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How AI is tackling food security, disaster response and other global challenges
AI for Good is more than a buzzword—it's a powerful tool tackling global challenges like food security, disaster response, and water conservation. Microsoft’s Brad Smith highlights real-world examples, such as using AI to analyze water data in Kenya, offering actionable solutions for governments and communities. Through collaborations with universities and NGOs, AI is driving progress on the UN's Sustainable Development Goals, turning technology into a force for societal improvement.
Smith spoke during GZERO’s Global Stage livestream, “Live from the United Nations: Securing our Digital Future,” an event produced in partnership between the Complex Risk Analytics Fund, or CRAF’d, and GZERO Media’s Global Stage series, sponsored by Microsoft.
The history of disasters
It's easy to judge the Pompeiians for building a city on the foothills of a volcano, but are we really any smarter today? If you live along the San Andreas fault in San Francisco or Los Angeles, geologists are pretty confident you're going to experience a magnitude 8 (or larger) earthquake in the next 25 years—that's about the same size as the 1906 San Francisco quake that killed an estimated 3,000 people and destroyed nearly 30,000 buildings. Or if you're one of the 9.6 million residents of Jakarta, Indonesia, you might have noticed that parts of the ground are sinking by as much as ten inches a year, with about 40 percent of the city now below sea level.
The fact is, human beings just aren't all that great at learning from past disasters, and that includes the ones we can see coming, like those caused by climate change. Firefighters in the American West, for instance, are bracing for the worst wildfire season in recorded history, thanks to protracted drought and record-high temperatures. And yet, a June report found that California state and local officials are encouraging rebuilding in areas destroyed by wildfires.
After more than a year of enduring the greatest calamity of our lifetimes in the COVID-19 pandemic, it's time we learned a lesson or two from the disasters of the past.
Watch the episode: Predictable disaster and the surprising history of shocks
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Climate change isn’t the most immediate threat to humanity, argues Niall Ferguson
Was the world so focused on climate change that warning signs about the COVID-19 pandemic were missed? Historian and author Niall Ferguson argues that, while the climate crisis poses a long-term threat to humanity, other potential catastrophes are much more dangerous in the near future. "We took our eye off that ball," Ferguson says about COVID, "despite numerous warnings, because global climate change has become the issue that Greta Thunberg said, would bring the end of the world. But the point I'm making in DOOM [his new book] is that we can end the world and a lot of other ways, much faster." Ferguson spoke with Ian Bremmer in an interview for GZERO World.
Watch the episode: Predictable disaster and the surprising history of shocks
The 2020 pandemic was hardly “unprecedented,” says historian Niall Ferguson
"We've been dealing with pandemics from the earliest recorded history. Thucydides writes about a pandemic in the history of the Peloponnesian War. So the last thing 2020 was, was unprecedented," Stanford historian Niall Ferguson told Ian Bremmer on GZERO World. Ferguson, whose new book, "Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe," believes that the world should have been better prepared for the COVID-19 pandemic based on the numerous health crises of the 20th century, from the 1918 Spanish flu to influenza and HIV/AIDS. He provides perspective on how the COVID crisis stacks up compared to other pandemics throughout history.
Watch the episode: Predictable disaster and the surprising history of shocks
The surprising history of disaster
COVID-19 was a global catastrophe that blindsided the world's wealthiest nations, and it's far from over. But as disasters go, it was hardly unprecedented. Humanity has a long history of failing to prepare for the worst, from volcanic eruptions to earthquakes to famines to shipwrecks to airplane crashes to financial depressions. But how do we get better at preventing such calamities from happening, and how many seemingly unavoidable "natural" disasters are actually caused by humans? On GZERO World, Ian Bremmer talks about all that and more with Stanford historian Niall Ferguson, who is just out with the perfect book for the topic, "Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe." Plus, a look at how one young Ugandan activist was literally cropped out of the global climate fight.
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Podcast: How human history is shaped by disaster, according to Niall Ferguson
Listen: Stanford historian Niall Ferguson joins Ian Bremmer on the GZERO World podcast to talk about the geopolitics of disaster. Throughout human history we seem to be unable to adequately prepare for catastrophes (natural or human-caused) before they strike. Why is that? And as we emerge from the greatest calamity of our lifetimes in the COVID-19 pandemic and look to the plethora of crises that climate change has and will cause, what can we do to lessen the blow?
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Niall Ferguson: Blame bureaucrats, not leaders, for mismanaging disasters
When a government fails on disaster response, Stanford University historian Niall Ferguson says we often point the finger at the wrong person: the president — even if he's Donald Trump — instead of the mid-level bureaucrats who're actually responsible for most decisions. "When people are inclined to blame the person at the top, on closer inspection the point of failure is not there," Ferguson tells Ian Bremmer in the upcoming episode of GZERO World. Check local listings to watch on US public television.