“Artificial Anthropocene”: Impact of artificial intelligence on climate and the Earth

The Anthropocene is still not, formally, accepted as a new epoch, but scholars in related fields widely agree on the profound impact of humans on the Earth. Human activity is now considered as the most dominating cause of contemporary changes on the Earth, especially, climate change, undermining environmental security. As argued by some scholars, the effects of human activity are likely to be detectable in the geological stratigraphic record for millions of years in future, fulfilling the formal criteria of accepting Anthropocene as a new epoch. Human activities are driven by either human intelligence or the product of it (like technology). In other words, ultimately, it is the “human intelligence” that has shaped the changes on the Earth. But the last decade saw accelerated advancement in the field of Artificial Intelligence. AI in a narrow domain (use of AI for specific purposes) has surpassed human intelligence even beyond the capacity of the human mind. Its impact (positive, negative and unintended consequences) are accelerating in every domain of our lives and society. In this context, the paper explores how AI will impact humans and the Earth. The paper argues that AI is going to transform, reshape and augment the capacity of humans (Intelligence) to change the configuration of, almost, every system (geosphere, biosphere, cryosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere) of the Earth, creating an era of “Artificial Anthropocene” in which human Intelligence and Artificial (machine) Intelligence, both collectively, would accelerate human footprints on the Earth.