Can AI Save the Planet

[Music]

this

is my childhood memories of india lush

green forests pristine waterways

and the sweet smell of fresh air i’m

afraid

that this might not be the case for my

children

all they’ll experience is dry riverbeds

polluted waterways and dirty beaches

unfortunately this will be my children’s

memory of

india this is sad real sad

so i had to do something i wanted to

find out

why this was happening today i wanted to

share with you

a personal journey which transformed my

entire life

it all started with that shirt i bought

a year ago

it was on sale and it was irresistibly

cheap

my curious self wanted to find out why

it was on sale

and how brands can afford to sell it at

that low price

what i discovered shook me to the core

i learned that cheap always

comes at a high cost i also learned

the cheap shirt cost 20 percent

of the water pollution globally in

places like

india bangladesh and pakistan it’s even

higher

where entire water sources have become

unusable

by the local population the world bank

calls this

the invisible crisis apart from

pollution

entire water resources are being

depleted

as you can see the rlc has completely

disappeared

not just water resources entire forests

are being destroyed to make way for

industrial agriculture

so where is it all going wrong

in the past i remember in fashion there

used to be four seasons

but now we have 52 micro seasons

52 that’s literally every week of the

year

new clothes are launched into the market

for each

of the micro seasons in the u.s it went

from

20 garments per person per year to 68

garments per person per year

in the space of just three years forty

percent of

everything which is produced goes to the

secondary market

and some of them don’t even see the

daylight

the problem is we produce

way too many clothes i didn’t stop

there i dug deeper here’s what i

discovered

it takes about 700

gallons of water to produce one

cotton shirt and it takes about 2

000 gallons of water to produce a pair

of jeans

that’s more than enough for one person

to drink

eight cups a day for 10 years

10 years so every time i

buy a pair of jeans i’m reminded of the

fact

that i’m depriving someone eight cups of

water a day

for a decade to make matters worse

brands like burberry destroyed 36

million dollars worth of merchandise h m

burned 60 tons of clothes louie rita

nike michael kors victoria’s secret

jcpenney and the list

goes on not only have we destroyed our

natural resources

but we are polluting the environment

even further

by either dumping them or burning them

so the question is what is the

real cost of the cheap shirt that i

bought

well it’s not too late we have taken

actions before

at a global scale to help our planet

heal

at the turn of the millennium we agreed

to cut out cfc

which already is making an impact

thanks to our efforts the ozone layer

will be back to normal by 2050.

the damage was quick but the healing

process takes a long time

a generation in fact if we start now

we can reverse the damage we caused but

we have to do it one

small step at a time i’m not suggesting

that we should forget about fashion and

go back to wearing leaves

or become clones all i’m saying is

we have to be very very conscious

and conservative about what we consume

so where do we start the solution

has three parts first of all

understand the need not our want

second visualizing our impact on our

planet

every action we take has an impact and

we need to

visualize it collectively both positive

and negative impacts

third practicing sustainability

everywhere let’s start with the

most important thing need prediction

currently retailers are working on

demand prediction and therefore

producing

more than what is needed and then to

shift the products

they are creating artificial demand it

should

never be demand prediction it must be

need prediction this is where artificial

intelligence can help

ai is a technology which can help us

understand

what we really need so that we produce

only what we need to calculate the real

need we need to understand

someone’s preferences visual ai

technology can understand the colors you

prefer

the designs you like and even the fit

which suits you best

it can also understand your style your

persona your fashion sense based on your

day-to-day photographs

this could be done using the photos you

already have on social media

or even in private albums so there’s

minimal effort from you to provide that

required data

based on your lifestyle and past

purchases

ai can also predict an individual’s

needs

ai can predict even my personal needs

for the entire year for example it

predicts that

raj will need five shirts

three trousers two shoes and

one jacket in blue now that we have the

individual

data we can start predicting the needs

for a family a village

a county and eventually the entire

nation

all of this data will be completely

anonymized

to protect our privacy and then it can

be shared with the vendors

manufacturers distributors and all the

agents who are involved

in the supply chain if the requirement

is

10 garments per person per year for a

nation

of 66 million people

we only need 660 million garments

and not the 6 billion garments that are

currently being produced

annually it’s a collective

responsibility

of the governments retailers and

consumers

to make sure we’re only producing what

we need

now that we have the needs prediction

sorted

let’s move on to step number two

to visualize our impact our every action

has both positive and negative impacts

we are most likely to make the right

choices

when we are able to visualize our

collective actions

but it’s not that simple

we need to change our lifestyle

we need information to make an

informed decision that’s our next step

making informed choices and practicing

sustainability

to make a choice we need information

let’s take a leaf out of the food

industry

the food industry has made huge strides

in helping us make healthier choices

we need a similar approach for the

fashion industry

where we can understand what we’re about

to buy and where

whether it’s a good bad

or ugly choice for this system to work

we need to track

every component that’s involved in the

making

of the clothes this information

also needs to be available to everyone

an immutable source of information which

we can

all rely on knowing that no one in the

supply chain

has suppressed or hidden any facts

this is where technologies like

blockchain can help

it will help us track everything back to

the source

including distance traveled by the raw

materials

resources utilized and how sustainably

these materials are produced we need

a traffic light system which will help

us

make us informed decisions

green being locally sourced and carbon

neutral

red being the worst so imagine this next

time when you say

hey alexa buy me a blue shirt

alexa comes back and asking you

sure which blue shirt would you like

the green yellow or red option i know

which one i’ll be going for

when we make informed choices practice

sustainability produce only

what we need beautiful things start

happening

we become self-sufficient

production and manufacturing becomes

local

regional this will encourage micro

economies

job opportunities even for all the

people

who lost their jobs when the high

streets closed

it’s a win-win now

let’s go back to the original question

can

ai save our planet the real question is

do you want to save our planet