Call for Papers: Collection on AI and the planetary Poly Crisis: Climate, Sustainability, and Global Governance
This link between AI and climate change, or sustainability more broadly, is attracting increasing attention within academia, politics, and the media, as is the debate on which AI systems should or can be seen as sustainable (e.g., Brevini 2022, Coeckelbergh 2021, Hacker 2024, Sætra 2021, van Wynsberghe 2021). While the question of whether, and if so, how AI should be developed and deployed to mitigate rather than fuel climate change is being investigated (Kaack et al. 2022), much more research is required, and many open research questions remain to be explored. We aim to contribute to these debates with a collection of critical investigations on ‘sustainable AI’ and ‘AI for climate.’ We, therefore, invite contributions from various disciplines related to normative, epistemic, or policy and governance questions in the topic’s context.
Themes
This Topical Collection of AI & Society (AI&S) will expand critical scholarly research by introducing and investigating AI in a climate change and sustainability context. The aim of the special issue is to contribute to developing a vision for a new global governance framework for AI technologies and to further the debate on which AI technologies can be seen as sustainable in a rigorous manner, finally aiming at providing thoughts on how AI can support societies to create both local and global transformations towards more sustainable and democratic—and, therefore, more just—futures. We aim to collect articles for the collection that span from discussing the topic from a more general angle, e.g., by asking whether AI systems can ever be sustainable or whether it is the right tool to mitigate climate change and other socio-ecological crises, to articles that discuss concrete fields of application, such as, e.g., how AI can help transform societies’ mobility systems into more sustainable ones by providing means for smart and efficient use of energy, car availabilities, and traffic avoidance.
Contribution Types
We welcome contributions across the following formats:
Original papers/Research (max 10k words): substantial contribution, theory, method, application. Contributions may be experimental, based on case studies, or conceptual discussions of how AI systems affect organisations, society and humans. Original papers will be double blind peer-reviewed by two reviewers and the editorial team.
Curmudgeon papers (max 1k words): short opinionated column on trends in technology, science and society, commenting on issues of concern to the research community and wider society. Whilst the drive for artificial intelligence promotes potential benefits to wider society, it also raises deep concerns of existential risk, thereby highlighting the need for an ongoing conversation between technology and society. At the core of Curmudgeon concern is the question: What are the political-philosophical concepts regarding the present sphere of AI technology? Curmudgeon articles will be reviewed by the Journal editors.
Important Dates
Manuscript submission: 31st March 2025
Notifications: 31st July 2025
Revised papers due: 31st August 2025
For more details, refer here
