Cambridge University Botanic Gardens’ Talking Plants exhibition sparks concerns over AI usage

Cambridge University Botanic Gardens’ latest exhibition has received mixed reactions over its use of artificial intelligence to allow people to interact with plants.

The “Talking Plants” exhibition allows guests to interact with plants in a “playful way”. Twenty plants have been given their own name and a persona, under which they engage with the audience.

The curator of the exhibition and the gardens, Professor Samuel Brockington told the BBC the use of AI in the exhibition was not “about replacing human expertise” but instead aimed at “finding new ways to stimulate learning”.

However, in an anonymous post on Camfess, a Facebook confessions page for Cambridge University students, one person questioned the irony of using generative AI to “get in touch with the natural world” when that same technology is “destroying the natural world and damaging the environment”.

“Why not just let visitors leave notes? Or record little messages? It might sound like a nice idea, but in practice is completely unnecessary consumption in my opinion”, they continued.

Artificial intelligence requires large scale data centres to function in addition to the production of hazardous electrical waste such as mercury and lead, is soon estimated to consume six times more water than the country of Denmark, according to the UNEP. These centres are on track to account for nearly 35 per cent of the energy of some tech hubs such as Ireland.

via Wikimedia Commons

Speaking to The Cambridge Tab, one viewer said: “While the experience is certainly trivial, it is nothing which couldn’t be achieved by pre-recorded videos or a display”.

Another person suggested the exhibition may just be “part of a trend to include AI in everything”.

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However, Gel Zanir, Chief Executive at Nature Perspectives and developer of the exhibition, said the project is changing the conversation from “learning about nature to learning from and with it”.

The AI experience allows users to have a two-way conversation with plants such as Tumbo, the “dry witted Welwitschia”, or St Helena Ebony, the “dignified survivor against all odds”.

The exhibition is running at Cambridge University Botanic Gardens from 11th February to 12th April.

Cambridge Botanic Gardens and Cambridge University have been contacted for comment.

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Featured image via Wikimedia Commons