Faced with dire projections of massive complex ecological and social disruptions, in 2006 Dr Francis Vorhies proposed a project called EarthMind to foster global biodiversity and sustainable development.
A key inspiration was Dr James Lovelock and Dr Lyn Margulis’ Gaia Hypothesis, where Earth was proposed analogous to a "living planetary being called Gaia ". (WP)
AI and geodata have since advanced enough for EarthMind to take tangible form as a GeoAI project, of an Earth digital-dual model with agentic properties. Who knows, perhaps agentic AI is the historic pathway for Gaia to become more than a hypothesis, as EarthMind, with the GEE Community as the catalyst.
To help ground discussion of the EarthMind topic, let us consider how adaptive agentic response to live geodata amounts to a novel technological feedback loop basis, comparable to Lovelock’s original biological Gaia Cybernetics.
What are urgent global Cybernetic Control parameters? CO2 level is high on the list, with complex factors. A critical feedback loop need exists for effective Wildfire Response. Without such a loop, uncontrolled Wildfire could tip ecosystems into collapse while greatly adding to atmospheric CO2. Another critical feedback loop need is Drought/Flood Response. And so on.
As we build out new Gaian Cybernetic Loops in a coordinated fashion, EarthMind becomes a more effective global agent, able to promote its own stability. In the long term, human social factors will be woven into EarthMind dynamics, with considerable ethical dimensions to resolve, especially the nexus of Humanitarian Disaster Response and Ecological Values.
This may become the place where such issues are first addressed in actionable form, given the basis in massive geodata, as a research Community.
Looking closer at the old controversy over whether Lovelock and Margulis’ Gaia Hypothesis holds, critics claimed no definite proofs were shown of planetary-scale geological or biological feedback loops, and that any such proofs should somehow accord with Darwinian Selection.
WP: “Evolutionary biologist W. D. Hamilton called the concept of Gaia Copernican, adding that it would take another Newton to explain how Gaian self-regulation takes place through Darwinian natural selection.”
Fair enough!
Planetary-scale Geodata sufficiently acted upon (i.e. Paris Climate Accords) by Human or Computer Agency would indeed comprise Gaian Cybernetic Loops. Given that we Humans evolved by Natural Selection, and our technology also evolves by competitive selection, we’ll be able to check the Darwin check-box.
Essentially, EarthMind operationalized by Big Geodata and AI will fully validate the Gaian Hypothesis. The historic controversy will stand resolved.
