Priya Donti is the Co-founder and Executive Director of Climate Change AI (CCAI), a global non-profit initiative to catalyze impactful work at the intersection of climate change and machine learning.
Our discussion today dives into the climate change related applications of AI and machine learning, and how organizations are working towards mobilizing them to address the climate problem. Priya shares her thoughts on advanced technology and creating a dystopian version of humanity, what made her decide on her Ph.D. topic, and what she learned touring the world interviewing power grid experts around the world.Key Points From This Episode:
Tweetables:“When we are working on climate change related problems, even ones that are “technical problems” every problem is basically a socio-political technical problem, and really understanding that context when we move that forward can be really important.” — @priyald17 “Machine learning in power grids and really in a lot of other climate relevance sectors can contribute along several themes or in several ways.” — @priyald17 “What prompted us to found this organization, Climate Change AI, to really help mobilize the AI machine learning community towards climate action by bringing them together with climate researchers, entrepreneurs, industry, policy, all of these players who are working to address the climate problems and sort of to do that together.” — @priyald17 Longer quote“So the whole idea of Climate Change AI is rather than just focusing on what can we as individuals who are already in this area do to do research projects or deployment projects in this area, how can we sort of mobilize the broader talent pool and really help them to connect with entities that are really wanting to use their skills for climate action.” — @priyald17