Digital technology, gas pedal of the anthropocene
Didier Mallarino
OSU Pytheas, MIO, Toulon University,Toulon, FRANCE
We are facing major environmental and societal challenges that threaten the survival of our societies. Climate change and the accelerated disappearance of living species are threatening our survival, or at the very least, the stability of our societies. Digital tools are often presented as the solution to these problems. Unfortunately, they are also a significant cause of these same problems. In this conference, we will see the direct impacts of digital technology, how we can act to address these impacts, as well as the numerous indirect impacts and societal consequences they engender. Finally, we will examine why it is so difficult to act and what obstacles prevent us from doing so.
effectively I will try to uh open Home M about digital technology um and the materiality of the impact of the digital technology so I will not again on this point uh I’m member of the direction of echoo it is a professional network uh which work on uh all the impact of digital Technologies and uh Main directive is to act to reduce negative environmental and social impact and that’s that’s why I’m here today so we will see the general context uh we will speak about the digital impact and the tools we use to understand the digital impact and all the different um impact in fact direct andir and rebound effect uh how we can act to minimize and uh also I want to give you some element to understand why we don’t act in fact so the context I think everybody here is familiar with the anthropo era yes uh so U the main um the main uh responsibility of the global change we are facing today is Behavior Uh we are consuming a lot of resources from the planet and uh to have energy to have a lot of quantity of uh meat uh to heat for example uh for having an intensive Agriculture and Manufacturing all these element are the main uh point which are responsible of the anthropo era h okay uh it was not a new information in fact in 1972 the club of R uh already U uh produce a report which is known as a Mido repor which is titled the limit to grow and uh the conclusion of the report in 1972 that was that uh we have to uh stop uh the grow uh the growing uh Behavior we have uh in because we we have a risk of of system collapse okay and this conclusion was uh done also 40 Years Later by another Institute which take the previous result and propose the same conclusion but unfortunately uh we are continuing to follow the worst scenario provided by Club Club of home we have also other indicators to understand the situation uh we can have a look on uh uh the country overshot day this is um an indicator a global indicator that allow us to uh analyze what are the quantity of renewable um uh resources we take on the Earth uh actually for at the Earth’s level we need 1.7 Planet so we already pass the front chair uh uh obviously uh each country has different Behavior Uh Indonesia is near to the balance Behavior but katari is not really balanced um there is also other indicators which are sectorial one uh but even in this case we can see that uh if we decide if we Define nine limit that we do not uh have to cross uh six of the nine are already crossed okay so the six already crossed are climate change biodiversity and the mass extension that we have today uh chemical pollution last year just last year uh the destruction of soil and change in GE chemical cycles and also last year again uh problem on freshwater cycle I suppose oh just to remind um I suppose that also you are familiar with this uh last time we have had such quantity of CO2 in the atmosphere it was in the pill era at this period we have trees in Antarctica we have the sea level which is which was uh 50 m upside today higher today and an average temperature which is which was three or 5 Dees above okay so it’s just a physical lows we have uh too much CO2 in the atmosphere we will Trend to this situation probably okay we have lot of sorry other consequences but I will not uh enter in the details oh sorry so the this um this graph uh show us uh the direction that we have to take uh following Jack recommendation does anybody know the part of the digital uh technology no so it’s something around 2 2 4% of the global um uh Greenhouse emission uh but it’s a rapid growing sector it’s not uh comparable to other sector um usually uh it is compared with the aviation one uh I think it’s a good comparison because um uh it’s not only um in term of greenhouse emission but also in term of who is using aviation and who is using uh digital technology it was the same person okay it was afrian people it was not uh poor people in fact so in term of geodiversity I think that this point you know very well uh we we are we are fing to a u six Mass extension um the life is dying okay this this in simple words the life is dying and we are part of the life so we are here um digital uh technology is uh usually presented as a solution for us okay I I would like to show you that it’s not really a reality it is in fact part of the problem so who is using technology so around four7 billion person are connected in the world okay but you can see that it’s mainly again afan people um we have three axes of analysis to better understand the problem we can have a look on the hardware Hardware uh on the software axis and on on data one obviously uh the the real uh impact are done by the hardware part um to have um functioning internet and numeric tools you you you have to have cables you have to have satellites you have to WR data centers you have to to have antenna you have to have a um uh phone computers and so on so you have to have lot of material lot of Hardware in fact oh okay so to understand the impact we use uh LCA life cycle assessment this is a standardized evaluation method the interest of this is it is standardized um this allow to identify uh all the problem provided by the hardware fabrication manufacturing and um it allow to move away for a carbon Centric Vision because the problem is not uh only CO2 it was all the other barriers we already crossed okay we have impact on all the barriers on all the sectors sorry so um when we analyze uh the life cycle of a product it’s not uh this point is not only for digital technology this this method could be used also for whatever you want uh you have to define a perimeter and describe life cycle of the product uh having a look of ingoing and outgoing uh during each stage of the life of the product okay so doing an inventory and doing assessment and a conclusion when we have a look on digital techn ology it’s really specific because it’s a technology really complex we need uh around 70 materials uh when you want to build a smartphone or a computer okay glass ceramic and lot of metals so all these uh materials you need uh need to be extracted this is the first step of the life cycle um we have to extract the raw material we need sand we need minerals we need oils uh all all this uh extraction will in will imply uh pollution pollution because we need um chemical reaction to extract products we need to a dissolution process with water and acid uh we need also to eat sometimes the product we extract from the earth uh we need lot of water uh and sometimes we need to uh desalinized uh water in for example in suits America there is a lithium extraction place and we desize the ocean water and people around have don’t water don’t have water to to drink uh we have also OB obviously sorry we have also children oppression and exploitation in some places in Congo for example and are not conflict about this resources okay because there is lot of money to do with so this is just the first P phase uh obviously at each stage of the life cycle we need energy okay so we need uh to produce energy and electricity I will not repeat this point each time um digital technology uh use the uh some of raw materials in higher in high quantity okay some some of them are used in other Industries but some of them are used only or mainly by digital technology okay so for example Gallum inum are essentially used by digital technology and colon for example also in Congo as we seen to just before uh during the life cycle of the product we have lot of Transportation phase uh we have to transport because uh all the raw material I uh are on all around the world we have to take them and to uh transport to the plant we will uh which will transform uh in a new product okay so we have a uh tracking Aviation Maritime transport okay so at uh different stages uh for the raw material for the manufactured one and also at the end of the life uh when you have to transport the waste um you have also direct impact in term of manufacturing uh everybody has already um you you probably already uh ah sorry for World um okay so uh social problem in China about manufacturing okay uh we have chemical again we have chemical uh problem with manufacturing because when we try to uh to make a wafer for example a wafer is just a circle of cisum cisum which um which contain all the microprocessors okay when you have to build this um the smaller you try to do it uh the most uh you will increase the quantity of energy and the chemical product you need okay so uh for example for one waer uh you need uh 80,000 lers of pure water which is not pure after the process obviously and we are producing lot of wafers in the world uh and you have a social problem also suicide uh and so on um this is the phase uh we we usually think in first when we speak about the digital Technologies it was the usage phase um we can see that uh uh it is not uh balanced again um an American people as around 10 Connected device okay but uh and consume around the 140 gab B Mon and thenan has only one connected device once again we can see in the usage phase that uh it is not really balanced we have lot of uh uh connected object and if you have a look only on the energy electricity consumption uh internet could be considered as the third uh country in term of consumption of electricity oh sorry this is the French uh the French just an image the same thing here uh in term of usage I I gave you some element to better understand this is order of magnitude this is not a precise result okay it’s really difficult in fact to uh to have a precise result when when we try to do LCA because there is too much quantity of information to take in account so um this could gave us an idea of the impact but it is not uh precise so you when for example when you processing data so here you have the the reference here of the studies uh which was used to produce this um these numbers so uh when you’re processing data it’s around 2 to five gram by hour okay um the most important here is uh that you see that uh one year electric consumption uh for a server which do nothing just storage or just waiting it’s around 30 to 50% of the maximal consumption so a server which do nothing is consuming around 50% of the maximum uh another important point which is gave us by the LCA is that the distribution uh of the impact uh you can see that uh the usage phase for example for a server is uh most important than the fabrication one this point is uh is true when you take an account a server which uh with a seven years life okay if you take a laptop with four years life you will not have this result okay so the most important Point here is to retain is that if we want to minimize uh the fabrication part you have to keep your system the longer possible as long as possible uh the last stage of um [Music] of the of the life cycle is the end of life of the object you will have a lot of waste generated by uh or production or manufacturing uh 50 Millions tons in n in 2019 and uh it’s growing obviously um only uh 17 177% 17 7 perc of this quantity is come back to the system and uh 80% is uh wa is is lose so in the waste illegal traffic and finished in Africa for example in Ghana it is the most known uh this this uh scenario is it’s a little bit better in France we are near to the uh 50% uh collect this is the collect uh reference um on on this part we have uh 10% which is uh burned uhif 40% which is uh wasted and only 75% which is recycled uh which on this uh part we have also a recycling rate and for example on a smartphone we have only 20 Metals uh recycle with which which we can recycle on the 17 dis inside okay only 20 on the 17 inside sorry 20 1 7 sorry [Music] for 20 on 1 we 20 on 70 20 metals on 70 available sorry for the for the English it was the first time I was doing this presentation in English so sorry uh so you have U we have seen here that we have a lot of uh direct impact of the digital product but I would I would like to show you that there is also social and andir impact that are in fact probably most important than the direct one uh just after uh okay um in term of hardware problem okay sorry I will do the direct the indirect impact before after um in term of Hardware we have um we we can act uh at the first levels providing the right services and properly sizing when you purchase a PC okay uh you can uh the most important part is to have a lifespan as long as possible because of the impact of the fabric manufacture ing phase so you can mutualize mutualize reuse your material uh and uh when you purchase Hardware material you have to choose a responsible Society for example and not a publicity but the only one which do this in a smartphone area is fairphone for example so um the second axis you you can uh have a look is the the software one um the software is the brain of your Hardware if you don’t have software you you have you have a break um you have direct impact of the software if the software is bad designed you will have a lot of energy consumption you will have a lack of performance and you will need to uh uh to have a new material which is more performant okay so the software is um part of the impact of the digital technology it is not a direct one but in term of impact the software act uh so you have if you have to design uh software you have to uh approach have an Nico design approach okay and uh you can see also to open source product and which allow us to reuse and mutualize uh the effort of the development um you have to think also of sustainable digital service not to think only on the software which which is on your machine but thinking uh all the service you want to put in place don’t this point could be integrated in the reflection the data also the same thing than the software it’s probably the most immaterial aspect uh of of the problem but data is the main reason of uh why we use digital technology in fact it’s like your Orin we need to manipulate and to process data and the digital technology allow us to do it so this is the reason of uh the existence of the numeric tools uh that data is important because it’s preuse Unique the ra data are unusable you have to add data when you use it you have to add metad dat in fact uh the acquisition has a cost an environmental cost when you launch a satellite when you you are doing a mar maritim campaign uh you have ecological and obviously Financial cost uh so um you have to uh put on Place put in place a solution to keep this data uh as long as possible uh and this is the exploitation of the data we gave us uh which give us knowledge but uh data is also something which can be used in a bad way uh data uh you you can use data to manipulate and to survey people and uh Society big big brother Society okay so it’s also a tool of power we have uh an extremally growing volume of data in the world today um the main um subject in term of data is the video streaming okay this is really the main subject uh email are not really a subject in if we have a look on the data part email is not a subject okay so you have to be to to to have attention when you send email okay no problem for this but it is not the subject the main subject so the the third video streaming web and the gaming okay the marketplace is only the six one audio streaming so in the 10 you you can see the email in the 10 first so uh we produce uh in 20 2020 we produced six 40 Zeta OCT okay so one zeta OCT is just uh a stack of uh one 1, 1500 billion of CD R it 10 times the distance between Earth and Sun just one Thea okay so we produce a quantity of data which is out of brain we can’t we can’t really understand so the direct impact of the data the same thing that for the software you have a direct impact on the hardware because because you need lot of network storage and uh lot of uh storage uh and processing means and you need also network uh which allow you to uh uh to facilitate the transfer of data okay and you have indirect uh impact in term of surveillance uh manipulation and power as I said just before so if you want to act at the first level for data you have to think in term of soy uh limiting data processing and exchange uh if if you want to keep them uh as long as possible you have to think in term of open data and open S uh and fair fair is just an acronym for findable accessible interoperable and reusable which is the things we have to do when you want to do open data um you have to adapt adopt institutional solution uh and without multiplying uh limit streaming video resolution protecting privacy limit advertising ex and so on so um in term of uh and direct impact uh we have also a lot of uh lot of thing to take in account uh to better understand the digital technology impact on our society uh we have a phenomen of acceleration um in term of uh flows uh and product and but also in term of financial um we have a quick obsolesence phenomenon also which is uh uh specifically which is specific to digital technology not not completely specific but the speed of the obsolesence in digital technology is really specific we have uh also a globalization and increased dependency we have dependency as for the raw material for example but we have also dependencies in term of infrastructure uh the internet infrastructure is something which is uh uh at the Earth’s level okay so it’s we have interdependence between countries uh this increase complexity of our society and uh uh we could question about this point in term of stability if we have unability in term of uh climate changing and uh what what um can we uh have a stability of the internet infrastructure if we have on the other side and a stability which is provided by the CH climate change uh we have also um inequal po relation between uh State and uh private Corporation private company in term of dematerialization we have seen just before that it’s not really dematerialized okay we have a big infrastructure to to to be able to use digital technology and in term of paper for example uh it was a failure uh we we print lot of papers we continue to print lot of papers um we have in English I’m not sure it’s good correct but a digital device fracture numeric in French uh um the fact for example that some people are excluded from the digital technology usage my mother for example um we have um optimization and efficiency uh which is the the heart of the digital technology um digital technology help us to improve efficiency um we have a problem with the efficiency because it’s it is the source of the rebound effect the rebound effect explain us that if we improve efficiency we will automatically improve usage of the technology okay so each time we improve the efficiency of a technology we we improve the usage uh so uh all the environmental gains you you can have in term of efficiency will be compensated by the rebound effect there is some example in your house uh if you use uh $1,000 to uh Euros to pay for having uh 20° temperatures uh we 20° temp temperature in your house and you decide to have a new eating machine a new windows and so on you will um you will continue to spend two um 1,000 to have 22° okay this is a good example of rebone effect in fact you improve efficiency but you consume more we have lot of of Social and human impact also these are just examples uh in term of concentration um when you work on something uh perhaps you already notice that uh you you have a mental construction um if somebody body interrupt you you leave you we do leave the this mental construction and it could take up you to uh 33 minutes to refocus on the same level of concentration uh we have also a information fatic syndrome which is linked to the quantity of information uh we receive uh by mail by notification and so on uh we have a problem of addiction with uh which is on social network or on gaming which is uh uh voluntary done by social network okay so we have just phenomenon of addiction we have also um some ethical issues uh when we have a look on the situation on a more systematic vision um we can uh understand that uh technology is not neutral okay and we have phenomenon of uh surveillance and manipulation as I said just before in term of delution between private life and uh public life in term of fake news fake news in term of orientation of population so we have to uh challenging the con concept of progress which is gave us by um digital technology and uh ivanich which is a philosopher propos a radical Monopoly Vision which explains that um um the technology it’s not a monopoly due to one brand but just a monopoly due to a technology okay we we we are just um oriented in One Direction by a technology uh biot technology in term of artificial intelligence the recent development of uh chatbot for example um crystallize and concentrate many element of questioning in term of development of the artificial intelligence Network we have lot of energy consumption to train them we have also the use of lowcost Human Resources to validate that the answers proposed by the chatbot are correct we have also lot of social impact in term of artificial intelligence uh military proposed uh to you to have autonomous weapons for example do we want really to develop automatic and uh autonomous weapons uh um we have also I already said this big brother Society conception of living uh but also deep fake and so on we have also a specific problem with neural network it was the transfer of cognitive gazes um the neural network have the same behavior than us they have the same default also in term of racism in term of you have already seen this example I think so in term of first level action we have the same point than for data because it was really linked but um we have also to think about the meaning of activities when we worked on this type of subject uh it’s important to take in account the consequences of uh the development and the the development of this type of product so I hope that you you are convinced that digitally something concrete um I will just uh propose you some high level um action possibilities because I have no specific solution in um in plus of the precedent one so the goal is to avoid uh to be in this situation so I have as I said I have no simple already made answer so you have to accept that this is a complex situation we have to accept not you we have to accept that we are facing to a complex situation all the things are interconnected and digital technology um is part of the problem and accelerate the problem in fact this is the most important Point digital technology accelerate the problem so if we accept that we have so we are facing to a complex situation we have to think in a complex manner we do not have to divide the problem in silo or in little problems we have to think with a systemic Vision so we have to think and to think we have to slow down okay this is important also we are not in a society uh where the proposition is to slow down but be careful so yeah you read it’s okay um we have to slow down to think better and when we think we can uh beginning to refuse redu reuse product repurpose product recycle product this is a classical uh mean um means we can put in place um we can think uh in the direction of sobriety uh the sobriety is tooo satisfying or needs okay it’s not uh creating new needs it’s just satisfying basic needs without creating new ones so by adopting a systematic vision and using less resources as possible few resources as possible so low Tech low technology is a good answer of soety but it’s complicated I think it’s a real uh challenge for engineering produce uh um low technology is sometimes simple but sometime it could be really complex in fact because we want something resilient robust easy to maintain uh with low dependency okay so it’s really complicated in fact and lch is a challenge for us uh bad word I don’t know de perhaps uh we have only one solution in the time the je proposed to decrow um the deadline uh proposed by the jack is 2025 so do we have time to think another solution than the gr the grow is not uh U is is just decoupling economic growth from the consumption no so it just change or indicators sorry okay de gr is not is just a financial de gr is we can propose a progress in term of uh human life even if we don’t grow in term of pib gi gi in English so we can focus on robustness and resilience and this is the counterpart of efficiency nature is uh robust and resilient nature is not efficient for example we have to take the time to questioning or objective and the meaning of or activities when you are non organization uh you have you have more power okay you can act uh by yourself uh in your life but the ACT you can put in place uh just for example don’t take the plane or eating less meat uh is just at your scale okay if you are in an organization you can uh influence the organization and having a more powerful action uh in term of repartition we estimate that uh we have 40% in term of individual part and 60% in term of collective one now each time you act in your organization you act on the 60% part educational and research institution have specific role because we transmit um values and we are example for other so in when you are we are in a research institution perhaps we have a more important responsibility in French we have a legal support for this okay it’s recent we have uh the respon numeric law uh which was uh acted in the 2021 and um okay just this French Point um I think that the most important point when you are in an organization is to put in place cross functional working group this is a good point to start the reflection and uh to put in place action you have to think out of the digital point obviously you have to just take in account all the points you can uh considered to avoid uh impact on environment so we have to give time to people uh you have to train yourself to understand what are the issues and the problems uh we have to C new activities and in term of uh uh digital we can think we using Echo design uh software and data in the in the direction of open science open science you can enlarge your thinking also integrating sustainable development goals of the UN organization all these points are linked in fact okay if you have a uh no poverty uh if you have a education of quality you will integrate and improve all the environmental impact in fact because people know so deadline is short uh as already said this point uh we do not have time to a technos solutionism solution okay uh more moreover a technological solution uh um could um create a rebound effect uh we have deployment delays even if we are able to put in place a fusion technology for example we will need at least uh 30 or 40 years to implement this technology and we do not have time to do this okay so technos solutionism approach is not really a good approach due to the deadline we have so the efficiency already said and uh we have also some barriers to action I will just quick quickly give you some ID um we have lot of cognitive basis okay the most important good example is the last one um if at the end of the at the end of the month on the month you have $50 supplementary on your salary you will be happy but uh if uh the company take you 50 uh 50 Less on your salary the the angry will be higher than the pleasure you you have to receive 50 okay so we don’t like to lose something this is probably the main gas which uh does not allow us to go to act in fact so uh some people say that also we have a brain which is not adapted to abundance and we have we have abundance not everybody I know but we have abundance here in our society and we are responsible of the problem okay it’s our society which is responsible not the people we don’t have abundance um okay so this is just the same thing uh we have good like Godlike technology but paleolitic P pic emotions and medieval institution it’s not mine it’s Tris so we have lot of bases don’t I I don’t enter in the details we have also social breaks uh we are we are in a society which uh try to retain the maximum of your attention uh I I said addiction just before it’s the same thing um we have a problem also with um uh everything right away we we want to have everything now and the digital technology does not help us to uh work on this uh default um I think also it’s important to to think that we are a uh I don’t know exactly the word sorry Stanley milram experiment explain us that we are submitted to Authority so we are a society which is a structured okay with a leader and so we we we have the Abit to obey it’s okay uh and also we have lot of breaks in term of green washing and uh so Society like total tobacco companies which gave us example of green washing in okay so this you can have a look on the slide yeah okay yeah because if you want to have questions from conclusion sorry so just a summary of the presentation so sorry for the English thanks a lot