material world as inspiration for visual designs because I would like to reduce my reliance on AI and reduce the environmental impact of my ideation process.”
- “In the next month, I pledge to give negative feedback to an existing AI solution if it automatically does something on my behalf that I don’t need because I believe AI should be served with an opt-in UX to keep the environmental cost down.
- “In the next month, I pledge to bring up climate impact as a consideration in design crit sessions about AI features because I want to bring attention to the environmental cost of using AI.”
As additional inspiration – and part provocation – I also included a couple of pledges generated by ChatGPT1 in the Exploratorium Mural:
- “In the next month, I’ll use ChatGPT to brainstorm ideas for eco-friendly lifestyle changes and test one suggestion each week, because I’d like to see if AI can inspire real-world actions that align with my values.”
- “For the next four weeks, I’ll start conversations with friends or family about the unseen environmental and social costs of AI, sharing stories from the Global South and frontline communities, because I believe that climate justice includes understanding who’s impacted by tech choices and why.”
- “Every Friday for the next month, I’ll dive into conversations with my kids about the future of technology and the planet, using ChatGPT for fun what-if scenarios, because I want them to think critically about technology’s impact on their lives and on the Earth.”
How do these sound to you compared to the pledges written by human explorers? Would you use any of these AI-generated pledges as inspiration for your own climate action?
If any of these examples – either human or AI-generated – inspire you to commit to your own actions, I encourage you to rewrite the pledge using your own words.
🐱 Practicing activity prompts
If you weren’t able to attend the practicing session or don’t currently have the time to engage more fully with the Exploratorium, you might still benefit from committing to a concrete climate action, whether it’s related to generative AI or some other technology you’re currently exploring. For this purpose, I am including additional tips and resources from the Exploratorium that can help you get started.
Tips for writing your own climate action pledges
These are some basic tips on how you might approach writing your own climate action pledges:
- Consider any questions, dilemmas, intriguing facts about generative AI and climate action that keep trying to get your intention. How do they relate to your context, whether at work, home, or in your community? Write down any thoughts, questions, or ideas for possible actions within your context that surface.
- Next, choose an action area in which you want to start and write a concrete commitment as a pledge. Try to include the following three elements into your pledge:
- ⏰ Timeframe: How much time can you currently dedicate to your action? I suggest starting with a shorter timeframe – between one week and one month – to make it easier to come up with a concrete action. The chosen timeframe doesn’t have to be a deadline, you can also use it as a checkpoint to evaluate your progress and decide whether you want to continue working on your pledge or commit to a new action.
- 🌱 Commitment: What is a concrete action you can reasonably commit to? Consider your current context – including other obligations – and values. Where can you have an impact? What do you want to stand up for? Can you somehow combine the action with an existing project? Or do you want to start something new? Try finding a balance between an action that challenges you but still feels doable.
- 💚 Reason: Why is the action important to you? You might even write a longer description to dig deeper into your motivations for action.
- As a starting point, you can use this simple format to write your pledge: “In [TIMEFRAME], I pledge to [COMMITMENT] because I [REASON].” But feel free to use your own words or a format that makes more sense to you.
- Don’t worry about making your pledge perfect or overly ambitious. A good pledge is any pledge that is meaningful to you and that encourages you to take action. You can always iterate and improve your commitment at the end of each timeframe checkpoint.
- You can write more than one pledge for a certain time period, as long as you have the capacity to see them all through. Remember, this isn’t a competition of who can do the most. It might be better to start with a single, simple, short pledge that helps you discover what works best for you in terms of feasibility and accountability.
Resources for climate action inspiration
If you need fresh ideas and perspectives when coming up with your action, spend some time exploring resources that can provide climate action inspiration, both specific to the tech industry and more generally:
- How to Climate Action in Tech starter page in the CAT Knowledge Base (log in with your CAT Slack account to access it)
- Green Software Practitioner course by Green Software Foundation
- Sustainable Web Design website
- Thinking about using AI? report by Green Web Foundation
- Job Function Action Guides by Project Drawdown
- Looking to land the elusive “climate job”? You might already have it. by Aiyana Bodi
- Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System by Donella Meadows
- Changemakers’ Toolkit by Sheila McKechnie Foundation
- Community-powered change By Pamela McGill
If you feel like you need to spend more time learning about a topic or ways of taking climate action, your pledge can even be focused on a learning action. In this case, I encourage you to add sharing your learnings with others as part of your pledge.
Keeping yourself accountable and motivated
Once you have your pledge written, follow these suggestions to help you see it through:
- Copy your pledge(s) to any tools you use daily – digital or physical – so that you can remind yourself of the commitment you’ve made and make the pledge more visible.
- Consider sharing your pledge(s) with your team or friends to encourage discussion and spark new ideas for action. You might even share regular updates to keep each other motivated.
- If you get stuck, return to questioning or learning to explore diverse perspectives. Or ask for help and advice in CAT or other relevant communities.
- If you’re a member of CAT, join the #gen-ai-exploratorium channel to get the link to the Exploratorium Mural and revisit the practicing section whenever you need inspiration for future climate action, and keep adding new pledges to inspire future explorers.
And I also invite you to use the CAT Slack to celebrate successful actions, or even to reflect on the actions that you didn’t manage to complete.
Up next: 🌊 reflecting
Speaking of reflection: the next part of the CAT Gen AI Exploratorium will be about 🌊 reflecting on all parts of your generative AI exploration – both inside and outside the Exploratorium. It will also be an opportunity to reflect on our collective power when it comes to transforming the tech industry more broadly.
If you missed the previous parts, you’re still welcome to join by exploring the questions, learnings, and practical commitments in the Exploratorium Mural – and adding your own. It’s never too late to begin your exploration journey!
And if you want to engage in a big-picture reflection together with other CAT explorers, I invite you to register for the 🌊 reflecting live session happening on Wednesday, November 27 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 practicing and exploring, and follow your curiosity!
Update: you can now read a recap of the 🌊 reflecting session.
This project is part of the Mini Grants program. If you would like to apply for funding during the next round of mini grants, please fill out this form (projects are evaluated every three months). To learn more about the process and how we evaluate projects, check out our Mini Grants Outline page.
- When generating these pledges I provided ChatGPT with the activity instructions from the Exploratorium and encouraged it to consider different perspectives, interests, and motivations, but I did not instruct it to vary the tone. ↩︎