Imagine Parliament Hill blanketed in orange skies, floodwaters climbing the sides of BC Place stadium or a thick layer of smog fogging the view of Halifax from Citadel Hill.

These are all scenes depicted on a website published Thursday that blends artificial intelligence with geography to show the potential impact of climate change on almost any address on the planet.

The website, thisclimatedoesnotexist.com, was created by Mila, a machine-learning and technology research institute in Quebec founded by Yoshua Benigo, one of the godfathers of AI.

The website can apply filters showing the impacts of flooding, wildfires or smog to any address available through Google Street View and is meant to raises awareness about future scenarios that could arise if the world’s response to climate change continues to fall short.

Source: Toronto Daily News

Date: October 15th, 2021

Link: https://www.thestar.com/business/2021/10/14/montreal-made-website-uses-ai-to-show-impacts-of-climate-change-on-any-address.html

Discussion

1. How might you be able to build a business around this app?
2. The article suggests that certain assumptions have to be made for the AI to work. Why is this an issue?