In watching the current obsession with AI, I felt that it’s time to finally share my thoughts about using AI from a Permaculture perspective.

Spoiler: I don’t like it. So why post a video at all? Does it really matter if you use AI or not? What does it have to do with Permaculture?

From Techno-Optimist into… well, I believe in trees.

People who met me in the past few years may be surprised to know that I was once very into technology. I was a computer nerd and coded my first game somewhere around 3rd grade.

When I started waking up to the ways we were wrecking our environment and harming each other, I was a big believer that green technology could get us to a better world.

I imagined a world where everything was powered by solar and wind. I believed the claims that automation technology would be used to give us all a 20-hour work week while renewable energy would remove the need for any fossil fuels. I thought we’d be entering a world of shared material abundance coupled with care for the planet.

As an activist in my early twenties, I fought pretty hard for that world. Along with renewable energy, I studied machine learning, promoted open source, and even coded a rudimentary AI to use as a game engine. I programmed microcontrollers that I thought could make useful gardening hardware. I supported apps that helped us barter or freecycle things we needed instead of buying more. I was a part of that early 2000s techno-optimism where we hadn’t yet seen the damage social media and smartphones could do.

Now, as a Permaculture teacher in my forties and writing from the 2020s, I see things very differently.

You can watch the video to understand more of why I don’t think AI has a place in Permaculture, and if you want to learn more, I’m including some writing about AI below.

What do you think? Share a comment. I’m open to sincere discussion on this topic.

Post-script: isn’t using AI to help land regenerate kind of like using an excavator, one-time, to help the water?

Great question (… that no one has actually asked me yet 🙂 )!!!

This is the question I might ask a Permaculture teacher about AI. If we can use AI to create a blueprint for restoring land that ultimately saves a lot of energy and water and restores soil, isn’t that worth it?

How is it different from the Permaculture practice of using heavy machinery (usually one time) to create earthworks and ponds for restoration?

Here’s Matt using an excavator to start a swale – it uses a lot more energy than a shovel would have…!

If you’re a student of Permaculture, I’d suggest that this question could be a very effective teacher itself. While I can give my answer, sitting with it and following it where it goes can raise a lot of helpful questions about the nature of what we’re doing and why.

If Permaculture is only a matter of carbon accounting, it’s totally possible that using AI one time for land restoration could result in some carbon savings.

What does this question bring up for you? Where does it go? What does it have to teach?

Someday I’ll post my own thoughts on it. In the meantime, I’d love to hear yours.

Resources

Feel free to copy and use this logo:

AI’s Ecological Impact

• Environmental impact of AI data centers – PBS – and another from MIT
• Wikipedia’s article on it

AI’s financial ridiculousness and why it may destroy the economy

• Why AI is likely the biggest financial bubble we’ve ever had (technical reading) – Ed Zitron

Why AI isn’t really giving us the productivity increase we might think it is

• How AI coding tools actually make users less productive (even as they think they’re working better)
• 95% percent of companies investing in AI are not actually making money from doing so