AI paints bleak pictures of famous landmarks under climate change - South China Morning Post
Generative AI paints bleak pictures of Great Wall, Taj Mahal and other famous landmarks under climate change | South China Morning Post
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Generative AI paints bleak pictures of Great Wall, Taj Mahal and other famous landmarks under climate change
- Images generated by Midjourney based on existing research show visible damage on some of the world’s most recognisable monuments to raise awareness
- Sandstorms, drought and air pollution could damage the Great Wall, Mount Rushmore, Petra, Stonehenge and Victoria Falls, the pictures show
generative artificial intelligence (AI).
Utility Bidder, a business-oriented energy consultancy, used text-to-image tool Midjourney to generate hypothetical pictures of monuments affected by acid rain, sandstorms and other environmental changes caused by global warming.
One picture showed cracks on the Great Wall, a defence structure spanning more than 21,000 kilometres (13,048 miles) and built over centuries by several Chinese emperors. Exacerbated by powerful sandstorms, those cracks could lead to some sections of the architecture collapsing.
Other images showed Mount Rushmore in the US state of South Dakota decaying from acid rain caused by the burning of fossil fuels, and the ivory-white marble exterior of India’s Taj Mahal turning even more yellow from dirty air.
The famed reflecting pool outside the gates of Angkor Wat may turn into cracked earth from serious drought, while floods could submerge the ancient city of Petra in Jordan, according to the AI-generated images. Stonehenge in southwest England could fall, and drought could shrink Victoria Falls, located on the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe.
As part of the project, the team read through a series of online articles to understand the environmental threats that are affecting each landmark. It then gave relevant prompts to Midjourney to produce the imagined pictures.
“If we do not preserve our planet and everything in it, we will soon find ourselves at the forefront of destroying some of the world’s most historic landscapes,” said James Longley, managing director at Utility Bidder.
“Hopefully, these images strike a chord with many on the damning impact of climate change and impact people to continue looking after and preserving these landmarks, as well as considering their own lifestyle choices to help the cause.”
Generative AI has attracted worldwide attention since US start-up OpenAI launched its popular ChatGPT bot in November 2022. The technology has since been applied to various industries from energy and retail to healthcare and public services.
The United Nations, for example, has used AI at its satellite imagery centre to analyse flooded areas and determine where disaster response efforts are necessary.
However, scientists have also raised concerns over the environmental costs of training and using large language models, the technology that powers AI chatbots and often requires significant computational power.
In 2019, researchers at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, found that training an AI model could produce more than 626,000 pounds (284,000kg) of carbon dioxide – nearly five times the lifetime emissions of an average American car, including the manufacture of the vehicle.
Related Knowledge Center: Climate economics
Climate change is now a driver of the world’s economy. The impact is profound:
- Catastrophic weather events — hurricanes, floods, droughts, high temperatures — are more frequent and more extreme. The cost can be measured in both the initial damage caused and the longer-term impact on the economy.
- Vulnerable communities are increasing climate-related investments, hardening infrastructure and taking other protective measures.
- Investment in carbon capture and storage technologies is increasingly rapidly.
- Governments are making investments and crafting regulations to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
On top of all of this is the cost of uncertainty. As the Fourth National Climate Assessment, released in 2018 by the U.S. Global Change Research Program, says, “The assumption that current and future climate conditions will resemble the recent past is no longer valid.”