Stephen Downes

This article relates two developments that herald an intriguing prospect. First: "Last month, Google launched its Earth AI platform. As described in an explanatory paper, this approach is built upon foundation models across three key domains - Planet-scale Imagery, Population, and Environment." Second: "In May, Microsoft scientists unveiled Aurora, a large-scale foundation model trained on more than one million hours of diverse geophysical data.. as described in a paper published in Nature." These portend a global perspective: "machine and Earth intelligences might one day merge into what Gilman calls 'planetary sapience'."