Zürich, Switzerland | 30 June – 03 July 2026

The call for sustainable development is the outstanding challenge of the 21st century. The demand of planning the present human society in such a way that it will not undermine the well-being of the future generations, without damaging the environment, has become even more pressing in light of the negative effects of climate change and the threat of an ever growing and fast-moving world population. Facing impending and long-terms risks both at the socio-economic and environmental levels requires timely action from the scientific community as well as from each human member of society.

Due to the multi-faceted relationship between human activities and natural resources as well as to the diversity of socio-economic conditions across the planet, policy-making for sustainability must deal with a complex system of data collection and analysis. Artificial Intelligence (AI) has the ability to handle very large and highly complex datasets so as to offer advice in decision-making processes. As such, it can serve as a fruitful tool for pursuing the declared Sustainable Development Goals, and in fact it has already witnessed an increase of practical applications.

For instance, AI can contribute to environmental sustainability by improving mitigation measures to reduce carbon emissions and by developing effective strategies for adaptation to climate change; moreover, powerful computational means aid to find optimization strategies for sustainable uses of natural resources and for fair distributions of clean water and electricity. At the socio-economic level, AI has also become a valuable source of clinical information, as attested by its appeal in precision medicine and in the design of healthcare plans.  

Not withstanding such spreading enthusiasm for the potentialities of AI, its actual ability to enhance sustainability suffers from various limitations, which are subject to open discussion in the scientific, philosophical and sociological literature.

These issues will be the focus of a five-day interdisciplinary Summer School on the ethical, philosophical, and political challenges of AI for sustainability, combining lectures and workshops on trust, bias, risk, and environmental impact.

Schedule details: https://idealeague.org/ethics-philosophy-and-politics-of-ai-for-sustainability-sustain-2026/

This Summer School is organized collaboratively by researchers from Politecnico di Milano and ETH Zurich.