Getting the ball rolling will require a major rebalance of humanity’s cultural, spiritual and motivational foundations. With the private sector actively resisting change, a revolution is needed. Not one based on the violent destructive exercises that inevitably reinforce private sector interests, but a quiet revolution. One that wakens the whole of humanity. One that seeks to balance commerce with spiritual comprehension. One that resurrects the use of ‘common sense’ as a filter for actions taken. One that puts cooperation, before competition.

We know that environmental instability is threatening our species ability to maintain a presence on this planet. Sorting out the social, environmental and technical complexities involved in reversing the situation is well beyond our unaided capabilities. The only way back may well be to enter into a full partnership with artificial intelligence.

The industrial revolution saw tools, such as a shovel replaced by machinery able to achieve more in a day than an individual might in their lifetime. Now we are facing a technological revolution where devices, such as a computer, can potentially be replaced by artificial intelligence able to appreciate how the planet functions.

Artificial intelligence is much more capable of assimilating and manipulating knowledge than is humanity. It has the potential to make decisions based on the sum knowledge of the human race, to audit outcomes free of minority influences, and to retain a focus on ‘sustaining life’ as distinct from rampant materialism.

While the value of artificial intelligence may yet hinge on the integrity of its architects, there would seem to be the potential to incorporate programs able to detect fraudulent activity. If a computer can out-think a human at chess, artificial intelligence has a learning potential that would enable it to detect any aberrant data, whether introduced into its genetics historically, inadvertently or maliciously. Humanity needs that partnership to have any hope of restoring the environmental balances that support the web of life as we know it.