EMO-GI #3: AI - where could we take the project?

EMOGI is an ERASMUS project I shall be part of through to 2028. It is now officially 'live' and has been funded by the EU.

I've previously explained the purpose of the project, which is an extension of our GI Learner and GI Pedagogy projects.

I've been doing plenty of pre-reading for the project and filing away research papers and other related documents which we will return to at various stages in the project. I have already found lots of relevant research papers and other documents which relate to the themes of the project which are around the emotional response that young people have to climate change and the role that AI plays in that.

I have an interesting set of documents already with some pointers for some of the early work that we have to do on the project.

One paper that stood out so far was by three academics from a university I have visited and worked with on a previous ERASMUS project: the University of Helsinki.

It is Open Access.

One interesting extra angle here is the connection with GeoCapabilities - a project I have also previously worked on, so there are good some synergies developing here - Sirpa Tani was also on the project team, along with a lot of familiar names.

I've been scouting around for AI and climate related content that is relevant and contemporary. There is no shortage of this for either of the two, but I've been interested in the overlap between the two - particularly where the emotional impact on young people and geographies of hope is concerned.

One area that we will have to consider is the ethics of AI use. 

The environmental cost of AI is huge, and it will continue to grow. Some communities, where data centres are being planned or constructed or going to be impacted negatively. There has been a vast amount of research into this already...

I like this Australian report for its relative brevity.

Source:

Hamilton, Danielle; Hansen, Lauren; Dawson, Phillip (2025). Curriculum-wide recommendations for a people and a world to come. Deakin University. 

Online resource. https://doi.org/10.26187/deakin.26074075.v1

We shall also be thinking about existing work done to explore the links between Climate and Mental Health.

The wheel of health shown here is a particularly useful resource in this regard.

Their wheel is available under a CC license.

We've also been developing the project logo which will be on our website and other dissemination we will be doing. I'm looking forward to sharing that soon.

Finally on the topic of men and machines:

It is just over a year until Denis Villeneuve releases the 3rd part of his film series based on Frank Herbert's best-selling book series 'Dune', which I read repeatedly back in the day.

In the opening scenes, the Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam comes to 'test' Paul Atreides, mindful of a prophecy about his true identity.

She reminds him of the Butlerian Jihad when people fought back against machines.

“Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.”

And here's a Public Service Broadcasting track with a similar theme...

If anyone has any further ideas of research papers or similar projects, please get in touch.

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