Project Module

Project Overview

The goal of the project is to explore an area of AI ethics in depth, with an application in the Earth Sciences.  After the third week of class, you will pick an area that you are interested in exploring more (e.g. bias, risk mitigation, policy, etc), form a group (use slack to recruit to your group or recruit in class), and make a proposal to the class. 

The area of AI ethics that you pick should directly relate to some aspect of AI as it could be (or is already) applied to the Earth Sciences.  This could be any aspect of Earth Sciences that you are most interested in.  That could include weather, climate change, resiliency, sustainability, earthquakes, volcanoes, geo-engineering, and lots more!  Note: you are not limited to existing AI applications, although novelty is not required.  

Since your project will involve some amount of implementation and not just writing, you will want to pick an area where some data is available.  The one exception to this is that if you are proposing a policy-based project, you probably will be focused largely on writing but you will be doing a lot of reading of existing policies and you will need a deep understanding of the current limitations of AI methods! 

Fun with generative Art

“Robot holding an earth in its hand with flowers in the background” as generated by Adobe Firefly

“Here is the image of a futuristic robot holding a miniature Earth in its hand with a background of colorful flowers.” from OpenAI’s DALL-E

Project Rules

  • Projects should be done in groups of 2-3 students.  A larger group is possible if the work is clearly outline and you speak to Dr McGovern about it.  Singleton groups will only be accepted in exceptional circumstances and require approval from Dr McGovern.
  • Project groups can be mixed undergrad and graduate students. 
  • Project groups are encouraged to mix across majors and backgrounds!  See the entire module on interdisciplinary teams.

Project FAQ

  • What is our final product?
    • The final product is a paper and a presentation.
  • How much depth do I mean by “in depth”?  
    • The final paper is expected to dive into a topic and present results of your own (where results are either from exploring hypotheses or proposing new policies).  Reading and presenting a literature review is not sufficient depth.  You must have your own results and analysis.
  • When is it all due?  
    • To keep you on track, there will be multiple due dates throughout the semester called Project Milestones.  The final presentation will be on the last day of class and the final paper due the last Friday of classes. 

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