Photo Credit: Ashley Moniz

Ali Mesbahian is an IPilogue Writer and a 2L JD Candidate at Osgoode Hall Law School.

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On June 28, 2021, IP Osgoode hosted a panel discussion in their Bracing for Impact Webinar Series titled AI’s Dirty Footprint. Organized in collaboration with the Harry Radzyner Law School at IDC Herzliya in Israel, Microsoft Canada, and Alectra's GRE&T Centre, the central question of this webinar was: in what way can we use artificial intelligence (AI) to ensure that the negative impacts of its energy consumption do not exceed its beneficial effects for environmental sustainability?

IP Osgoode’s own Professor Giuseppina (Pina) D’Agostino opened the panel by setting the stage for the discussion and introducing the speakers.Ìę

In his opening remarks, Dr. Amir Asif, Vice President of Research and Innovation at 91ŃÇÉ«, noted that AI remains a “key strategic area” for research at 91ŃÇÉ«. Emphasizing the need for an interdisciplinary approach, Dr. Asif also stated that exploring AI’s ethical and legal implications will require collaboration between researchers in the AI community, social sciences, and the humanities.

Indeed, “collaboration” was one common thread among all the speakers. In his first formal address since he took office, the Hon. David Piccini—Ontario Minister of the Environment, Conservation and Parks—turned not only to universities for ideas in using AI to improve the climate situation, but also to youth as part of the government’s broader environmental policy plan. The youth, he noted, must be “unapologetically engaged”. Given the , the Minister’s words are welcome if they signal any change.

The panel then proceeded to a discussion moderated by Dr. Aviv Gaon, professor at IDC Herzliya. In his introduction, Gaon brought attention to that outlines 17 internationally-agreed-upon sustainable development goals for 2030, spread across 169 targets. With respect to the environment, the study shows that AI’s potential to enable the environmental targets of these 17 goals outweighs its inhibitory effects.

The first panelist was Andrea Roszell, Director of Energy, Sustainability and Infrastructure at Guidehouse. Her discussion was centred on AI’s capabilities to increase efficiency in the energy and utility sector. In particular, she pointed to the “energy cloud”, a concept developed at Guidehouse that moves away from a “one-way flow” of power from energy centers to consumers, to a more networked, interconnected “multi-flow” dynamic. This requires an infrastructure—a neural grid—that utilizes artificial intelligence in technology, such as sensors software and monitoring systems, to create large “data sets” for utilities to access. Despite requiring increased energy consumption, Roszell stated that these data sets are a net benefit to the environment due to the new efficiency gained in management of greenhouse gases and predictive maintenance models that ultimately lead to a more sustainable and reliant energy infrastructure.

The second panelist was Dr. Audrey Lee, Senior Director of Energy Strategy at Microsoft. She started by pointing to Among other goals, Dr. Lee highlighted Microsoft’s plan to offset all of its electricity usage with renewable energy by 2025 and to be carbon negative by 2050. Lee noted, however, that the first step in achieving any such goal is to establish a proficient “measurement infrastructure” that can enable us to quantify our environmental footprint with sufficient precision—for example, data analytics that detail how and to what extent a particular utility uses electricity at each hour.

The panel then continued to its third speaker, Kapil Singhal, Co-Founder & CEO of Vyntelligence. At the very outset of his discussion, he too emphasized the need for collaboration. In particular, Singhal noted how Vyntelligence has made possible a new form collaboration between artificial intelligence and human brain power. Utilizing short videos of workflow in the field, artificial intelligence can augment workers’ awareness of a given project by revealing further areas of risk and benefit. This, when combined with human cognitive and decision-making power (which Singhal noted far exceeds what AI can learn), will yield more efficient outcomes. One such outcome is enhancing the infrastructure that allows for remote work (the importance of which is vividly felt in times of COVID-19), reducing thereby the carbon footprint of work-related travel.Ìę

Finally, the panel featured Neetika Sathe, Vice President of the GRE&T Centre at Alectra Inc. First, she noted that as more and more people gain access to the internet, global energy consumption is bound to increase. Thus, she emphasized the need for international collaboration beyond local efforts. She further mentioned that about half of the energy used at datacentres is used to cool their servers, which brings attention to the need for more efficient infrastructures.

In closing, it is important to address that, as the panelists mentioned, data centres account for only 1-2% of global energy consumption. However, as I mentioned in , AI’s “dirty footprint” is not confined to the energy it consumes, but extends to its ability to offer services for resource extraction which, for example, is enabled by the connection and collaboration between the tech and fossil fuel industries. Any meaningful policy directed at reducing AI’s negative environmental impacts must also account for this broader perspective.

A link to watch a recording of the event can be found on IP Osgoode's page.

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Dr. McDonagh opened the presentation with an overview of his study. Specifically, he sought to address whether the recognition of authorship of dramatic works under copyright accurately reflects the processes involved in the creation of plays and other theatrical works. The tendency for copyright to award authorship to one person (the playwright), raises questions around whether it accurately reflects the reality of creativity in theatre.

Play writing, like many forms of artistic expression involve a collaborative process, insofar as the material produced in these settings is often the by-product of multiple individuals and perspectives. From an IP perspective, this notion of “relational authorship” raises speculation as to whether theatre fits with the idea of copyright being afforded to specific individuals. Ascribing full copyright protection to the playwright solely for their writing and none for the actors who perform is seemingly a prosaic way to operate. However, Dr. McDonagh notes that this approach is not unique to theatre.

For example, in the music realm, modern approaches towards the creation of a song’s instrumentals require a producer to meticulously layer various sounds together, harmoniously, to produce a finished product. 20 years ago, only nine of the top 100 albums contained sampling, while today, almost a third of the current top 100 use sampling as an artistic tool.[2] Despite the popularity of sampling music in genres like hip-hop, it remains a highly controversial practice within the field of copyright law, largely due to similar concerns around relational authorship.

Consider the case of Clyde Stubblefield, who was one of two drummers for legendary artist James Brown. Today, Clyde is regarded as one of the most sampled artists of all time. Clyde’s unique drumming style became a very popular bassline for hip-hop drum samples in the 90’s from some of Brown’s popular songs like “Funky Drummer” or “Cold Sweat”. For the artists sampling Clyde, they were not interested in Brown’s music as much as they were interested in Clyde’s drum beats, which he later indicated were entirely his own creations.[3] As he recalls, the recording of those songs began with him playing a drum beat and everyone joining in, which was a common practice for soul bands of that era.

Despite Clyde’s spark on the drums, and the assistance the other musicians provided in producing the final product, James Brown owned the copyrights and as such, would be the sole recipient of any benefits received from his music being sampled. This situation is analogous to the current dynamic in theatre, whereby playwrights exclusively receive copyright protection. In the theatre context, Dr. McDonagh highlighted that the work is often in a constant stage of re-definition, as it is not concrete until you get the first performance. These features can be seen in both the music and film world. In 2004, the case of Ìę demonstrated the court’s traditional approach towards copyright doctrine, as exclusive protection was given to the play’s original writer. Despite this, the more recent 2019 decision in has leaned towards a more contextual approach, as writing was not deemed to be the conclusive factor in determining protections.

The commercialization of hip-hop in the 90’s meant increased regulation around sampling and the proliferation of contracts between parties that did not previously exist. Dr. McDonagh points to the fact that within theatre, there remains a lack of contractual relationships between parties, whereas in film and music industries these contracts do exist. This raises questions as to the future of the theatre industry and whether increased regulation would aid or hinder creative expression in this context.Ìę

Written by Jason Clarke, a third year JD Candidate at Osgoode Hall Law School. Jason is also a Clinic Fellow at IP Osgoode Innovation Clinic.

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[1] Quoted in Peter Yates, Twentieth Century Music: Its Evolution from the End of the Harmonic Era into the Present Era of Sound (New 91ŃÇÉ«: Pantheon Books, 1967) at 41.

[2] Kembrew McLeod & Peter Dicola, Creative License: The Law and Culture of Digital Sampling, (London: Duke University Press, 2011) at 5.

[3] Ibid at 91.

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