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