Renewable energies, e-cars, doing without air travel – sustainability has become a huge and important topic in recent years. The discussion about which measures are climate-friendly and resource-saving has reached all areas of life and society. People consciously pay attention to eating, moving and buying sustainably.
But what about sustainable behaviour in the digital space? Who pays attention to behaving in a way that uses as few resources as possible, even on their own computer? Is there an awareness of the energy requirements of digital tools? Who knows which routines and applications offer potential for savings? How far is the research? How does it work and what does it recommend?
Laura Kocksch is a guest on this topic in #CAISzeit. As a social anthropologist at the Ruhr University Bochum, she conducts research on digital cultures, data infrastructures and the use of data. Last but not least, she focuses on the ecological dimension of digitalisation. Laura Kocksch works as a research assistant at the Chair of Cultural Psychology and Anthropology of Knowledge of Prof. Estrid Sørensen. She is a co-founder of RUSTlab and is doing her doctorate at the research training group SecHuman – Security for Humans in Cyberspace. She is currently a fellow at CAIS. In CAISzeit, Silke Offergeld (State Chancellery of North Rhine-Westphalia) and Dr. Matthias Begenat from the Center for Advanced Internet Studies (CAIS) talk to her about how one’s own digital behaviour can become more sustainable and at what level approaches for climate-friendly digitisation should start.
Link list
Tips for further reading:
- Graph of the anatomy of AI systems using the Amazon Echo as an example by Kate Crawford and Vladan Joler (2018): https://anatomyof.ai/ (*Laura mistakenly refers to a graph by Alison Powel in the podcast).
- On the geopolitics of data centres, an article by Brit Ross Winthereik: https://pure.itu.dk/portal/en/publications/digitalising-the-state(018590c2-e7a5-4026-978c-92e9e5828ffd).html
- Current research results and participation opportunities of the RUSTlab: https://rustlab.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/
- “How green is artificial intelligence? Prof. Mario Martini from the University of Speyer on environmental protection in the digital living world”. Interview with Mario Martini and Diane Schöppe. https://www.vdz.org/zukunftstechnologien/wie-gruen-ist-kuenstliche-intelligenz
