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Halting generative AI advancements may slow down progress in climate research

Nature Climate Change volume 13, pages 497–499 (2023)Cite this article

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Large language models offer an opportunity to advance climate and sustainability research. We believe that a focus on regulation and validation of generative artificial intelligence models would provide more benefits to society than a halt in development.

The research and practice AI community has animated a lively debate around the moratorium request that was published in March 2023 to pause the training of very large AI systems4. Although we share some of the concerns that the signatories rightfully flag, we feel that the letter’s proposed solution to pause progress can be misunderstood to imply a broader halt on AI development by the policy community. Furthermore, the letter does not open a holistic debate about implications of this temporary halt for other scientific communities. We believe that the risk is that some countries, not aware of the full picture of this debate, may halt developments in AI altogether. As a result, research on key areas could be slowed down by a moratorium that limits a tool that has become essential to advance knowledge on complex problems with hidden interactions, such as climate change.

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Acknowledgements

F.L., F.F.N. and R.V. acknowledge financial support from the Digital Futures, Demonstrator Projects program. S.H. is partially funded by project PID2021-128676OB-I00 at Ministerio de Ciencia, innovación y Universidades / FEDER. J.A.C. is partially funded by grant PID2021-124618NB-C21, funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and ‘ERDF A way of making Europe’ by the European Union.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. FLOW, Engineering Mechanics, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden

    Francesca Larosa & Ricardo Vinuesa

  2. KTH Climate Action Centre, Stockholm, Sweden

    Francesca Larosa, Francesco Fuso Nerini & Ricardo Vinuesa

  3. Instituto Universitario de Matemática Pura y Aplicada, Universitat Politècnica de València, Valencia, Spain

    Sergio Hoyas & J. Alberto Conejero

  4. Departamento de Química Inorgánica, Universidad de Alicante, Alicante, Spain

    Javier García-Martínez

  5. KTH Division of Energy Systems, School of Industrial Engineering and Management, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden

    Francesco Fuso Nerini

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  1. Francesca Larosa
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  4. J. Alberto Conejero
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  5. Francesco Fuso Nerini
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  6. Ricardo Vinuesa
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Correspondence to Francesca Larosa or Ricardo Vinuesa.

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Larosa, F., Hoyas, S., García-Martínez, J. et al. Halting generative AI advancements may slow down progress in climate research. Nat. Clim. Chang. 13, 497–499 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-023-01686-5

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