SingularityNET Partners with Arizona State University’s LightWorks® to Apply AI and Blockchain to Sustainability

To collaborate on projects in support of renewable energy and the pursuit of a zero-carbon environment.

In the first blog post in the series on SingularityNET’s intention to work toward a sustainable and environmentally sound world, we detailed how there was statistical evidence for the anthropogenic causes of the recent global temperature increase.

We are now delighted to announce ‘SingularityNET’ and ‘Arizona State University’s (ASU) Lightworks® Innovation Accelerator’ have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) for the purpose of collaborating on projects in support of renewable energy and the pursuit of a zero-carbon environment.

The broad goals are to:

Goal 1:

Apply advanced resilient artificial intelligence and blockchain technologies, as appropriate, to solve hard problems in the areas of renewable energy research and the overall goal of achieving a zero-carbon world;

Goal 2:

Create and work jointly to maintain a blockchain-enabled Data Commons containing multiple data sources relevant to the renewable energy and Zero Carbon domains;

Goal 3:

Engage in public sustainability outreach and marketing efforts.

Who are ASU Lightworks®?

ASU LightWorks® Innovation Accelerator provides connectivity between ASU assets and researchers + government agencies, NGOs and corporations to solve sustainability challenges. Expanding on “Light-Inspired Solutions” and clean energy innovations, the LightWorks® Innovation Accelerator explores solutions in a broad range of sectors including The Carbon Economy, Food Systems, IoT, Green Finance, Sustainable Engineering, and Clean Water.

Lightworks®’ goal is to solve the world’s most pressing challenges by creating an ecosystem of innovative technologies through interdisciplinary and “out of the box, “ design thinking.

Partnership Results to Date

Since the memorandum began, ASU LightWorks® and SingularityNET Foundation have already begun architecting two major initiatives, additional support for which is being sought from relevant US government agencies that have worked with ASU in the past. The “Research Institute for Trusted AI” (RITA), and a concept for carbon storage entitled “Smart Grazing, Smart Technology, Carbon Reduction.”

We are also working in partnership with ASU LightWorks® on a series of 15 webinars in 2020 on the topic “How Artificial Intelligence Can Power Our Decarbonized Future,” and more recently on initiatives related to COVID-19 and resulting supply-chain and logistic challenges.

RITA

Concerns that Artificial Intelligence will produce unacceptable outcomes are liable to impede the deployment of potentially beneficial technology. Our initiative with the Research Institute for Trustworthy AI (“RITA”) takes a whole lifecycle approach to understand how trust in AI can be created and how it can guide the design of these decision-making systems.

Making AI trustworthy is a classic “wicked problem” (see, for example, Rittel and Webber, 1973) that can only be answered by a transdisciplinary, convergent approach. Accordingly, RITA will explore the complex interplay between technology and society from multiple viewpoints: engineering, scientific, technological, legal, societal, ethical and psychological. Moreover, as trust is not static and can be both created and eroded, RITA’s work will be dynamic and responsive to technological change.

This project will map the innovation ecosystem, commission white papers, and convene workshops to seed the planning of RITA’s structure, systems, and initial direction. It will identify and recruit a wide range of stakeholders to join the planning process: scholars from multiple disciplines; representatives of professional, scholarly, and public-interest organizations; government officials; and corporate executives. The planning process, grounded in the theory and methodology of design thinking, will follow best practice for managing convergent science. It also makes use of specialized visualization resources.

RITA will be organized around three foundational and two cross-cutting research themes: trustworthy technology; trustworthy data; trustworthy practices; trustworthy governance; and the nature of trustworthiness. It will develop educational and training programs for students, practitioners, regulators, and the public at large. RITA will also build a robust and reliable data commons to be used throughout the AI development lifecycle.

Smart Grazing, Smart Technology, Carbon Reduction

This initiative combines high-resolution soil carbon, GHG flux tower, and biofuel plant materials (hence called “biomass”) measurements with blockchain and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to evaluate, scale and reduce uncertainty for Nitrogen and Carbon Credit Yields at the field level for ranchers. The measurement and sensing techniques can build data sets which can be shared through a blockchain in an open data commons. This initiative will use AI to combine many models and data sources, each based upon relatively small amounts of collected data, to allow the creation of models of high-enough precision and accuracy to reduce uncertainty to acceptable levels.

The concept is to build on ASU’s $6 million research program from a combination of McDonalds Corporation, Foundation for Agriculture Research, ExxonMobil, Shell Oil Company and others, and ten (10) cooperating research institutions who initiated an across the fence paired study of AMP and heavy CG on biomass (forage) production, GHG emissions, soil carbon stocks, infiltration, soil genomics, breeding birds, livestock weight gain and health, and rancher well-being and socioeconomics. During 2018–2019, five (5) pairs of ranches plus reference natural areas located between Nashville, TN and St Francisville, Mississippi. Expansion of these results combined with data uncertainty reduction techniques will be used to inform an expanded study to the Northern Great Plains.

Webinar Series

LightWorks at Arizona State University has been addressing ways to accelerate the decarbonization of industry in several ways including research in carbon removal processes, policy dialogues and a webinar series that started in 2014. Since then LightWorks has produced 15 webinars covering direct air capture, sustainable fuels, accelerating financing of new decarbonization technologies, carbon emissions policy, and successful industry emissions reduction.

In support of the third goal stated in the MOU, SingularityNET will work in conjunction with ASU Lightworks® to organize a multi-part webinar series on Artificial Intelligence applications that can significantly reduce industrial carbon emissions.

Webinar 1: How can design be used to transform organisational culture to embrace AI, blockchain and other smart tools in the New Carbon Economy?

Webinar 2: How Companies are Using Digital Technologies to Meet Their Carbon Reduction Commitments

Webinar 3: Decarbonization Using Natural Capital Solutions — Smart systems to link stakeholders with farmers, ranchers and foresters

Webinar 4: Can I trust Alexa?: What is a Trustworthy Smart System?

The first Webinar in the series will take place on Thursday, June 4th, 2020 at 1:15 to 2:45 PM EDT, and you can Register Here.

This exciting new collaboration is yet another step toward our shared vision of creating a better future for all and reaching for a positive technological singularity.

Join Us

SingularityNET plans to reinforce and expand its collaborations to shape the coming AI Singularity into a positive one, for all. To read more about our other partners, click here.

SingularityNET has a passionate and talented community which you can connect with by visiting our Community Forum. For any additional information, please refer to our roadmaps and subscribe to our newsletter to stay informed about all of our developments.